Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?

November 1, 2006

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state's track record in implementing bold education reforms. It finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science. In addition, most states making significant achievement gains--including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas--are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

View the press release for this report

Contents

Florida

 

 


 

The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

Florida faces its fair share of problems-water shortages, sprawl, hurricanes, wetlands destruction-but Governor Jeb Bush will leave office in 2007 having done his utmost to ensure that the state has the brainpower to overcome them.

Under Bush's tenure, Florida has become one of the most aggressive states in the nation for growing charter schools and expanding parental choice. And the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and its growth-model measurement system are in the vanguard of the accountability movement. This combination helps to explain why Florida is one of just three states whose African-American and Hispanic children made statistically significant progress in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress over the past decade.

This is not to say the state doesn't still have problems in its K-12 system. Improved test scores in the elementary grades haven't been followed by better performance at the high school level, and the state's graduation rate remains low, as does student performance on the SAT. But the sunshine Bush has shed on student achievement, and the measures he has taken to raise school performance, give people reason to believe the future will be bright.

Florida passed its charter school law in 1996 with a high cap on the number of charters permitted per district. Since then, growth has been rapid. The state is now home to more than 300 charter schools enrolling some 80,000 students. And a new state-level commission with the authority to authorize and sponsor charters which was created in June portends even greater growth.

"Charters in Florida, by and large, have become accepted in almost a nonpartisan way," says Dan Gelber, the incoming leader of state House Democrats and a frequent Bush critic. "In some places, they've become part of the battleground. Here, they really have not."

The schools aren't without challenges-limited funding chief among them. On average, charters receive 11.4 percent less funding than do district schools. Lack of funds, more than any other factor, has forced a number of these schools to close.

One challenge charters have avoided, however, is the intense fire that teacher unions and other critics normally train on these schools. Their attention is focused, instead, on private school vouchers-a cause Bush has championed even longer than charters. Opponents have had some success in restricting Bush's innovative voucher programs.

The most severe blow came earlier this year when the Florida supreme court ruled that Bush's Opportunity Scholarship program-vouchers for students whose neighborhood schools received a failing grade on the state report card for two of four years-was unconstitutional.

The number of students affected was small-only 733 at the time the program was struck down. But the implications of the court's ruling (a flimsy one based on a novel reading of the state constitution's mandate for "uniform" schools) has put the state's two other voucher programs on shaky ground. One offers disabled students a wider choice of schools, and the other gives tax credits to corporations that fund scholarships. Together these enroll some 30,000 students.

Setbacks aside, education reform in Florida is still going strong and citizens have the FCAT and Florida's A+ accountability system to thank. The A+ accomplishes several things that the No Child Left Behind Act does not. For one, it tracks individual student gains over time. Whereas NCLB relies on snapshot data (i.e., what percentage of each school's students reach proficiency in a given year), A+ looks at test scores of individual students from year-to-year and gauges their improvement. The A+ approach provides a more accurate picture of whether or not students are learning and what their weak points are. 

The A+ also grades schools in an easy-to-understand letter format-A through F. But most significantly, schools that show improvement in student academic achievement receive additional funds, much of which goes toward teacher bonuses. The state hopes to extend this by making the A+ system a basis for teacher merit pay. In February the state board of education approved a plan that will pay a 5 percent bonus to the top 10 percent of teachers in each district based on learning gains made on FCAT. The program will pay the top 25 percent of teachers in subsequent years.

Test score results are also used to determine student promotion; since 2003, third-graders have been required to pass the FCAT at a minimally acceptable level before advancing to fourth grade. Other promotion options, such as creating a performance portfolio, are also available.

The state has hardly thrown students to the wolves, however. Bush notes that traditionally neglected students have received a lot more attention under A+. As a result, all of the state's achievement gaps have narrowed.

The future of the FCAT hinges in part on the outcome of the upcoming gubernatorial election. Republican candidate Charlie Crist touts himself on his  Web site as a "Jeb Bush Republican" who will continue to press the FCAT and A+ accountability system. His opponent, Democrat Jim Davis, would keep the FCAT, but remove the punitive measures schools face for not meeting benchmarks.

A weak link in the state's system has been its academic standards. But newly appointed K-12 Chancellor Cheri Yecke is working to improve that situation, too. As Minnesota's education commissioner, she oversaw the revision, and improvement, of that state's science and history standards. She's working to do the same now in Florida. The state's history standards are currently undergoing revision, and the English standards update has been completed.

Still, critics remain. Gelber says the state's been "treading water," citing the declining graduation rate. But his pessimism isn't supported by the overall picture of what's happening in Florida. On the education front, at least, the Sunshine State deserves to enjoy a moderately sunny disposition.

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