Today's news

CRIST'S CHALLENGE: It's keeping accountability for Florida schools but making people like it better. The debates are in full swing over teacher quality and performance pay, improving the FCAT and more. The new governor needs to make it fall together.

FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE: They examine beetles. Occasionally they get to blow things up. Kindergartners at a Tampa elementary school get daily hands-on science lessons in an effort to catch them up to their international peers. Improving both science and math education is a priority for Gov. Charlie Crist, who recently announced the creation of the Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

IT'S NOT ONLY PUPPY LOVE: Eleven Florida high schools have adopted a "Love is not abuse" course to teach teens how to avoid a crush from turning tragic, the Miami Herald reports.

YOUR WHAT IS TOO SMALL? As books and bags have grown bigger and bulkier, locker sizes have stayed the same. Students in suburban Maryland are complaining that they need more space, the Washington Post reports.

CROSS AT YOUR OWN PERIL: Walking to high schools in Florida can be a risky venture. Unlike elementary and middle schools, they aren't protected in law with crossing zones. Some school districts, including Hillsborough and Palm Beach, are looking for change, the Palm Beach Post reports. But a bill in the Senate shows little chance of success, with no House companion.

MORE RIGOR: International Baccalaureate grows in Sarasota and Manatee counties as students and parents seek a tougher academic load, the Herald-Tribune reports.

Comments

[Sherman Dorn]

Ron Matus's story is interesting and provocative, but there's one claim in it that's only partially backed up by facts: "Under Bush, struggling kids did better on tests." The best independent evidence of that (on NAEP state results) is on math at 4th and 8th grades, less evidence at 4th grade reading (the mean scale score has flattened out in the last testing, something that parallels mean scale scores on FCAT), and no evidence on the 10th grade passing rates. In terms of 8th grade math, yes, the scale scores have increased, but they've been increasing on the state NAEP results at an almost perfectly linear rate since the early 1990s, so I'm not sure you can credit Bush's reforms with any CHANGE in that trend. So we're left with a substantial increase on the average in elementary math achievement on NAEP and an increase in elementary reading that's flattened out recently. If a high-stakes accountability system has worked, why has it only benefitted elementary schoolchildren?

In terms of achievement gaps, the evidence on NAEP is also mixed. Most of the pairs showing decreased gaps are at 4th grade, and of the 20 pairs that I've looked at (gender, White-Black, White-Hispanic, lunch program participant-non participant, 25th percentile-75th percentile in 4th and 8th grade in math and reading), in only three cases is the reduction in the achievement gap statistically significant (i.e., unlikely to have occurred by chance).