Florida schools' math and reading scores are pretty good


  • October 27, 2015
  • /   Reggie Dogan
  • /   education

Junior Lynn Arthur celebrates after stripping a wire in Tom Connors’ Cox Academy class at West Florida High School of Advanced Technology. The students are learning how to install a surround-sound system.

When people talk about top-performing schools in the U.S., Florida schools rarely are mentioned in the conversation.

But a new report from the national education department shows Florida students are doing quite well on math and reading scores when taking in account the state's demographics.

In a report released this week by the Urban Institute, adjusted raw scores for each state account for student demographics, including poverty, race, native language and the share of students in special education.

The New York Times’ David Leonhardt in “Surprise: Florida and Texas excel in math and reading scores,” pointed out that schools in both states appear to be well above average at teaching their students math and reading.

“Florida and Texas look worse than they deserve to because they’re educating a more disadvantaged group of students than most states are,” Leonhardt said.

His findings were based on a recently released report by the Urban Institute, which included adjusted raw scores for each state to account for student demographics, including poverty, race, native language and the share of students in special education.

Based on the adjustments, Texas climbs up to third in the 2013 state ranks, and Florida jumps to fourth.

Massachusetts, which also ranks first with unadjusted scores, remained in the top stop, followed by New Jersey in second.

“Making these demographic adjustments gives us a much better picture of how students are doing,” Matthew Chingos, the report’s author and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute said in the New York Times article.

The report also analyzed the change in each state’s score since 2003, and once again, Florida showed promise. The state showed the 11th-largest gain, and Texas the 12th. The largest gain was in Nevada, followed by Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Tennessee and New Jersey.

The results are especially rewarding for Florida schools given the avalanche of criticism of the state’s controversial high-stakes standardized test in recent years.

When the Florida Legislature in 1999 adopted the A-plus Plan for Education, it became a blueprint for school reform with accountability as its primary focus.

For 16 years, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test measured general knowledge and understanding for Florida’s students.

The test weighed heavily on school funding, class placement, third-grade promotion, high-school graduation, teacher pay and evaluations — and whether a public school would remain open.

Assailed by complaints about its content, effectiveness and high stakes, the FCAT’s support began to fade in 2010 when state lawmakers adopted the Common Core State Standards.

Criticism of state testing in schools intensified when the Florida Standards Assessments rolled out to replace the FCAT. School superintendents joined the chorus of critics, lambasting the test’s validity, credibility and necessity.

If not else, however, the Urban Institute’s report do seem to offer a margin of confidence for rigorous, common standards — an idea that took off with the Common Core, but has since come under harsh political attack.

In the continuing debate over education, the new report shows that Florida schools are doing better than they gets credit for because they’re educating a more disadvantaged group of students than most states are.

All things considered, our schools are doing a pretty good job at teaching math and reading.

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