About that idea to pay kids for good scores ...

... Forget it.

The idea of giving students $50 awards for strong marks on a variety of high-level exams - touted by folks like Jeb Bush and put into a bill by Education Committee chair Anitere Flores - is not going to move through the Legislature, House Schools and Learning Council chairman Joe Pickens tells the Gradebook.

"We're not doing that," Pickens said. "I don't think we should be paying students to do that, especially in this type of budget year."

Key parts of the legislation dealing with remediation and dual enrollment will find their way into more acceptable bills, the powerful chairman said. But schools and parents need to find other ways to motivate their kids to learn and do well in school.

"I just think we ought to do better than that" bill, Pickens said.

Florida shines in AP results

If success on Advanced Placement exams offers true insight into college readiness, then Florida's high school students are among the most prepared in the country.

A new College Board report shows that more than 20 percent of Florida public high school seniors earned a score of 3 or higher on AP tests during 2007, fourth best in the country (behind only New York, Maryland and Virginia) and up 5.1 percentage points from just five years ago. The group also praises Florida for its efforts to get more African-American and Hispanic students to take the tests and do well on them.

Still, the College Board states, "While several states — including Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and Oklahoma — have been able to close the equity and excellence gap for Latino students, no state with large numbers of African American or American Indian students has yet to close the gap."

Other interesting tidbits from the Florida section of the report:

• 38 percent of the Class of 2007 took at least one AP exam.
• The top three categories for AP test takers were English language, English literature and U.S. history.
• Even with all the attention paid to minority students taking the test, white student participation also grew from 23,853 taking an AP test in 2006 to 25,967 in 2007.

AP disparities

Florida has led the charge nationally in increasing the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams. But access to the AP courses and exams has not been even across all demographic groups or in all schools, according to a new policy brief by Enlace Florida at the University of South Florida.

In Hillsborough schools, for instance, white students represented 48% of the student population in 2006 and constituted 62% of all AP test takers. At the same time, black students made up 21% of the student population yet were only 9% of all AP test takers.

At the school level, things looked even more uneven. Leto High enrolled nearly 1,200 Hispanic students, of whom just 85 took AP tests. Meanwhile, Plant High enrolled just 331 Hispanic students, of whom 97 took AP exams.

"The question our report simply presents is why it is that Plant H.S. with only a third of the Hispanic students in Leto H.S., can produce more Hispanic AP examinees?" researcher Paul Dosal wonders in a news release.

To read the full report, click here.

Whittling away the achievement gap

The rate at which minority students in Florida have taken Advanced Placement tests has risen rapidly over the past several years. The numbers, however, remain low in comparison to the overall total of students taking the college-level courses and exams. (Hey, it's pretty easy to get high percentage increases when the base is small - just 8,700 Florida minority students took AP tests in 1999, compared to about 26,000 white kids.) To boost participation even higher, lawmakers want the Florida Partnership for Minority and Underrepresented Student Achievement do more to identify and help teens get into the AP program and succeed. The Senate unanimously approved the bill (SB 108) this morning, and the House is to take up the identical lanugage (HB 403) this afternoon. Once participation rises enough, maybe someone will do something about the the success rates the students find on the AP exams. (Want to see how Florida students did on AP exams most recently? Click here for a report from the College Board.)

UPDATE: The House approved the identical bill unanimously Monday afternoon.

Today's news

LET'S MAKE A DEAL: Wayne Alexander gets a two-year contract worth about $153,000 annually to take over as Hernando County's new schools superintendent.

AP AUDIT: The explosion of Advanced Placement courses in Florida and across the country has college admission officers questioning whether the classes are all as rigorous as they are supposed to be. The College Board responds by conducting its first ever audit of AP classes.

SUING OVER MOONING: The family of the Pinellas County boy who got suspended and transferred for mooning a teacher has sued the school district. To read the full story, click here. To participate in the lively reader conversation about this, click here.

FAMU UPDATE: Summer school enrollment is on track despite all the hubbub, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.

FOCUS ON VOCATIONS: Call it career and technical education, call it multiple pathways, call it what you will, vocational classes are all the rage these days. And they're academically challenging, not like in the past. The debate is on over whether it's the right way to go, the LA Times reports.

MEET THE SUBSTITUTE: Arnold Blume is 81, and, after 29 years as a teacher, he has retired to a life of substitute teaching in New York. Check out this nice NY Times profile.

PITCHING FOR PROSPECTS: A growing D.C. suburb school district hones its marketing effort to attract teachers as it competes with surrounding districts in the shrinking pool of candidates, the Washington Post reports.

Today's news

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM: A casual encounter between two Largo teachers escalates into a heated spat that ends up going to the state and back before landing on the superintendent's desk. Superintendent Clayton Wilcox is not amused.

EVALUATING MAP: Citrus County schools came up with a workable teacher performance pay plan under STAR months ago. As leaders consider the plan that will replace STAR, they're not sure whether they will participate. Brevard schools wonder whether the new plan will really make a difference for the best teachers, Florida Today reports.

BIGGER DIGS: The popular Curtis Fundamental School in Dunedin is moving, a change that will allow the school to open 80 new seats.

WHAT LUNSFORD ACT? The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind allowed convicted felons to do construction work on the residential campus, the Associated Press reports. The school's president said the kids were OK.

TRACKING ALTERNATIVES: If there's a loophole in Florida's A-Plus plan, it's alternative schools, where kids go but accountability doesn't follow. The Palm Beach Post reports that some lawmakers are looking at ways to better track the progress that students make at these campuses.

IS IT REALLY AP? The College Board is requiring teachers to prove by June 1 that the courses they offer meet Advanced Placement standards, the Washington Post reports.

Winn watch

John Winn, Florida's recently retired education commissioner, has a new gig: Consulting for a national program that aims to prod more high school kids into taking AP tests in math and science, and, at the same time, encourage more college students to become math and science teachers. Winn told The Gradebook Wednesday that about the time he was retiring last month, he got a call from Tom Luce, a former high-ranking U.S. Department of Education official. Luce told Winn he had gotten a call from Exxon Mobil, which wanted to invest money in the production of more scientists and mathematicians, and that he had given the company a plan similar to the AP initiative in Florida, which is credited with making the Sunshine State tops in the country in the number of AP test takers. The company promptly offered up $150 million and the National Math and Science Initiative was born. Winn signed on as a consultant. "It was too perfect a match up," he said.

Winn resigned Feb. 28 after 31 months as commissioner and more than 20 years at the Department of Education. As Gov. Jeb Bush's choice for education czar, he became a lightning rod for Bush's tough accountability system. His new gig won't be controversy-free either. Among other things, Winn'll be pushing a program that offers both students and teachers financial incentives for participating in the AP program. Florida AP teachers have gotten the incentives for years, with little criticism. But in some Texas districts, which the new initiative is using as a model, students get incentives, too - $100 for scoring a 3 or higher. Supporters say the number of students taking and passing the tests has dramatically increased, but critics say dangling money in front of students is akin to offering students a bribe. Winn, a former middle school science teacher, said the bottom line is economic competitiveness - and the key role that better grounding in math and science plays in that. "Now that we've opened up more countries to capitalism, we have more competitors," he said. "The U.S. has got to get on the ball."

- Ron Matus