Response To Governor Charlie Crist's Remarks--Florida Education Reform

From the House Dems:

Response To Governor Charlie Crist’s Remarks
At Joint Meeting Of State Board of Education and Board of Governors
-Florida House Democrats Call For Expanding Accountability Measures-

TALLAHASSEE --- Florida House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands (D-Weston) issued the following statement in response to remarks made today by Governor Charlie Crist at a joint meeting of the State Board of Education and Board of Governors:

“Governor Crist appears to be slowly recognizing that public education in Florida has suffered for more than a decade because of a misguided education accountability system that focuses too greatly on how students perform on a single-day standardized test.

“Today, the governor acknowledged certain shortcomings of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and by his remarks, seems to be signaling support for significant portions of the education reforms recently proposed by Florida House Democrats.

“A strong but fair accountability system is needed for Florida’s students, educators and schools. My colleagues and I in the 44-member Florida House Democratic Caucus are offering a new strategy for how schools can be assessed and graded. These changes are outlined in a formal comment to the state Department of Education pertaining to Florida’s application for federal Race to the Top Initiative grants.

“The current accountability system is shortsighted because it is based almost exclusively on how well students score on the FCAT. Our plan improves the system by phasing in a combination of end-of-course assessment exams.

“For too long, our children have only been taught to pass the FCAT instead of allowing teachers to concentrate on a variety of curriculum. Our suggestions would measure each student’s academic progress from the beginning to the end of a school year rather than a one-day snapshot of their learning.

“Much more must be done to improve Florida, its economy and our system of public education. Florida House Democrats are pleased to bring ideas for making our state better.”

Crist's "Great Moment" in Political History

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Powerful words

Last weekend, we had an amazing state conference in Orlando. I wish you could have been there. Since I know many of you could not make it, I did want to share a highlight of CFO Alex Sink's powerful words that captured the energy of the conference so well.

Watch the video and share it with your friends and neighbors.

http://www.fladems.com/alexatconference

I know that Alex Sink in the Governor's office will restore the dream that led so many to move to this state.

Listening to her speak, talking to our grassroots leaders, and seeing the enthusiasm and desire they have to change Florida in 2010 made me more confident in what I already know:

We stand ready to take back our state.

For the first time in almost 140 years, every single statewide office is on the ballot and not a single one is an incumbent running for re-election. Both as Democrats and as Floridians, we are fighting to seize our historic opportunity - by not only electing Alex Sink as our next Governor - but by electing a strong Democrat to the U.S. Senate, and electing more Democrats to Congress, the Cabinet, and our State Legislature.

Just like the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who worked tirelessly to deliver Florida for Barack Obama, we must commit ourselves to be the change that we want for Florida.

This election cycle, it's up to us whether or not Florida continues to see high unemployment numbers and face stagnation.

You have already done so much to help us build the momentum we need to bring change to Florida in 2010, but there is still so much work to be done.

Frankly, the future of our state rests in the hands of each of us. With your help, we will change Florida and help Alex Sink win this historic election.

Thank you for everything you've done to get us here.

Sincerely,

Congresswoman Karen L. Thurman
Chair, Florida Democratic Party

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Orlando Sentinel: Crist's education gains claim requires some creative math

Orlando Sentinel: Crist's education gains claim requires some creative math

TALLAHASSEE – All year, Gov. Charlie Crist has touted that on his watch the state’s education system had gone from a ranking of 31st in the country to 10th this year.

Florida's one-term governor and leading U.S. Senate candidate made the claim over the weekend in a speech to Republicans in Michigan and again Tuesday morning as he made the rounds on cable news talk shows.

"We're very pleased with what's happened there -- from 31st to 10th in the nation since I've been governor, and I'm very happy for our children for that," Crist said this morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show.

But the figures don't quite add up, according to the authors of the Education Week “Quality Counts” study the statement is based on.

The respected publication reported last January that Florida stood out compared to the national average scores in early childhood education and its assessment and accountability measures, produced more average scores for the caliber of its teachers and Kindergarten-through-12th Grade performance, and below average in school spending and college readiness.

Basically, the report gives Florida high marks for having accountability measures in place, but it is among the bottom of the heap in funding schools and gets an ‘F’ for college readiness. Overall, out of the six categories the study uses in its analysis, Florida and Arkansas finished with the same numeric score, 79.6 percent, indeed tying for 10th place.

But here’s where the confusion starts.

Education Week changed the way it conducted the study last year, shifting from collecting data in each of the categories every year to a “modular” research design where states are surveyed about half of the categories on an every-other-year rotation.

So, is it accurate to compare year to year? “Not really,” said Amy Hightower, the research director for the Editorial Projects in Education research center that produced the study. “We really do encourage states and the media that grading from one year to the next is not really comparable.”

That’s just for starters. Hightower said she wasn’t sure where Crist is getting the 31st ranking.

Until 2006, the research center only gave individual section grades, not overall ones, and that year Florida ranked 16th in the country. In 2008, Florida ranked 14th.

In 2007, the center didn’t issue overall grades, but did issue rankings for its newly minted “Chance for Success” and “K-12 achievement” indexes (two of the six categories now used to rank states). On both of those, Florida ranked 31st. Since then, Florida has fallen to 33rd in the rankings on “chance for success,” while the “K-12 achievement” ranking has climbed to 7th (not 10th).

Assuming that is the improvement Crist is mentioning, he still can’t claim credit for it – the 2009 report re-uses the same national data from the 2008 report, which was collected in 2007, when Crist first came into office.

The research center is careful not to draw correlations between performance and any particular policy changes within a state, but “if policy matters, then really the policy we’re talking about would predate the results,” Hightower said.

The time period that Education Week evaluated corresponds with years in which lawmakers devoted more cash to comply with constitutional mandates such as Florida’s class-size reduction requirement, increased incentives to retain and recruit teachers, and an explosion in real property wealth within the state.

And of course, Florida’s most significant policy reform has been Gov. Jeb Bush’s “A+” plan that mandated standardized tests for schools and tied school-funding to performance on the FCAT test.

“I think all of us are still parking on Jeb Bush’s dime as it comes to education reform,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican and former school superintendent who helped Bush trumpet the classroom reforms.

Crist did serve a short stint as education commissioner. And Gaetz gives the current governor credit for pushing for teacher merit-pay incentives and supporting reforms to make high schools less reliant on the FCAT assessment. But “all of us, including Charlie Crist, are stewards of Jeb Bush’s accomplishments and his innovations.”

Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat running for attorney general and a frequent critic of Bush’s reforms, agreed Crist was “misusing the study.”

“It was not a study of how good they’re doing, but how many measurements they have.”

Crist told reporters Tuesday he had hoped to do more on the education front, but that Floridians understood the economy had forced his administration to "scale back."

"We've had to scale back, but the people get that. They've had to scale back," Crist said.

Things I Can Do Without

A governor who tries to distance himself from a great program and claim he had little role in, when he actually co-sponsored it.