Search Results for: Florida

It’s a long way away from here, but let’s just call Florida my unofficial second state. Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, Matt Ladner has posted an inspiring video from the recent record-breaking Florida school choice rally. You simply have to take 3 minutes and watch it:

This week was a good one for school choice. Let’s start with Florida (two days in a row!), a national leader and superstar in education reform. This week 5,500 Floridians came to Tallahassee to rally for a proposal that will increase private school choice opportunities for economically challenged families. Watch this excellent 2-minute video news report of what may be the largest school choice rally in American history (H/T Jay Greene):

Yesterday brought news from the U.S. Department of Education of the new state-by-state NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores in 4th and 8th grade reading. These tests are the gold standard for comparing student performance between states and over time. The big headlines note that in the short term (since 2007) the nation’s reading scores stayed flat in 4th grade and ticked up slightly in 8th grade. In the long term (going back to the first comparable tests in 1998), the results are exactly the opposite: with 4th grade scores going up modestly and 8th grade scores essentially remaining the same. Colorado’s achievement at both grade levels remains above the national average, but continues to track at about the same level of progress. The real long-term winner is still the state of Florida — which, as Matthew Ladner reports on Jay Greene’s blog, not only is boosting student performance across the board but also cutting the achievement gaps based on race and poverty.

Last year I told you about the remarkable education reform success story in Florida. The elements of this success can be traced to a comprehensive set of policy changes made while Jeb Bush was governor, including: School accountability Student accountability Private school choice Scientific-based literacy instruction Alternative teacher certification In a comprehensive article for the Summer 2009 edition of Education Next, Matt Ladner and Dan Lips explain exactly what Florida did to make dramatic gains on 4th grade national test scores. Perhaps more importantly, they take on critiques from those who say the scores are misleading because of social promotion policies or can somehow be attributed to other education initiatives voters approved: universal preschool and class size reduction. Check out the article.

The more parents know and experience school choice, the more satisfied they are with it. The Friedman Foundation’s newly-released survey of 808 parents who have participated in Florida’s scholarship tax credit program is just the latest and most overwhelming proof. Florida’s eight-year-old program provides full tax credit to corporations donating to qualified scholarship granting organizations. Those groups provide scholarships worth up to $3,950 (or full tuition) for low-income students to enroll in the private school of their choice. According to the Friedman report, the latest numbers show 23,259 Florida students attending private school on a tax credit scholarship. Simply put, participating parents love it:

I’m kind of leery about even writing this here, afraid it might give some Colorado lawmakers a bad idea. But consider it a note of caution. Apparently, the Florida legislature is trying to put the clamps down on the state’s successful online public school program. So writes Bill Tucker at The Quick & The Ed about SB 1676 and its impact on the Florida Virtual School: The bill would eliminate enrollment in any elective courses and funding for any courses beyond a standard six periods. Students would no longer have an option to take electives, including some AP courses, beyond those offered at their traditional schools (especially painful for small or rural schools), nor would they have the opportunity to take extra courses to catch up on graduation requirements or accelerate. The legislation was approved in committee and now goes to the full State Senate. As tempting as it might be, it’s a bad idea for Florida officials to use tough economic times as an excuse to limit educational options. As this AP news story highlights, it has a negative effect on real students: Kathryn Groves, a high school student from Keystone Heights, told the panel she took a virtual […]

When it comes to school choice and education reform, quite often good politics and good policy are at odds with each other. That’s one thing to draw from reading this post from Tampa Bay education writer Jeffrey Solochek about an initiative on Florida’s ballot this year: Teachers unions and their traditional allies filed suit against Amendment 9 two weeks ago, but they aren’t the only ones taking issue. A couple of prominent education researchers also see something wrong here. Jay Greene and Frederick Hess can hardly be accused of being fellow travelers. Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Hess directs education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. But neither are fans of the “65 percent solution.” And neither likes the way Amendment 9 – pushed by Jeb Bush stalwarts on the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission – melds the 65 percent idea with a different policy issue involving vouchers. What exactly is the problem? Well, thanks to the results of numerous top-notch studies, we know school vouchers “are better supported by top-quality empirical evidence than any other education policy.” But the history of vouchers succeeding at the ballot box has been less than stellar. Fresh on […]

According to the Washington Post, voters in Florida have a chance to remove the bigoted Blaine Amendment from their state constitution. The Post points out that the Blaine Amendment has been used in different states to discriminate against certain kinds of educational opportunities: Patricia Levesque, the commission member who pushed to add the measure, said she acted because a 2004 appeals court decision cited the Blaine Amendment while striking down then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s effort to allow students in failing schools to enroll in parochial and other private schools at public expense. Independence Institute senior fellow Krista Kafer, while she still worked at the Heritage Foundation in 2003, noted the background that put the offensive Blaine Amendments in 37 states (including Colorado): Vestiges of an anti-Catholic movement, these provisions are named after Congressman James Blaine of Maine for his efforts to add such language to the U.S. Constitution. In the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant bigotry found expression in American institutions and politics. The emerging public schools were commonly Protestant in character, requiring, for example, the reading of the Protestant King James Version of the Bible in classrooms. Efforts to secure funding for Catholic schools were resisted. After the Civil War, […]

Last week the Foundation for Excellence in Education held its national summit that annually brings together countless education policy experts and activists.

Physical attacks on teachers are in fact a problem that needs to be addressed, and in order to develop a solution to this issue Colorado’s public and lawmakers ought to have access to reliable statistics that could allow them to truly understand the scope and nature of the problem at hand