Florida's Education Reform Methods Paying Off

Some states fare better than others in education and I have been closely following the ones that succeed. Florida has been on my radar because of what I believe are strong reform methods. I know they allow for charter schools and grant special needs children school choice. Florida has been one of my strong examples that reform do help and others states should look for guidance. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to listen to me.
These are some crucial excerpts from the Washington Times:

But if President-elect Barack Obama wants to improve our education system, he should look at what Jeb Bush did in Florida, ...
Three years before NCLB was enacted, then-Gov. Jeb Bush decided to set clear accountability standards, and to back them up with school choice for students and meaningful rewards for good teachers.

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is the gold standard of national education achievement tests. It is not a state-designed test. Over the past decade, NAEP reading scores for Florida fourth graders have soared nine percentage points - more than twice the national gain. Florida's eighth-grade reading gains were also almost double the national average. Math scores also registered solid gains, exceeding the national average.

Most impressive has been the success of minorities. Scores among Florida's low-income black and Hispanic students have risen much faster than the national average. Hispanic fourth-graders in the Sunshine State now boast reading scores higher than the all-student average in 15 states, including California.

How did Jeb Bush get results so much better than his brother's national program? Four simple but effective ideas.

First, the state didn't play games with test standards. Florida's test methodology measures what students actually knows, not just how well they do compared with other Florida students. And each public school in the state gets its own A-F report card annually. Successful schools get bonuses. Failing schools get tough remedial action.

Second, Florida ended "everyone-passes" social promotion at the third grade. Failing students get early remedial help, not a free pass.

Third, Florida got serious about school choice, promoting a range of public and private options. For instance, 20,000 students with disabilities now receive private-school scholarships. And more than 100,000 children attend charter schools.

And, it turns out, school choice delivers an added bonus. The Urban Institute, a leading national think tank in Washington, found that competition spurred a general improvement in student achievement in Florida's "F" schools. When faced with accountability pressure and choice, these schools tried new and better ways to raise standards.

Fourth, Jeb Bush acted to reward good teachers, while circumventing union-devised red tape that often keeps excellent educators out of the classroom. The state awards large bonuses to teachers with demonstrated success. And Florida instituted alternative paths to teacher certification in order to attract top-flight educators who would be stymied by the normal bureaucratic rules. Today, about half of all new Florida teachers use the alternative certification route.

Overwhelming Support for Parental Options

Polling results from Richmond, Petersburg, and Norfolk neighborhoods in Virginia show support for more parental options. According to the press release by the Thomas Jefferson Institute and Black Alliance for Educational Options, (BAEO), parents in these areas have high levels of dissatisfaction with their public schools and are hugely in favor of school choice.
These results are quite similar to those released in Missouri in 2007. The Show Me Institute released those results here and findings were that parents overwhelming supported choice in Missouri as well.
Here are the details about Virginia's study.
My question is...if so many parents are in support of choice, why won't the unions and legislators let them have it?!

Black Neighborhoods in Richmond, Petersburg Norfolk:
Support for More Parental Options

1/9/2009 - Parents in majority black Petersburg, Richmond and Norfolk neighborhoods have high levels of dissatisfaction with their public schools and overwhelmingly support school choice for parents in their school division.

That's the conclusion of a recently-completed survey of more than 2,200 voters in overwhelming African-American voting precincts, conducted by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).

More than 57 % of survey respondents with school-aged children were dissatisfied with their public school system, versus only 31.2% who were satisfied.

More importantly, 76.3% of all respondents (parents and non-parents alike) favored giving parents more educational options for their children, including support for tax credits for businesses making donations to K-12 scholarship funds for low income students (65.1% support), personal tax credits for donations to K-12 scholarship funds for low-income students (68.3%), grants to allow students with disabilities to attend the private school of their choice (88.8%) and public charter schools (70.3%).

BAEO President Gerard Robinson, contributing author of Educational Freedom in Urban America: Brown v. Board After Half a Century, said the results contradicted what often passes for conventional wisdom. "Opponents of school choice often raise the specter of segregation in opposing choice, and it is true that choice was once used as a weapon to oppose integration. But what I think we're seeing now is a new generation whose focus is on educational excellence for their children, rather than re-fighting battles that have largely been won."

"There are a whole range of successful options available that have never been used in Virginia," Robinson continued. "Parents and non-parents alike know it is time to provide new opportunities for Virginia children at risk of failure."

Jefferson Institute vice president Chris Braunlich noted support for choice was highest where student performance was at its worst. "The levels of support for all parental choice options was highest in Petersburg, where only one of seven schools is fully accredited. After years of watching the education system fiddle around the edge of reform without results, Petersburg voters are very clear: they want to see wholesale change take place. The children of Petersburg are still without the opportunity to learn and to graduate with the skills that will make them successful."

Obama's New Education Secretary

President Elect Obama's new choice for Secretary of Education, Arnie Duncan,  will hopefully be a breath of fresh air to the education debate in this country.  One person who sent this link to me likened it to Nixon going to China.  I don't know if I would go that far, but Mr. Duncan has been successful with some education reforms in Chicago and seems to be open minded to reforms that include charter school expansion and school choice.  

President Elect Obama has voiced his approval of charter schools and hopefully his Secretary of Education will work at a federal level to see that they can expand and be funded at the same level as their traditional district model counterparts.     

Dropout Rates Alarming

An article in today's St. Louis Post Dispatch sounds a loud alarm about the state of public education in St. Louis and Kansas City.  Data released by the state shows that 22% of St. Louis Public Schools students dropped out last year.  Kansas City reports 28% of their students dropped out.  

This shows the abject failure of these districts to show to the students that the education they are providing is worth staying in school for.  Unfortunately, unlike in a business situation, these students have few other options to move elsewhere so they just drop out altogether.  

Increasing choices for students and their families in both cities is one way to improve dropout rates.    

  

Michelle Rhee Profile

Add Time Magazine to the long list of national media taking notice of Washington, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.  Chancellor Rhee has been featured in several publications and television stories in the past few months as she tries to drastically reform public schools in our nation's capital.  The video that accompanies this article is very interesting as well.  It is refreshing to see an administrator get a ground level view of the school system and meet with students for feedback.  Also important is the fact that Rhee has the backing of Washington DC's Mayor.  

More people with the will and determination of Michelle Rhee are what is needed to reform America's public education system.  She is giving others like her the encouragement they need to come forward and lead our country's education system back to world prominence.  

Why Is School Choice Not Good for All?

Recently Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, stated that President- elect Barack Obama has "every right to make a decision that works for their family" when asked if he and wife Michelle should send their children to public schools.   

Why is this typically not the message we hear from the teachers unions when referring to the average American family?  Doesn't the average family deserve school choice as much as the Obamas?  Shouldn't they have the right to make decisions that work best for their family?    

Alternative Teacher Certification

A recent Education Next study by Paul Peterson  confirms what many education reformers have suspected for awhile: genuine alternative teacher certification processes improves education. The study shows that more minority teachers are hired and student learning is more rapid in states that have genuine alternative teacher certification processes.

From a common sense perspective this seems obvious to me.  Why make it difficult for someone who has worked in a field for a number of years to teach that subject?  I would rather my child learn from someone who has practical experience in a field of study or work rather than someone who has only studied the theories on the subject in a classroom.  I am sure that lessons in classroom management and lesson planning are needed for professionals wishing to become teachers.  But in many cases these people have managed and trained employees in the same field so teaching students should not be much of  a stretch for them.  

Thankfully Missouri passed alternative teacher certification legislation last legislative session.  It is already drawing high quality professionals into the classroom as noted by this St. Louis Post Dispatch article.