Florida succeeding in education; perhaps Nevada can learn from it
On Monday in the Review-Journal, departing Clark County Superintendent of Schools Walt Rulffes said he was most proud of the fact he did not have to lay off teachers.
On Monday in The Wall Street Journal, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush described how proud he was of the successes Florida schools have been having in raising educational accomplishments.
I think Bush has more reason to be proud. Sometimes, when you are waist deep in alligators we forget the objective was to drain the swamp.
“While preparing kids for college and careers starts on the first day of kindergarten, the first good indicator of their chances for success may come in fourth grade,” Bush writes. “That is when students transition from learning to read to reading to learn. A Manhattan Institute study found that students who can't read and yet are promoted fall further behind over time. Alarmingly, 33% of fourth-graders in America are functionally illiterate, according to the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
“Yet failure does not have to be our destiny. Florida's experience in reform during the last decade gives us the road map to avoid this slow-moving economic calamity.
“In 1998, nearly half of Florida's fourth-graders were functionally illiterate. Today, 72% of them can read.”
A Heritage Foundation study found Florida to be especially successful in raising the level of achievement of minorities.
“One state, however, has demonstrated that meaningful improvement is possible,” Heritage states. “In 1999, Florida enacted a series of far-reaching K–12 education reforms that have increased academic achievement for all students and substantially narrowed the racial achievement gap. Today, Florida’s Hispanic and black students outscore many statewide reading averages for all students.”
That includes Nevada. (see map below)
Of course there are naysayers. The National Education Policy Center in Boulder, Colo., dismisses Florida’s success, saying the state’s refusal to promote third graders to the fourth grade until they can read somehow distorts the picture. A researcher said the effects of this policy causes the report’s comparisons to be largely meaningless. “By analogy, consider growth in height instead of growth in test scores. If two states wanted to measure the average height of their fourth graders, but one state (Florida) first identified the shortest 20% of third graders and held them back to grow an additional year before measurement, the study’s results would not be useful.”
The objective is not to see how far they've come in four years, but see how many you can educate to the fourth-grade level, even if it takes five years. At least they grow in ability instead of being forced into the Procrustean educrat mold where they are chopped or stretched and doomed to never catch up.
The new Clark County superintendent is from Colorado, which hasn’t fared as well as Florida. But Dwight Jones is reportedly a strong advocate for growing achievement and using proper assessment tools.
If Florida has built a better mouse trap, perhaps Nevada should copy some of its tools.
