In an effort aimed at boosting black student achievement, a new group is forming in Florida to develop a cadre of black entrepreneurs and executives to lead high-quality schools, including charter and private schools.

Black Floridians C.A.R.E. – which stands for Choice Advocates Reforming Education - is chaired by T. Willard Fair, a former chair of the state Board of Education and longtime leader of the Urban League of Greater Miami.

“It’s important because we believe that the rest of the battle for effectiveness and equality (in education) rests with us,” Fair told redefinED. “Why should I expect whites and Cubans to care about black children in Liberty City? It’s not their children.”

Fair said more black leaders in education - principals, owners, board members, chief executives - would galvanize support in the black community generally. But it’s especially critical for establishing deeper roots for school choice, he said.

“When you have a movement that comes out of the adults in the community, then it does not die,” said Fair, who co-founded Florida's first charter school in 1996 with former Gov. Jeb Bush. “Then the community says, ‘We have ownership of this.’ “

The group’s executive director is Isha James. She too has strong ties to school choice efforts, including stints at the Black Alliance for Educational Options, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and Partners for Developing Futures, a social investment fund for people of color who want to open charter schools.

“Students who see people in power that look like them, they have higher aspirations,” James said. “I can’t continue to tell a child that he can be the principal of a school if the only thing he sees that’s ever looked like him is a janitor.”

Black Floridians C.A.R.E. will develop a leadership pipeline through training academies and mentoring programs, then serve as a conduit between black professionals and private, charter and district schools. James said primary recruitment efforts will be aimed not at educators, but at people with backgrounds in finance, law and business. (more…)

From the better-late-than-never file:

The percentage of Florida students eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch rose for the fifth straight year last year to 57.6 percent, according to the state Department of Education.

In total, 1.54 million of the state’s 2.69 million students were eligible, marking the third straight year a majority of Florida students reached that threshold, says a report posted on the DOE web site over the summer (I stumbled on the latest numbers over the weekend, and as far as I can tell, no traditional news outlets have reported them).

The report shows 78.7 percent of black students were eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch last year, compared to 71.5 percent of Hispanic students and 38.2 percent of white students.

Among the state’s biggest districts, Miami-Dade led with the highest percentage, at 71.9 percent, followed by Polk at 68.3 percent and Lee at 64.2 percent.

Since the 2003-04 school year, Florida schools have also been majority minority. Last year, 57 percent of Florida students were minorities.

Despite the challenging demographics, Florida has over the past 10 to 15 years been among the leading states on key academic indicators, including progress on NAEP, performance on Advanced Placement tests and improvement in graduation rates.

The 47 percent graduation rate for black males in Florida is among the lowest in the nation, and two major Florida school districts - Pinellas and Duval - have rates far below that, according to a new report released today.

The grad-rate formula used by the Schott Foundation for Public Education has been criticized as simplistic, but the group's findings have nonetheless been cited by school choice supporters in some communities as another pressing reason to expand vouchers, charter schools and other learning options.

“The bottom-line issue about black male achievement," Michael Holzman, the report's author, told Education Week,  "is that the schools that most of these students attend are not as good as those attended by their white peers."

The foundation listed a moratorium on out-of-school  suspensions, more equitable funding and more learning time among its recommendations for improving the rates. It did not list expanded school choice. Its president and CEO, John H. Jackson, urged a push for what he described as systemic solutions that "help each child, rather than a few."

Using 2009-10 figures, the report found the graduation rate for black males nationally was 52 percent, compared to 78 percent for white males and 58 percent for Hispanic males. The black male rate is up 10 percentage points since 2001-02, but the foundation didn't see cause to celebrate: "This progress has closed the graduation gap between Black male and White, non-Latino males by only three percentage points," the report said. "At this rate, it would take nearly 50 years for Black males to achieve the same high school graduation rates as their White male counterparts."

Florida's rate for black males is 5 percentage points below the national average, according to foundation calculations, putting it in a three-way tie for No. 42 among states. Its rate for white males was 62 percent - 16 percentage points below the national average - and leaving it in a four-way tie for No. 45. (more…)

If Florida deserves applause for its recent academic progress, the Miami-Dade school district deserves a standing ovation. The five-time finalist for the prestigious Broad Prize is a standout district in a standout state. Between 2000 and 2010, no big district in Florida made more progress in reading and math, even though Miami-Dade has a greater rate of low-income (70 percent) and minority kids (91 percent) than any of them. Over roughly the same period, no big district in Florida made a bigger jump in graduation rates, going from far below the state average to slightly above it.

Against that hopeful backdrop, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, (pictured here) offered some particularly biting assessments of Florida’s education reforms last week. In an op-ed for the Miami Herald, the former principal and state lawmaker said school grades were “madness” and “ridiculous” and “nothing but hoodwinking parents and the community.” Then she added:

“Every time a young black male commits murder in Miami, or even at times a lesser crime, I check their school records to see if they have a diploma. Most of them are casualties of the FCAT. I call them the FCAT kids.”

It’s fair to say Florida’s public education system has far to go, even after 14 years of heady change, even after being a national leader in academic gains for much of that time. There are still far too many kids not being educated to their potential, in an evolving system that is still searching – and sometimes fumbling - for the best ways to maximize its potential.

It’s also reasonable to debate how much the FCAT and school grades have contributed to the progress. Miami-Dade has had two hard-charging, highly acclaimed superintendents in a row. It probably benefitted more from the class-size reduction amendment than many districts in Florida. Compared to the other big districts, it has among the highest percentages of students enrolled in charter schools and in private schools via tax credit scholarships.  I think – and these are just the hunches of a layman -- that those factors and many others made a difference.

But I don’t think it can be credibly denied that the FCAT and school grades were essential parts of the mix. (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…)