Behind the Gates money, a new ed reform strategy

TAMPA -- As we reported today and last August in the St. Petersburg Times, the Hillsborough County schools may be holding a $100 million lottery ticket from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

If it won, the district would use the money to revamp its teacher evaluation system; add a corps of 200 peer evaluators to help rate colleagues; bolster its teacher induction and mentoring system; and create a cutting-edge pay system that would allow high performing teachers to jump ahead on the salary scale.

So who are these Gates people, and what are they up to?

UF study finds 1 in 5 drinkers is underage

From UF, consistently ranked one of the nation's top party schools, comes this research nugget: As many as one in five alcohol-drinking bar patrons is underage, and those illegal drinkers tend to stay later at night.

UF researchers say the study is significant because it underscores the dangers of underage drinking, both to participants and to the wider public.

“It is helping to set a pattern of chronic bar drinking for the college years and possibly beyond,” said Dennis Thombs, a professor in UF’s department of behavioral science and community health, who led the research.

Researchers behind the new study, published in the June issue of the Journal of American College Health, obtained breath samples and interview data from bar-goers as they were leaving -- rather than relying on self-report surveys that ask sober students to recall their alcohol use in the past two weeks or 30 days, said Thombs, who led the research.

Florida students vs. the world

In math performance, Florida students are a step behind their peers in often-lauded Massachusetts, but a couple steps behind the kids in Hong Kong and Singapore, according to a recent report from the American Institutes for Research.

Using an international grading index that he created, an AIR researcher gives Florida’s fourth graders an “international grade” of C+ and an estimated mean score that’s just slightly above the mean for developed countries. Florida’s eighth graders, meanwhile, earn a C and a mean score that’s slightly below the mean for developed countries. In both cases, Florida’s grade is the same as what the researcher gives the U.S. as a whole.

No Child Left Behind not shortchanging bright kids, study finds

Or the most struggling kids either, says this morning’s report from the Center on Education Policy. CEP looked at test results in all 50 states between 2002 (the year No Child became law) and 2008, and found that more students are scoring at basic, proficient and advanced levels.

This is an important finding, because critics feared that No Child’s emphasis on proficiency would force states to practice educational triage and neglect the lowest- and highest-performing kids in an effort to get middle-of-the-road kids over the bar. It’s also important because the source, CEP, is an independent, left-of-center outfit that hasn’t pulled its punches when it comes to No Child’s flaws.

The CEP report also offers state-by-state findings. In Florida, it concludes after looking at FCAT data that students are making gains in math and reading at all levels, with one exception - the basic level in high school reading, where they’re registering a slight decline. The St. Petersburg Times noted some of those trends in a recent story about bright kids being bored.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Students in Florida charter schools lagging

On average, students in charter schools lag behind their peers in traditional public schools, and the black and Hispanic students among them perform even worse, according to a national report released today.

The findings were even harsher for Florida.

Many groups of charter students in Florida, a national leader in the charter school movement, perform "significantly worse" than their peers in other public schools, says the study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), an outfit many regard as pro-charter. Among them: Black students. Students scoring in the bottom 10 percent of their cohort. And students in the top 10 percent of their cohort.

"Despite promising results in a number of states and within certain subgroups, the overall findings of this report indicate a disturbing – and far-reaching – subset of poorly performing charter schools," the report says. "If the charter school movement is to flourish, or indeed to deliver on promises made by proponents, a deliberate and sustained effort to increase the proportion of high quality schools is essential."

No decline in music and arts classes, federal survey says

Could it be that persistent cries about narrowing curriculum (or at least persistent fears) are over blown?

The latest installment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the nation’s report card, makes you wonder. NAEP surveyed administrators as part of its 2008 arts and music assessment, which was given to a nationally representative sample of eighth graders.

According to results released this morning, 57 percent of administrators in 2008 said their students were getting music instruction at least three or four times a week, up from 43 percent in 1997, the last time the test and survey were administered. In the arts, 47 percent said their students were receiving instruction at that frequency, down from 52 percent in 1997.

The NAEP folks say those are not statistically significant changes. They also say there were no significant changes for students of different races.

As with other recent reports that looked at the narrowing curriculum issue, there is no state-by-state breakdown. Sigh.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter (Times file photo)

Hillsborough graduating a lot more than Pinellas

Besides highlighting Florida’s sad graduation rate, again, the latest “Diplomas Count” report also revived an enduring local mystery: Why, despite more challenging demographics, do Hillsborough schools seem to outperform Pinellas schools?

According to Education Week’s calculations, Hillsborough graduated 62.6 percent of its students in 2006, putting it No. 19 among the 50 biggest districts nationwide and No. 2 among the 10 biggest in Florida. Hillsborough, which has a greater percentage of poor and minority students than Pinellas, even made the newspaper’s “overachievers” list – a list of 33 school districts around the country that are performing far better than their demographics would lead many to expect. (See Page 10 of the overachievers list.)

Pinellas, on the other hand, graduated 50.3 percent in 2006, according to Education Week, good enough for No. 36 among the big boys nationally and next to last (ahead of Duval) among the Big 10 in Florida.

The most recent state data shows Pinellas narrowing the graduation gap with Hillsborough, but still 5.6 percentage points behind.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Florida's graduation rates look terrible, again (depending on whom you ask)

Another report on graduation rates. Another dunce cap for Florida. The latest "Diplomas Count" report from Education Week, released this morning, shows Florida with a 57.5 percent grad rate in 2006, ranking it 47th in the nation and far below the national average of 69.2 percent.

EdWeek's numbers are sharply at odds with Florida Department of Education figures, which show a 71 percent rate for 2006 (and a 75.4 percent rate for 2008).

Who's right? We don't know.

The highly regarded newspaper uses a formula and federal data (the most recent available was from 2006) to calculate estimated rates, while the Florida Department of Education uses a student tracking system that is widely considered one of the best in the country.

Report: Florida's minority and low-income students still lack education opportunities

Black, Hispanic and low-income students don't get the same education offered to them in Florida schools as their white, non-Hispanic peers, a new report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education says.

They have less access to a high-quality early education, highly qualified teachers, instructional materials and a college-prep high school curriculum, the group contends. Of the 50 states, Florida ranks 28th on the report's opportunities index. That's up from 31st a year ago.

“This serves as a wake-up call to Florida policymakers who falsely believe we are getting the job done in our classrooms,” Dr. John Jackson, president and CEO of the Schott Foundation, said in a news release:

“According to its own data, 43 percent of Florida’s minority and low-income students don’t have access to a moderately proficient public education system. After a decade of leaving no child behind, we are finding that an entire generation of Florida students is again all but forgotten.”

The group found that 84 percent of states overall fail to provide an equal learning opportunity to all students, using state data and NAEP information. At the bottom are Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia. Jackson argues that the only way to overcome the achievement gap is to first come to grips with the opportunity gap.

This year's challenge: to do that without dumbing down in an economy that finds public schools scrambling for money and searching for ways to cut spending. In other words, good luck.

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A critical take on teacher merit pay

If you want to keep up with the latest research on performance pay, pro and con, (and in Florida, it will continue to be a hot topic) check out this skeptical report released today by the Economic Policy Institute.

Contrary to assertions often made by supporters, EPI researchers say, merit pay is not widespread in the private sector, and is concentrated in the financial, insurance and real estate sectors.

“Policymakers should probably think twice before they transfer to education the pay system that has helped generate the global financial crisis,” writes EPI economist Joydeep Roy.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Was Miami miracle just an illusion?

The much-hyped Zone, which helped put Miami-Dade on the map as a district on the rise, was a dud. It did not have a consistent positive impact on reading, math, science or writing scores. And Miami-Dade would have been better off focusing on teacher quality. So suggests a copy of the final evaluation just obtained by the Gradebook.        

Previous evaluations looked at the first two years of the three-year project – the brainchild of former Miami-Dade superintendent Rudy Crew – and came to similar conclusions. But supporters continued to hope the changes Crew put in place, including a longer school day and a longer school year, would eventually gain traction. Apparently, by the time the project ended last year, they still had had not.

"The Zone program exhibited at best an inconsistent impact that was limited to the elementary grades," the final report says. "The primary reason for this was the practices and methods employed in the Zone were nearly identical to those used in the Reading First program at considerably reduced cost and with increased stakeholder satisfaction."

The other kids matter

A new study confirms what many parents already know and fear: If little Jimmy acts up at school, then their little Johnny may be more prone to acting up, too.

Kids exposed to domestic violence not only get in trouble more in school and perform worse academically, but their behavior rubs off on the other students in the class, conclude researchers who examined reams of data from Alachua County, Fla. (We wrote about their findings last fall when they were published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, but now that they're getting wider play in the latest edition of Education Next, it's worth another plug).

It's worse for boys. One troubled boy in a class of 20 increases the probability that another boy will get in hot water by 17 percent and lowers the other boys' test scores by 2 percentile points each year.

"Any policies or interventions that help improve the family environment of the most troubled students may have larger benefits that we have previously anticipated," the researchers write.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Another dismal conclusion about Florida dropouts

Well, shucks. Just when somebody says Florida isn’t Mississippi after all, somebody else brings up our pathetic graduation rates again.

The latest to do so: the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University and the Alternative Schools Network, which figures in this report released today that 423,529 young Floridians between the ages of 16 and 24 were high school dropouts in 2007.

That’s 20.1 percent of all folks in that age group. The national rate: 16 percent.

The report apparently doesn’t say whether the rates are improving. (We couldn’t locate it at the link above, but we’re told it should be up any minute.)

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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We’re not as bad as Mississippi?

Another national ranking finds Florida schools aren’t as bad as many people think. Save the Children’s first-ever School Success Index, released today, puts Florida at No. 26.

The index – designed to measure how well kids are prepared to succeed in school -- is based on preschool participation, fourth-grade reading scores, parental involvement in learning and home factors, including the percentage of kids raised by single parents.

The top five: Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. The bottom five: New Mexico, Nevada, Mississippi, Arizona and Alabama.

Of course, No. 26 hardly rocks, especially in the big picture. Save the Children also concluded the United States finishes behind 18 of 24 developed nations in early childhood development.

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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What schools can do to stem swine flu

Photo of preparations in Dallas, Texas, schools by Getty Images

Health Teacher, an online organization that focuses on helping schools teach children healthy habits, offers seven tips that schools can implement while bracing themselves for a possible swine flu outbreak.

The group, whose CEO Scott McQuigg grew up in Pinellas County, cautions not to panic and suggests that parents and schools can take steps now to greatly reduce the threat.

Its recommendations are:

• Encourage students to stay home if they are sick.
• Teach about personal hygiene.
• Remind students to cover their mouths if they cough and wash their hands regularly.
• Provide disposable tissue and hand-sanitizing gel.
• Clean all surfaces between groups of children.
• Consider alternative teaching methods if an outbreak occurs.
• Communicate with parents about good hygiene.

For more on what's happening in Tampa area schools, see this morning's story from the St. Petersburg Times.

Report: Make reading top priority in middle, high schools

To shake off academic stagnation in middle and high schools, states need to dramatically beef up the reading skills of middle and high school students and better train all teachers to help, says a report released this morning by the Southern Regional Education Board.

The report singles out Florida’s Just Read, Florida! Program for praise but also points to national test scores that show Florida’s middle schoolers perform below the national average in reading. The 25-member committee that shaped the report included two Floridians: Evan Lefsky, who directs Just Read, Florida! at the state Department of Education and former state Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter (Times file photo)

American kids doing better in reading, 'rithmetic

Maybe it's more accountability and standardized testing. Maybe it's smaller class sizes. Whatever the reason, test results released this morning show the nation's students are doing better in math and reading than they were four years ago.

Scores for 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds were up in both subjects, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), better known as the "nation's report card."

The NAEP long-term trend report, based on representative samples of students in those age groups, offered some hopeful signs for those worried about academic stagnation. Reading scores for 13-year-olds showed the biggest incremental jump since 1992 and tied for the biggest overall jump since NAEP began conducting the tests in 1971. Meanwhile, 17-year-olds made their biggest gains since 1984.

On the down side: The trend lines for 17-year-olds have been essentially flat for 37 years. And the trend lines for 9-year-olds appear to be petering out.

The long-term NAEP doesn't include state-by-state breakdowns, but you can read about Florida's gains here.

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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On second thought, I’ll have the apple

We know all those salty, fatty, school-lunch staples like pizza and french fries aren’t the best for kids. But some of the packaged lunches in-a-hurry parents buy at the grocery store aren’t any better, say dietitians with a group called the Cancer Project.

In a new report, it singles out the Lunchables Maxed Out Cracker Combo Ham and Cheddar, manufactured by Oscar Mayer, as the most unhealthy packaged lunchbox meal. It has 22 grams of fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol and 1,600 milligrams of sodium, which the group says is more salt than younger children should consume all day.

Rounding out the Top 5:

• Two other Lunchables
• Lunchboxers Pizza from Norwegian Jake’s
• Lunchmakers Bologna Cracker Crunchers

Most of these and other packaged lunch meals are chock-full of saturated fat and cholesterol, the Cancer Project said in a press release, and the only way to get significant fiber from them "would be to eat the box."

Ron Matus, state education reporter

(Image from Wal-Mart online catalog)

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Low-income kids losing out on arts education

There's good news and bad news in a new federal report on access to arts education.

Despite widespread fears that accountability systems are putting the kibosh on the arts, the vast majority of elementary school teachers say they're not seeing it – at least not during the three-year window the Government Accountability Office looked at (which happened to be before budget cuts in Florida and elsewhere forced districts to take out the long knives.)

But on the down side, teachers in high-poverty, high-minority schools were more likely to say the arts are being cut. Arts education officials pointed to budget cuts and competing demands on teaching time – in other words, more time getting struggling students caught up in reading and math.

The report does not offer a state-by-state breakdown. But a Florida legislative committee report from November 2007 found that student enrollment in arts courses has grown in grades 3-7 and dropped in grades 8-10.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter (Times file photo)

Never mind the economy, full speed ahead with accountability

Seeking answers for how to cope with Florida's financial crisis, the State Board of Education turned to some high-profile think tankers -- Paul Peterson of Harvard, Eric Hanushek of Stanford and Martin West of Brown -- for some insights.

The trio published a paper today in conjunction with their workshop conversation with the board. "Sustaining Progress in Times of Fiscal Crisis" suggests that Florida build upon its successful, low-cost programs that have driven success while identifying areas to cut that minimally impact education.

Among the key recommendations:

• Continue to administer the FCAT at all levels.
• Retain the school recognition program.
• Maintain Just Read, Florida!
• Streamline alternative certification programs for teachers.
• Continue funding for teacher merit pay (MAP).
• Limit the financial impact of class-size reduction.

"It is important to resist the temptation to eliminate new programs that promise to boost student achievement under the guise that such innovations must be sacrificed in order to protect jobs in the schools," the authors write. "Were that strategy taken, it would constitute a step backwards that is not in the interest of Florida's children."

Voucher supporters say Florida bolsters their case

Whether you like vouchers or not, you should know there is a growing body of research about them in Florida –- and that some researchers point to that research as proof that vouchers help public schools.

Greg Forster, a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, highlights 10 Florida voucher studies (and other studies from other states) in this new report. Among its findings:

"Contrary to the widespread claim that vouchers hurt public schools, (this report) finds that the empirical evidence consistently supports the conclusion that vouchers improve public schools. No empirical study has ever found that vouchers had a negative impact on public schools."

There’s plenty of back and forth on all this, of course. Last year, other researchers accused the Friedman Foundation of distorting the conclusions of one of those reports.

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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'You can't get more bang for the buck'

This very readable new policy paper on a longer school day reminded us of an issue we forgot to follow up on.

Last summer, David Simmons, R-Maitland, asked Gov. Crist to consider expanding a pilot project that lengthened the school day by an hour at four Central Florida schools – with dramatic results. Simmons estimated the program could be extended to every D and F school in the state for $33 million. To put that in perspective, that’s less than 3 percent of what’s proposed in new spending next year for the class-size amendment.

Alas, the idea is as dead as the 65 percent solution is alive. It's not in the governor's proposed budget. It's not on the Legislature's radar.

"It's a great idea, but it's simply not in the cards," Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, chair of the PreK-12 Policy Committee, told the Gradebook not long ago. The reason: In a tight budget year, we can't afford it.

We'll give Simmons, who also pushed unsuccessfully for more flexibility on the class-size amendment, the last word:

"I don't believe that we can afford not to do it. There is no doubt that if anyone wanted to pick the solution, the most effective way of improving the scores, the performance of children, adding an extra hour a day would do it. And the cost is inconsequential compared to the results and gains. You can't get more bang for the buck."

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Florida’s got work to do making diplomas count

It must be National Education Report Day. This morning it was a Fordham report. Now it’s the annual report from Achieve, which in essence looks at how far states are progressing in making high school diplomas more valuable.

How's Florida doing? Well … it's trying.

The Sunshine State expects to have high school standards aligned with the expectations of college and the workplace by 2010, the report notes. And it's aligning high school graduation requirements with college- and career-ready expectations, and developing college- and career-ready assessment systems.

Florida's hardly alone in being a work in progress. The state out front? Texas.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Of tortoises and hares and GEDs: The importance of a high school diploma

Students who take more than four years to earn a standard diploma do better "in every aspect of life" than high school dropouts or those who earn GEDs, and states should get more credit for getting those students to the finish line, says a national report released this morning.

The Better Late Than Never report, from the Center for Public Education, an arm of the National School Boards Association, says a study of outcomes eight years after graduation shows that those students don't do as well as students who finish on time. But they're significantly more likely than GED recipients to:

• Earn college degrees.
• Hold full-time jobs.
• Have health insurance.
• Be less likely to smoke.

Teach, teach, teach, that's all you ever do

As if budget cuts and salary freezes don't make Florida teachers mad enough, now comes a new national report on teacher development that says American teachers spend far more time teaching students than do their peers in other industrialized countries, and far less time planning, collaborating with colleagues and getting meaningful professional development.

U.S. teachers spend about 80 percent of their total working time teaching, says the report from the National Staff Development Council, compared to about 60 percent for teachers in the 30-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In South Korea, Japan and Singapore - countries often held up as education models – teachers only spend about 35 percent of their time teaching.

"The United States is squandering a significant opportunity to leverage improvements in teacher knowledge to improve school and student performance," former North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. writes in the report. "Other nations, our competitors, have made support for teachers and teacher learning a top priority with significant results. In these countries, students learn and achieve more. Teachers stay in the field longer and are more satisfied with their work."

The American Federation of Teachers quickly praised the report. In a news release, AFT president Randi Weingarten said:

"Recently, some policymakers have proposed so-called teacher quality reforms that, perversely, would make the teaching profession less attractive, undermine teacher morale and collaboration, and do nothing to help teachers teach and students learn. This report points to a better way forward, and we hope policymakers embrace the research-based measures described in this report, which have proven successful in other nations."

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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On this report card, Florida ranks 36th

Here's a national report card, out today, that just about everyone in Florida can be annoyed with.

The American Legislative Exchange Council says Florida schools aren't much to crow about, highlighting sad graduation rates and pitiful ACT scores. (Go to Page 20 for the Florida summary, which also shows the state's rank is almost back to its 1998 level after having fallen as low as 45th in 2003).

But don't blame Florida's low mark on a lack of money, insists the council, which is big on school choice. Says the report's author: "The Report Card on American Education clearly shows there is no correlation between educational dollars spent and student achievement in our traditional public school system."

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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So Education Week's Quality Counts report isn't about education quality?

News that Florida stacks up pretty well against other states in the most recent Quality Counts report is rubbing some people the wrong way.

In this recent issue brief, "We're No. 10? Not So Fast," the Florida Center for Fiscal & Economic Policy says Education Week didn't say Florida was 10th best in the nation (which is technically, hair-splittingly true, but in terms of overall point score, Florida did in fact come in at No. 10) and "furthermore, a definitive grade of 'education quality' is impossible to determine anyway."

"While it's tempting to adopt the shorthand phrase, "education quality," to explain the Education Week report, its use confuses and masks problems in Florida education. Such shorthand allows some to maintain, as they did during the legislative session to excuse education budget cuts, that Florida's education system is achieving high quality regardless of funding levels."

FCFEP's 9-member board of directors includes Marshall Ogletree, lobbyist for the Florida teachers union; Dawn Steward, legislative chairperson for the Florida PTA; and Keith Baker, former senior vice president and chief operating officer of Florida Taxwatch Research Institute.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Report: Brain functions different in low-income kids

If Florida teachers and schools knew some of their students had what amounts to brain damage, would they change what they do?

In a finding that hasn't gotten nearly enough media attention, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, recently discovered big differences in certain brain functions between low-income 9- and 10-year-olds and their more affluent peers.

The poor kids showed a lower response in the part of the brain that's key to solving problems and regulating impulses – so much so that one of the scientists likened their brain activity to that of adults with brain damage.

"This is a wake-up call," said Robert Knight, director of Berkeley's neuroscience institute.

Report: Schools hurting disabled students

Five Florida cases are listed in a new report that has drawn congressional attention to the issue of restraint or seclusion of disabled students. The report, "School is Not Supposed to Hurt," was released by the National Disability Rights Network last week and immediately prompted U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, to announce that he would schedule a hearing on the issue.

The report says improper restraint and seclusion has led to injury, trauma and in some cases, death to children with disabilities. "Furthermore, because there is no mandated system in place to report or collect data on these abuses, this report is clearly just the tip of the iceberg," says a statement from NDRN executive director Curtis Decker.

The Florida cases include a 12-year-old girl with autism who was reportedly forced to the ground and held there 44 times during the 2006-07 school year when she "repeated names of movies, shoved papers off her desk or waved her arms and kicked her legs toward approaching teachers." The report does not indicate where this incident or the other four occurred.

The network says states should immediately ban the use of prone restraint and seclusion in schools, and beef up teacher training to "eliminate unintentional tragedies."

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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Do you have greenest school?

So you say your school is environmentally friendly. But how does it stack up nationally?

IC Bus is sponsoring an essay contest to find America's Greenest School, with a $200,000 hybrid bus and $3,000 in school supplies for the winner. Plus, the student that submits the winning entry could get a $5,000 scholarship, too.

Submissions should be 500 words or less, focusing on how your school is committed to going green. Start thinking about it: Have a paperless classroom? Keep the lights off when the sun shines bright enough? Make some notes and send in your nomination. (You must be at least 13 to participate.)

Check out all the rules on the contest site, be sure to meet the April 30 deadline, and let us know if you decide to nominate your school (and why). Good luck.

[Times photo by Ron Thompson]

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Revenge is all right

Remember the Lakeland girls who viciously beat up their friend, and put it all on tape, because she was supposedly posting nasty messages about them on the Internet? A new survey about kids and violence offers some context.

More than 1 in 4 teens think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable – which is more than think cheating is bad (19 percent) or plagiarizing (10 percent), according to the poll sponsored by Junior Achievement. More than 1 in 3 said violence was acceptable for revenge.

Revenge, real and alleged, cropped up recently in a couple of Tampa Bay school stories. Recall the story of a 15-year-old girl at Dixie Hollins High who accused an 18-year-old football player of sexually assaulting her on a school bus. And the tale of the father of Cedric Mills, the slain football player from Jefferson High in Tampa.

One blog responder wrote this about the latter: "Good for him. He needed to beat the kid within an inch of his life."

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Ruling on charter school commission key this year

We knew right away that the appellate court ruling finding the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission unconstitutional would reverberate nationally. But who knew it would rankle the advocates of shaking up the traditional education system so much?

First, and not unexpectedly, the pro-charter Center for Education Reform blasted the decision. Now the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene counts the ruling among his five most important developments that hindered education reform during 2008.

Greene writes, in part:

"It's like giving McDonald's the exclusive power to approve the opening of all new restaurants. The state Supreme Court used the same narrow interpretation of clauses in the state Constitution to strike down the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program, so the prospects for a vibrant and competitive charter sector in Florida are not good."

Check out Greene's full list, and feel free to add your 2 cents here on the FSE ruling, or any other issue he addresses, afterward.

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How polluted is your school?

You know -- just know -- that the chemicals polluting your kids' school are toxic. Why else does everyone get sick all the time, right?

Proving it, though, is quite another matter.

USA Today might have some help. The paper has just published its special report, The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools. Using an EPA model, USA Today has tracked the path of industrial pollution and mapped the locations of thousands of schools to determine the toxicity levels outside them.

The site is searchable by state, county and even school name. Check it out for the stories, or just to see how your school rates. The worst ranked in our area? Tampa Marine Institute and the Orient Road Jail juvenile justice program.

The worst in Florida? Hale Academy in Ocala, which according to the report has better air quality than just 10 schools in the country.

(Times file photo, 2005)

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Local schools make 'US News' list

Love them or hate them, everyone seems to enjoy looking and and picking apart lists that rank schools. So here's another one for your consideration.

US News and World Report has just posted its 2009 America's Best High Schools edition, evaluating more than 21,000 schools and giving one of four ratings - gold, silver, bronze or honorable mention - to about 1,900 of them.

Three Tampa Bay area schools made the list: Palm Harbor University High and Tampa Bay Tech received silver recognition, and Robinson High got a bronze.

Fifty Florida high schools were included in the group, including nine that were rated gold, with the highest rated being Design and Architectural Senior High in Miami (No. 5).

The ratings are based on several factors, including the success of students in all demographic groups and the level of college readiness that students demonstrated. Are these really the best? Who knows. For some teens, probably yes. For others, maybe not.

But like we said, lists are just the starting point for a conversation. Have yours about America's Best High Schools here.

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Joyner named superintendent of the year

St. Johns superintendent Joseph Joyner today won top honors as 2009 Florida school superintendent of the year during the Florida Association of District School Superintendents annual conference in Tampa.

In announcing the award, FADDS executive director Bill Montford called Joyner an "outstanding educator" and "a good man."

"He's not only a good administrator and leader, but he's also a role model for us," Montford said. See also the group's press release.

In brief remarks, a humbled Joyner thanked his family and School Board for their support in making him successful. Visit the Gradebook on Saturday for an interview with Joseph Joyner.

Kids and drugs

Drug use among Florida kids continues to decline in most categories, but rates for prescription drug abuse remain largely unfazed, according to this survey released today by Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp.

On the up side: Cigarette smoking by middle and high school students is down by half since 2000, and binge drinking is down by 4 percent.

On the down side: 4.5 percent of high school seniors reported abusing prescription pain relievers in the past 30 days, and 3.8 percent said they abused prescription depressants. Also, 4.9 percent of middle school students said they used over-the-counter drugs to get high, a higher rate than for any illegal drug except marijuana.

For county results, click here for Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando.

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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Forget about it

School is so focused on cramming kids' heads full of information that we often lose sight of one important fact -- forgetting is just as important as remembering.

This Wall Street Journal story points out that if we want our minds to adapt and learn efficiently, we need to let some things go.

"We focus so much on memory that forgetting has been maligned," Gayatri Devi, a neuro-psychiatrist and memory expert in New York City, told the Journal. "But if you didn't forget, you'd recall all kinds of extraneous information from your life that would drown you in a sea of inefficiency."

Not to belabor the point, but when was the last time we needed to expand upon the symbolic meaning of color blue in The Great Gatsby or calculate vector equations? Just a thought for a day when most kids are out of school and, presumably, not studying.

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Want better teachers? Evaluate them better

Given that teacher quality may finally be clawing its way onto the radar in Florida, we thought we'd pass on this recent opinion piece in Education Week.

Julie Sweetland at the Center for Inspired Teaching says the "drive-by" teacher evaluations that some of us see so often in personnel files are "a tedious chore that neither administrators nor teaches enjoy, value, or trust."

Sweetland argues instead for a more sophisticated, more expensive and probably more time-consuming system where trained observers look for the signs of good teaching. Along the way, she touches on an issue raised in this recent St. Petersburg Times story about measuring teacher quality by FCAT scores alone.

"The glaring inadequacies in low-stakes, low-quality administrator evaluations are one factor that has added to the popularity of using student test scores as a more reliable alternative," Sweetland writes. "It's unclear, however, that replacing quick-and-dirty classroom observations with quick-and-dirty test scores represents progress toward the goal of collecting reliable data that would help all concerned recognize and foster excellent teaching."

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Where students skip, teachers skip?

The national report that prompted this story in today's St. Petersburg Times also mentioned this fact: Teachers are more likely to have higher rates of absences in schools where students have higher rates of absences.

"This makes sense if student attendance is thought of as a barometer of teachers' working conditions," the report says. "It also makes sense in that the student absence rate is standing in for an indicator of school poverty."

But here's a question that gives researchers pause: Are teachers in high-poverty schools more likely to be absent because the job is more stressful? Or could it be, because of the way some districts shuffle around sub-par teachers, that high-poverty schools have more teachers who aren't as motivated as most of their peers?

'It is vital that we succeed'

The next president of the United States should support national education standards, differential and performance pay for teachers, increased funding for public schools and a major revamp No Child Left Behind, according to this open letter from the Council of the Great City Schools.

The letter is signed by Hillsborough School Board member Candy Olson (left), Hillsborough superintendent MaryEllen Elia and top officials at 65 other districts nationwide.

"Too often, our schools have reflected –- even perpetuated -– some of the problems that we face, rather than overcoming them and teaching all our children to the highest standards," the letter says. "Turning this situation around so that public schools are the engine of problem solving rather than being viewed as the problem itself is one of our highest priorities as urban school leaders."

The letter goes on to list 11 ways the next president can help. The topper is "Setting a positive tone":

"We deserve to be criticized when we fail and acknowledged when we improve. But the gratuitous denigration of urban education is neither motivating nor effective, and it sends destructive messages to the community about issues of race and class that are inaccurate and counterproductive."

The council includes six of the seven largest districts in Florida. Only Pinellas is not a member.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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New study finds nearly nine in 10 LGBT students experience harassment

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, today released the most comprehensive report ever on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

The survey of 6,209 middle and high school students from all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that nearly nine in 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, and about a third skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

McGraw-Hill dominates

When the Florida Department of Education adopted its new elementary reading standards, it gave school districts their choice of new reading textbooks.

It turns out that one option proved most popular.

McGraw-Hill Education announced that it has snared 70 percent of the market with its Treasures and Imagine It! series.

We've heard a lot of teachers say the books offer research-based lessons and help them better organize their reading plans. But we've also heard word that getting up to speed with the new books is driving teachers nuts.

Any thoughts on the new reading series, folks?

When daddy hurts mommy, the whole class suffers

Everybody knows there's a strong link between the baggage kids bring from home and how well they do in school. But a couple of economics professors have attempted to measure one of those baggage variables – exposure to domestic violence – by cross-referencing court records and student test data in Alachua County, Fla.

Their finding, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research: Not only did the students exposed to domestic violence struggle more on standardized tests (about 4 percentile points lower, on average), but so did their classmates.

The numbers were especially striking for boys.

Other boys in a troubled boy's class scored nearly two percentile points lower on standardized tests, the researchers found, and were 17 percent more likely to be disciplined for bad behavior.

The findings "suggest that policies that change a child's exposure to classmates from troubled families will have important consequences for his or her education outcomes," wrote Scott Carrell at the University of California, Davis, and Mark Hoekstra at the University of Pittsburgh.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

No wonder they're flunking the FCAT

As if grade inflation weren't bad enough.

Fully 43 percent of parents say they've done their kids' homework, according to a new national survey. And dads are either bigger suckers or more honest about it: 47 percent of them admitted it, while 39 percent of mothers did.

The survey by Ask.com and Kelton Research also found age and regional differences. Thirty-three percent of parents 18 to 24 say they've done their kids' homework, compared to 45 percent of parents 25 to 44. And in the South, 52 percent of parents say they did, compared to 36 percent nationally.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

On voters and education

Americans list education as one of the most important issues they want their leaders to address, but right now they consider gas prices and the economy more important, according to a new poll by the Public Education Network. Just two years ago, education ranked as the most important issue in a similar poll by the group.

Among the other findings:

• 48 percent of those polled said education was "very important" or "one of the most important" factors in their vote for president, yet 60 percent said they were not hearing enough from candidates about the issue.
• On a scale of zero to five, Americans rated how well their communities supported schools. They gave their communities decent marks for having active parents (3.4) and providing equal educational opportunities across all genders and races (3.9). But civic organizations and office holders got the lowest marks, with 2.8 and 3.0 respectively.
• Only 26 percent said their local schools have improved. One-third said their schools had declined and 36 percent said they had stayed the same. "Americans are waiting for change," the group concluded. "They have not seen it, and they want to see more."

The results were based on a national phone survey of 1,200 adults in May. The Public Education Network is a national association of local education advocacy groups.

A closer look at a longer school day

Maybe one day we'll get to write about a public school around here trying it. In the meantime, we'll just keep writing about how other schools do it. By "it" we mean lengthening the school day and school year in the hopes of boosting performance for poor and minority kids.

The Center for American Progress, a D.C. think tank, found more than 300 examples of "expanded learning time" in 30 states, including schools in Miami-Dade and Volusia counties in Florida, according to this recent report. Charter schools are leading the way, it said.

The St. Petersburg Times took a closer look at this issue in April, by focusing on Academy Prep, a private school.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Trouble with numbers

By some calculations, Florida's high school graduation rate is worst in the country, near 55 percent. By the state's own math, it's a stronger 70 percent.

It's enough to make you wonder who's doing it right.

The LeRoy Collins Institute at Florida State University is asking that question, and calling for greater transparency in the method behind how the state determines its graduation rate. The institute recently issued a white paper on the topic.

"For those wishing to use graduation rates as measures of school performance, the variance is troubling," Carol Weissert, director of the LeRoy Collins Institute, said in a news release. "We know that Florida's definition of graduation contributes to these differences, but it is not possible to analyze the exact impact since the numbers of these special diplomas and other details of the graduation rate computation are not readily available."

When in doubt, pray

A new University of Florida study indicates that teens who consider themselves very religious are more likely to finish college than those who don't.

But no one can say why.

"For most religious communities represented in our study, there is a strong correlation between religiosity and degree attainment," Ana Puig, research director and affiliate faculty member in counselor education at UF's College of Education, said in a news release. "However, correlation does not mean causality."

The effect was most prominent among Muslim students, but found to be non-existent in religious groups that generally have high education attainment anyway, such as Jewish, Episcopalian and "Eastern religion" students.

The point? "Students and parents are saying that religion is an important part of their academic lives, and we need to listen to that," researcher Mary Ann Clark said.

How's this for depressing news

The National Commission on Adult Literacy brings you this nugget of gloomy news to start your day: Nearly 90 million adults in the United States aren't prepared for jobs in the global economy or for jobs that pay well enough to support their families, according to a report the group is releasing today.

More specifically, 18 million don't have high school diplomas, 18 million aren't proficient in English and 51 million haven't gone to college. Meanwhile, 40 percent of the new jobs in the next decade will  require "middle skills" – meaning more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree.

Among other changes, the group says part of the solution is a total revamp and massive expansion of adult education. The report "should serve as a wake-up call for those who do not see a lack of basic skills, education and job readiness as a major problem and a barrier to our economic success," U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, said in a press release.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Pinellas gets low marks for grad rates

Pinellas County has one of the worst graduation rates among the 50 biggest school districts in the country, according to a national study released this morning. Its rate for the 2004-05 school year was 55.5 percent, putting it at 15th from the bottom, concluded the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which is affiliated with Education Week magazine.

Detroit topped the worst list, with a 37.5 percent graduation rate, followed by Milwaukee, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Clark County, Nev. Hillsborough County came in at No. 32 with a rate of 67.1 percent.

Florida had a 60.8 percent rate that year (the most recent year for which national data was available), putting it at No. 44 among states behind Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. The national average was 70.6 percent.

The research center uses its own formula to calculate grad rates for its annual Diplomas Count report, and its numbers are at odds with the state Department of Education. According to DOE, Florida had a 71.9 percent rate in 2004-05 and Pinellas had a 70.1 percent rate.

For the first time this year, the research center broke down grad rates by congressional district. In Florida, the district represented by U.S. Rep. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, had the second-worst rate, at 51.0 percent. Only the district of U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, was worse, at 50.8 percent.

To see the entire Diploma Counts report, click here. To go straight to the Florida section, click here. By coincidence, today's St. Petersburg Times listed graduation rates for each of Pinellas€' 16 high schools. To see them, click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter; Times photo/Dirk Shadd