ALEC to remain neutral on Common Core. Report from EdWeek. As we noted last week, Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education weighed in against the ALEC resolution. Thumbs up from Checker Finn. More from EdFly Blog.
Speaking of Common Core … Education Week writes about the dispute between the Florida Department of Education and a private vendor over a website that was supposed to prepare teachers and students for the new standards.
Teacher evals. The FEA holds a press conference to step up its criticism. Coverage from Orlando Sentinel, Gradebook, The Florida Current, First Coast News.
Agenda for ed conference. The fifth annual Excellence in Action National Summit on Education Reform, put on by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, is next week. Full agenda here.
Private school problems. Both the Bradenton Herald and Sarasota Herald-Tribune take a look at issues with The Prep Academy.
Laurie Lee
One of Arkansas’s top school choice advocates, Laurie Lee, is on the road this month in her home state, visiting 28 cities in four weeks to spread the gospel of education reform.
Arkansas ranked No. 5 among states in an Education Week report that gave it a B- overall. The national average was a C.
But look closer at the findings, said Lee in a phone interview, as she headed toward Mountain View. Arkansas netted a D for its K-12 achievement. Its graduation rate is 70 percent. And of those students who do graduate, 18 percent aren’t ready for college coursework, Lee said.
“Overall, our state’s economy is waning,’’ she said. “We’re losing jobs and foreclosure is high. And you can tie it all back to education.’’
That’s what led Lee to organize The Arkansas Reform Alliance or TARA, a grassroots nonprofit coalition that represents parents, educators and community leaders who want to increase school accountability and improve student success.
Expanding school choice is high on its list.
“We need more options,’’ said Lee, the alliance’s executive director. Her daughters were enrolled in public schools before she switched them to private, virtual and home education in search of the best fit.
Arkansas is home to 18 open enrollment charter schools and 14 district-conversion charter schools, public schools that were converted into charter schools, according to the state Department of Education website.
But to Lee’s group and others, that’s nowhere near enough. They want fewer restrictions on public school transfers. They want more charter and virtual programs. And they want tax-credit scholarships and vouchers. (more…)
As a group, low-income students struggle more than their wealthier peers. But in Florida, poor kids in some districts do a lot better than poor kids in others.
In Seminole County, for example, 56 percent of third graders eligible for free- and reduced-price scored at grade level or above on this year’s FCAT reading test, according to new state Department of Education data. In Duval County, meanwhile, 39 percent did. Among the state’s biggest districts, Seminole has one of the lowest rates of low-income kids. But so does Duval. And the low-income kids in Miami-Dade, which has the highest rate (nearly 20 percentage points higher than Duval), easily outpaced their counterparts in Duval. They did so in every tested grade, by an average of nine percentage points.
So what gives?
I’m not sure. But I think it’s worth a closer look.
We compare schools to each other so we can learn from those that make more progress. Ditto for states. Education Week’s annual Quality Counts report puts states side by side. It’s thoughtful and useful. It’s time for a similar spotlight on Florida school districts, which include some of the nation’s largest urban districts and an average enrollment among the top 10 of 165,000 students. Anybody could take the lead in setting that up – the press, parent groups, researchers, lawmakers, state education officials, maybe even the districts themselves.
Even with state mandates, districts have considerable leeway. Taking a closer look at achievement data district by district would spark more discussion about which ones are employing policies and programs that make the biggest difference for kids. The variation is endless. Some districts put more disability labels on minority students. Some put a premium on career academies. Some focus on principal development. Some have stronger superintendents. Some face more competition from charter schools and tax credit scholarships. How do things like that factor into district-to-district gaps? I’m sure it’s difficult to sort one from another, and impossible to draw definitive conclusions. But we won’t develop better hunches without looking at the data and talking about it.
A deeper dive into FCAT scores is one place to start. Most of the data I’m referring to is posted every year by the DOE, a few months after FCAT scores are released in late spring and early summer. It’s fascinating stuff – a breakdown of scores by district, subject, grade, FCAT level – and by all kinds of subgroups. I’ve talked to enough bona fide researchers about these numbers to know they raise fascinating questions.
Take Duval again. (more…)
It's concerning enough that Florida education reporters are overlooking basic facts about Amendment 8 - the "religious freedom amendment" - and in many cases simply repeating what the teachers unions and school boards say about it (that it's really about vouchers voucher vouchers vouchers ... ). But an Orlando Sentinel reporter took it a step further yesterday, incorporating opposition talking points into a story as if they were true.
This is what the post on the Sentinel's SchoolZone blog said: "The Orange County School Board added their name to the roster of school boards officially opposing Amendment 8, which could lead to the revival of public vouchers to religious and private schools."
As we've respectfully noted, there are debate-worthy reasons why people supporting Amendment 8 want to remove the "no aid" provision in the Florida Constitution. But because of the legal history here, private school choice isn't seriously one of them.
The Sentinel post also mentioned a "recent analysis" by the relatively obscure Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, which was the topic of a separate blog post earlier in the day (and which followed a full story in the Sentinel that morning that, like so many others in recent weeks, did not ask "the other side" if vouchers were really an issue and offered no evidence that it was.) The analysis claims Amendment 8 "would have a huge negative impact on public education" and "would open the way for universal private school vouchers in Florida."
The center - which once issued a report suggesting Education Week's Quality Counts report wasn't about education quality - has direct ties to the Florida Education Association and Florida School Boards Association, but those ties weren't noted in either blog post.
Its claims are way off the mark, but don't take our word for it. Please, take a closer look.
Editor's note: This is the second installment of "A Choice Conversation," an ongoing dialogue between Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up for Students and a redefinED host, and John Wilson, a former NEA leader who writes the Unleashed blog at Education Week.
Doug Tuthill: John, in our last exchange you called “for a new contracting arrangement for providers to serve the unique educational needs of targeted student populations and innovation.”
Floridians have heeded your advice and are expanding options for educators and families through innovative public-private partnerships. For example, the Okaloosa school district contracted with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to run Florida’s best aeronautics high school institutes. The Florida Virtual School contracts with Connections Academy to operate its K-5 program, and last year the Duval County school district contracted with local churches to implement programs for suspended students. The Pinellas County teachers union has a corporate subsidiary that contracts with its school board to tutor students; career academies throughout Florida contract for services from a plethora of businesses and trade associations; and the state’s charter schools, Voluntary Pre-K program, McKay Scholarships and tax credit scholarships are all implemented through public-private partnerships, as are many magnet schools.
Managing all these public-private partnerships is challenging, and you’ve suggested using the “institution of public schools” as the oversight entity. I’m curious what you mean by the term “institution of public schools.” I’m also interested in your criteria for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable public-private contracts.
John Wilson: Doug, I guess you could say I am a traditionalist when it comes to describing the institution of public schools, but I am an innovator when it comes to expanding the providers of customized education for targeted students and innovation.
I see the district board of education as the "traffic cop" for assuring that all providers, whether charters, private, or public-private, operate within a contract signed by the board of education and the provider. The "traffic cop" should assure that providers meet their fiduciary responsibility, improve student achievement, and adhere to the relevant laws and regulations as well as the contract that was signed with the board of education. I think the community needs to know these arrangements are cost-efficient and effective with their tax dollars and that their children are receiving a high-quality education. Let me add that I am not so naive as to know that we will need to build, and in some cases rebuild, trust and a shared vision with all parties that provide education opportunities. (more…)
Romero
by Gloria Romero
Diane Ravitch, are you listening?
This is former state Sen. Gloria Romero calling.
I am the author of California’s first Parent Trigger law, the first parent trigger law in the nation. Since I first wrote that law, some 15 other states have seen some version of the law introduced in their states.
I wanted to reach out to you since we have never met, and I look forward to meeting you so we can one day talk directly with each other. Woman to woman.
In one of your recent blog posts on Education Week, you wrote that the parent trigger came from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). On the blogosphere, I now read many claims that ALEC wrote the law. This is completely false, and I ask you to correct this.
Please, stop saying that some organization I had never met until just this year gave me the idea and somehow, miraculously, turned it into law without me not knowing about it. ALEC happens to like the law and encourages other states to write similar laws. That is true. But that does not mean it developed either the idea or the law. That’s preposterous! Quite frankly, it’s also a bit sexist and ethnocentric to assert my work actually came from someone else - that somehow the Latina senator from East Los Angeles couldn’t think on my own, or figure out how to write a bill and turn it into law.
To be fair, you are not alone in failing to acknowledge my role, or the role of other strong individuals (mostly women of color) in getting the bill passed. I always recognize Ben Austin from Parent Revolution for suggesting the idea. Unfortunately, the materials Parent Revolution distributes make it sound as if parents cascaded on the state Capitol and forced this into law. It seldom concedes in its materials that someone actually had to write a bill and argue and negotiate for its enactment. While it sounds romantic to say parents demanded this and descended on the Capitol to force this into law, that is too much Hollywood. In fact, we did have parents in Sacramento. But many of them were from organizations that were not affiliated with Parent Revolution, and they are seldom acknowledged.
One day I will write the full story of how the Parent Empowerment Act (its official title) became law. In the meantime, let it suffice to say that both you and Parent Revolution and anyone else who writes about the law should know that once the idea was discussed with me, I chose to expand and develop it in a bill. I developed a strategy. I worked with my legislative staff to write language. I assembled a “rag tag” army of civil rights activists who understood that this was our moment to enact the change in which I so strongly believed. And I never saw an ALEC representative. (more…)
Media coverage of education reform in Florida never ceases to amaze. What you should be hearing today are the sputtering responses of critics who have drawn widespread media attention in recent weeks with reckless claims that Florida’s ed reforms are an “unmitigated disaster.” Instead ...
The easy prompt for fair and obvious questions was yesterday’s release of the annual “Diplomas Count” report from Education Week. The independent analysis found that between 1999 and 2009, Florida’s graduation rate climbed 18 percentage points – more than all but two states. It also found that Florida’s black and Hispanic students are graduating at rates higher than the national average for like students, which is of no small import for a majority-minority state like Florida. The 2009 rate for Florida’s Hispanic students, in fact, put them at No. 2 among Hispanic students in all 50 states.
So how did the Florida media cover this compelling news? For the most part, it didn’t. (more…)
Florida public schools got another clear sign of progress today from a highly regarded, independent source.
Between 1999 and 2009, Florida’s graduation rate climbed from 52.5 percent to 70.4 percent, a 17.9 percentage point gain that puts the Sunshine State third among all 50 states in rate of progress, according to the latest "Diplomas Count" report released by Education Week.
Florida ranked No. 37 among states in 2009, up from No. 47 a decade prior.
The report also shows black and Hispanic students in Florida are graduating at higher rates than like students in other states. The rate for Hispanic students in Florida reached 72.6 percent in 2009, 9.6 percentage points higher than the national average. Black students in Florida came in at 62.0 percent, 3.3 percentage points higher than the average.
The latest numbers are more validation for education reformers in Florida, who have pushed the envelope on standards, accountability and expanded school choice since former Gov. Jeb Bush was elected in 1998. For them, the report’s timing couldn’t have been better. (more…)
Dropout Nation's RiShawn Biddle on anti-intellectualism in our debate over education reform:
For all the taxpayer-funded doctorates and graduate degrees that are found among the defenders of traditional public education, there is little going on among them other than closed-minded, sclerotic thinking. This lack of intellectual vigor — the ability to see the value of new concepts, the lack of understanding of economics and technology, and the rabid opposition to anyone outside of education arguing for reform — is one reason why American public education is mired in the kind of mediocrity that has fostered the nation’s education crisis.
And from Terry M. Moe and Paul T. Hill writing in Education Week on government, markets and the mixed model of education reform:
Stereotypes are alive and well in American education reform, and nowhere is this more evident than when school choice is being discussed. All too often, choice is characterized by its detractors as a “free market” solution that would “privatize” education. And all too often, this depiction is reinforced by its more libertarian supporters, who do indeed see choice in these terms and are stridently opposed to a government-run education system. The framing suggests an unbridgeable chasm. On the one side, markets. On the other side, government.
As is often true of stereotypes, this kind of either-or framing is not helpful. A more productive way to think about school choice—and about American education reform in general—is not in terms of markets vs. government, but rather in terms of markets and government.
Edweek.org will be live-streaming an all-day roundtable discussion of education in a new economic reality, surrounding the publication's release of its latest Quality Counts report.
The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and, according to Education Week, "will investigate the impact of the recession, federal stimulus, and broader economic conditions on the nation’s schools."
The speaker lineup includes:
