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

Breaking up is hard to do

Florida has some of the biggest school districts in the country. Just think about it. Our state has 14 districts that serve 50,000 students or more. That's 21 percent of the 67 counties. Nationally, just 84 districts, or 1 percent, are that large.

In some of the biggest ones, including Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, talk has come up from time to time that not every community gets equal treatment in such a widespread system. It was not too long ago that Temple Terrace leaders looked into seceding from the Hillsborough district to form their own city school system. (They backed down after conversations with Hillsborough leaders.) Over in Broward County, the city of Pembroke Pines has created its own charter district to serve its residents.

Every once in a while, state lawmakers have explored the idea of allowing the state's largest districts to separate. The concept didn't come up this past session, but it did in 2006 and 2007. Now comes the Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability with a report stating that the idea - though doable - poses complex legal, financial and educational challenges:

While research has not found that there is an optimum student population size for public school districts, several states including California, Hawaii, and Utah have made efforts to reorganize their large school districts. However, only Utah is currently pursuing school district division. If the Legislature were to pursue a policy allowing large Florida school districts to divide, constitutional and boundary issues would need to be resolved. In addition, several financial, legal, and other areas would need to be addressed, some of which may be particularly complex.

Reconsider the rating system

Florida's prekindergarten advocates have repeatedly called for the state to revise the way it rates the state's Voluntary Pre-K providers, suggesting the existing method doesn't take into account student gains and could penalize schools that serve low-income and minority students who improve vastly but started with no appreciable skills at all.

They might have found an unlikely ally in the Legislature's own auditing wing, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, or OPPAGA. In a recently released analysis, OPPAGA recommends that the state change its pre-k accountability process to be more fair to the schools that serve at-risk children.

Maybe this is why test scores are up

Florida kids aren't getting drunk and stoned as much as they used to, according to 2007 survey results released this morning by Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp. Since 2000, alcohol use has dropped from 34.3 percent to 31.2 percent. Cigarettes are now at 8.5 percent; marijuana at 11 percent; and over-the-counter drug abuse at 4 percent. See the full report here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Florida kids are writing better

Florida students have progressed to the middle of the national pack in writing, according to 2007 scores released this morning from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as "the nation's report card."

Eighty-eight percent of Florida eighth-graders scored at the basic level or above on the writing test, which is right at the national average and 10 percentage points higher than in 1998. Only two states, Delaware and Louisiana, have made bigger gains over that period.

A nationally representative sample of 165,000 eighth- and twelfth-graders took the NAEP writing test last year, but state results were not available for twelfth graders. Many experts consider NAEP (pronounced "nape") to be the gold standard for measuring learning.

Nationally, the number of eighth graders writing at basic or above has moved from 83 percent to 87 percent since 1998. Among twelfth graders, the numbers have bounced from 78 percent in 1998 to 74 percent in 2002 to 82 percent in 2007.

On technology, give Florida a B

When it comes to technology in schools, Florida rates above the national average, according to the newly released Education Week report Technology Counts. Along with North Dakota, the state gets a B grade, putting it tied for fourth in the ranking. Only West Virginia received an A. (To see the rankings, click here.)

The report also breaks out each state.

On access, Florida gets a B-minus, compared to the national average of C. On use, Florida gets its best mark, an A-minus, while the national average is a B-minus. And on the capacity to use technology - that's looking at state policies - the state earns a B, compared to the national average of a C.

Notably, Florida schools offer slightly higher access to computers for fourth-graders (97 percent) than the average (95 percent), but it falls off when it comes to eighth grade (81 percent with access compared to 83 percent).

Florida also has fewer students per computer than the national average. To see the Florida pages, click here. (Photo from Pinellas School District)

Kids need less math

You didn't read that wrong.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel, convened by President Bush to find out why U.S. kids can't match their international peers in math, has determined that a big problem is that we try to cram too much material into the curriculum each year.

As USA Today reports, the group recommends that schools narrow the curriculum to focus each grade level on a smaller set of critical skills, learning them in-depth, through the eighth grade. The panel sets forth a plan for a "focused, coherent progression" of skills, leading to an "authentic algebra" course for many eighth-graders.

"There is a problem of kids not feeling like they're getting anywhere, that third-grade math is the same as fourth-grade math," panel chairman Larry Faulkner, president emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin, told USA Today.

The full report is due out today. For more, see this NY Times story.

Latin America? Where's that?

Influential education guru William Daggett likes to ask his audiences: Why do so many of our kids learn to speak French instead of Chinese when China is a rising global powerhouse? Answer: Because we have so many French teachers. His point: Schools can be grossly detached from reality.

ENLACE Florida (Engaging Latino Communities for Education) raises a similar question in a just-released report. Florida's ties to Latin America go back centuries; our K-12 students are about 25 percent Hispanic; and 60 percent of our exports go to Latin America and the Caribbean. And yet how many of our 2.7 million students take courses on Latin America and the Caribbean? A whopping 0.6 percent.

"The first question educators should ask when developing a curriculum designed to prepare students to compete in the global economy should be: who are we trading with?" said Dr. Paul, executive director for ENLACE Florida, which is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and based at the University of South Florida.

It's no secret why ENLACE is making this point now: The Department of Education is in the process of revising Florida's social studies standards, which currently cover Latin America and the Caribbean about as well as the old science standards covered evolution.

"The history of our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean receives no more than a cursory examination in World History," the report notes. And "students completing the sequence of U.S. and World History will have a strong foundation on which to build their studies, but they could leave our high schools knowing little about Brazil or the Cuban Revolution, not to mention the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)."

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

The Civil what?

Fewer than half of the 1,200 17-year-olds surveyed by a group called Common Core in January knew when the United States fought its Civil War, and about a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler. Their knowledge of literature looked even worse, with 4 in 10 unable to pick the name of Ralph Ellison's historic novel The Invisible Man, and half not knowing the basics of the biblical story of Job, as the NY Times reports.

The survey's sponsors, who include education professor Diane Ravitch and teachers union vice president Antonia Cortese, suggest that the results point to the damage that high stakes testing is doing to education by focusing the curriculum too narrowly.

"The nation's education system has become obsessed with testing and basic skills because of the requirements of federal law, and that is not healthy," Ms. Cortese and Dr. Ravitch said to the Times.

We've heard such complaints before here in Florida. But recall the results as you think about this. Music educators said their lessons were getting left out of the FCAT equation, and their compromise was to request another test for music, which they got. Can't you just see more rather than less testing emerge from here? Social studies FCAT is already on the way.

Who doesn't like the FCAT?

Sure, 44 percent of respondents to a Times poll said they believe the FCAT has hurt Florida's education system. But did you know more women feel that way than men do? Or that non-white respondents were more likely to say the FCAT has helped than hurt?

The poll article and accompanying chart (click on it to see the full-size version) give just a snapshot of what we learned. Even we newspaper reporters get only so much ink to tell a story.

But we want to offer more. So if you're interested in the full poll results for the questions underlying today's news, you can download them here.

What makes a teacher effective?

You'd like to know, wouldn't you? So, too, would some researchers at Florida State University. And they've got more than $1-million in grants to help them find out.

Economics professor Tim Sass and education assistant professor Stacey Rutledge are looking at such factors as teacher training, principal assessments and high-stakes testing to compile a statistical, objective look at exactly what goes into good teaching.

They plan to issue a report, as well as create a web site to help educators across the country develop conditions that make educators more effective.

"We have a federal policy - the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 -  that says all teachers need to be highly qualified, but sets narrow criteria for what constitutes effectiveness: a bachelor’s degree, certification, and having passed a content knowledge assessment," Rutledge said in a news release. "So this really is an attempt to identify a broader set of criteria for defining effectiveness."

Community colleges failed to accept credits

We're heard the complaints from the private, for-profit schools before: Florida's community college system didn't give their students who wanted to transfer in the appropriate credit for courses they already took. The Legislature's accountability agency has issued a report bolstering those claims.

The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability found in a sample that community colleges did not award appropriate credit for 29 percent of the 573 courses that were eligible to transfer.

At the same time, the agency found that 84 percent of the courses where credit transfers were requested did not meet eligibility requirements. The main reason: most were not included in the state's course numbering system.

Community college policies, practices and errors only served to compound the problem, the report stated. As a result, "students may be required to take additional courses or retake eligible courses they have already completed, thereby delaying and potentially deterring their educational progress."

Lawmakers have tried to address these problems by requiring updated lists of courses and the appropriate credit transfers. The listing is due out by July.

Maybe we’re not so Flori-duh after all

The Gradebook has used that line before, but in light of this morning's news it seemed the only fitting refrain. For the second year in a row, the Quality Counts report, put out by the highly regarded magazine Education Week, finds that despite a widespread perception that Florida is scraping bottom academically, its schools may actually have a lot to cheer about.

In fact, the report finds, Florida is among the leading states in:

• improving student test scores in reading and math
• increasing the number of students passing Advanced Placement tests
• closing the achievement gap between poor and non-poor kids
• improving its high school graduation rate

Overall, Education Week gives Florida a C+, which is higher than the national average of C. Point-wise, Florida scored 79.2 on a scale of 1 to 100, putting it No. 14 nationally, just behind Vermont.

The magazine's grading formula includes a long list of factors, including student achievement, standards and accountability and school funding. On the student factors, it considered not only where Florida stands relative to other states, but how much it has improved in recent years.

On grad rates, for example, Education Week determined Florida had a rate of 60.5 percent in 2004, putting it 45th nationally. But the magazine also found that that rate -– while still pathetic -– had grown 10.6 percentage points since 2000. In terms of improving its grad rate, then, Florida ranked second only to Tennessee.

Florida fared worst in school funding. Education Week ranked the state in the bottom quartile in per-student spending; in the percentage of state money spent on schools; and in the gap between local property wealth and district funding. To see the full report, click here. And read more about it in tomorrow's St. Petersburg Times.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

Math + science + American kids = Oh no

The latest results are in from the Programme for International Student Assessment test and, guess what? American kids didn't do so hot, again. Among the 30 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that were tested (mostly industrialized countries in Europe), 15-year-olds in the U.S. finished 25th in math and 21st in science. (To see how they did in detail, if you can bear it, click here.)

The results "reaffirm that America’s education system is in crisis," Roy Romer, the former Colorado governor and current Los Angeles superintendent, said in a press release. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings called them "disappointing" and then tried to use them to shore up No Child: "It speaks to what President Bush has long been advocating for," she said in a written statement. "More rigor in our nation's high schools; additional resources for advanced courses to prepare students for college-level studies; and stronger math and science education."

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Not so hot in science

U.S. high school students were outperformed by their peers in a majority of the world's industrialized nations on a test that measures their science skills, Education Week reports.

The results weren't supposed to be out yet. But they got reported in Spain, so now they've been released here, too. The Americans ranked lower than students in 16 other countries, including Finland, Canada, Japan, the Czech Republic and Ireland.

The numbers likely will fuel the fire among leaders in Florida and elsewhere who have clamored for upgrades in math and science curriculum. Perhaps rightly so. But we'd like to point out just one thing: At least the Americans didn't muck up the science test so badly that they couldn't use the results at all.

That would be the reading section of the international test, for which the US results had to be thrown out because of a printing error.

Dubious distinction

School bus-related fatalities reached a six-year high in Florida last year, and this year looks no better. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the state is on its way to a third straight year leading the nation in bus-related fatals.

Experts speculate that Florida's rate is so high because of its large school districts, which can keep buses on the road longer than in more compact districts in other states.

If there's a silver lining, the pros also say that the accidents usually are not the bus drivers' fault. And generally speaking, buses remain the safest mode of travel for schoolchildren, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Don't read this for pleasure

Maybe, like, it's only because we're in the newspaper business, but, like, we find ourselves especially prone to visions of the Apocalypse when we read studies that document, like, the decline in the number of kids engaged in, like, real reading. The latest: A National Endowment for the Arts report released this week. There are so many signs of a doomed planet in this thing, we don't know where to begin.

But how about this: In 1984, 31 percent of 17-year-olds read almost every day for fun; in 2004, only 22 percent did. Or this: A 2005 survey found 65 percent of college freshmen read little or nothing for pleasure. Game over, man! Game over! Okay, to be fair (and maybe to be charitable, since it's Thanksgiving weekend), there are all kinds of complicating factors to consider, like how we all read differently than we used to (for instance, like how all of you are reading this blog instead of curling up with Harry Crews's "Scar Lover" or Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God.") For nuance, check out this Washington Post story here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter; Times photo, Bill Serne

The (non) effect of uniforms

When pushing to impose uniforms on school children, proponents often argue that a strict dress code will cure so many education and social ills. Kids will focus on the curriculum rather than the latest styles, they say. Fights will decline if no one has more expensive shoes to show off.

Well, maybe not.

A new report coming out of the Orange County school district shows that uniforms do not lead to improved student academic performance or reduced disciplinary problems, the Orlando Sentinel education blog reports. It includes a link to a Power Point version of the report.

Using Florida Department of Education academic and discipline statistics, the district compared Polk County (which has district-wide uniforms) and Orange (which lets schools adopt uniforms if they want) and found that Orange generally has better results than Polk. On the plus side, if allowed to voluntarily adopt uniforms, the district stated, that could lead to improved pride and spirit. Woo.

The study was done at the request of Florida lawmakers. Maybe it will keep them out of the clothing mandate business, and let them stay focused on other things like improving the FCAT instead.

Segregation and school lunches

Let's admit it: Even in statistically integrated schools, kids of different racial, ethnic and income backgrounds tend to congregate with each other, especially in the lunchroom. In an effort to do a little something about that, more than two dozen schools in the Tampa Bay area will be among 10,000 nationwide that are participating tomorrow in something called Mix It Up At Lunch Day.

Sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the event is an effort to get kids to step outside of their racial, ethnic and other cliques – and learn from what they find. In the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that will push more schools towards re-segregation, the social implications are worth a little more consideration, no?

In Pinellas, Dixie Hollins High is likely to go from very diverse (25 percent black) to not-so-diverse (less than 5 percent black, according to one district projection) in coming years. "Our kids would miss the diversity," said Deb Fabrizio, an assistant principal at Dixie. "Something would be lacking in their everyday interactions."

On the other hand, if the social positives of integrated schools are so obvious, why is there a need for Mix It Up At Lunch Day?

- Ron Matus and Donna Winchester, Times staff writers
(Times file photo, Land O'Lakes High School, 1998)

Florida lagging on principal prep

A new report out this morning suggests Florida isn't doing enough to produce and prepare top-notch principals. In recent years Florida has only made progress on three of six key indicators, according to the Southern Regional Education Board, which tracks education issues in Florida and 15 other states.

Florida, for example, has made little progress in providing principals with solid internship and mentoring opportunities, the report says. On the upside, the Sunshine State is credited with good progress in providing training and support for principals in low-performing schools. Its William Cecil Golden Program for School Leaders is also dubbed a regional pacesetter.

Not that this is a good excuse, but Florida isn't alone in getting a critical review from SREB. Only Alabama, Louisiana and Maryland have made "promising" progress and no state has made "substantial" progress, the report says. To see it in full, click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Passing out the Pill

A recent story out of Maine, where a middle school planned to hand out birth control to students, sparked shock and dismay. The story ran in papers across the country.

Now comes the survey that shows most people aren't so opposed as you might think.

The Associated Press reports this morning that 67 percent of 1,004 people interviewed support giving contraceptives to students in schools. 62 percent said they believed doing so would reduce teen pregnancy.

"Kids are kids," said Danielle Kessenger, 39, a mother of three young children from Jacksonville, Fla., who supports providing contraceptives to those who request them. "I was a teenager once and parents don't know everything, though we think we do."

Too much testing, too much dead weight

The overwhelming majority of rookie teachers in a nationwide sample of high-needs schools say too much testing is a drawback to teaching, according to a new survey released today. Probably not a surprise there.

But the vast majority also say that "making it easier to fire unmotivated or incompetent teachers would improve the profession." Surprised?

The survey was conducted by Public Agenda, commissioner by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and funded by the U.S. Department of Education. To see the results, click here and go to page 89.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Dirt poor, and getting poorer

For the first time in decades, poor kids are again a majority in Southern schools, with some of the highest concentrations showing up in yes, sunny, palmy, beachy-keen Florida, according to a report released today by the Southern Education Foundation in Atlanta. "The region is in the throes of a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle," foundation president Lynn Huntley said in a press release, "where poverty and low incomes are begetting a lack of education and, in turn, the lack of education is perpetuating and creating poverty and inequality."

Low-income students (defined as those eligible for free and reduced lunch) now make up 54 percent of public school enrollment in 15 Southern states, with the highest rates in Louisiana (84 percent), Mississippi (75 percent) and Florida (62 percent). The rate in the rest of the nation is 41 percent. The report says the percentage of poor kids in the South has grown steadily since 1989, when they were at 37 percent. To see more numbers – and get more depressed – click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Rural education matters

The Rural School and Community Trust has evaluated the condition of rural education across the country, and ranked each state according to how dire the circumstances are there. Florida ranks 11th. (The worst, by the way, was Mississippi.)

One of the state's biggest problems is that it has a large number of rural students - about 340,000 - but they are concentrated in a relatively small area and don't make up a large percentage of the total number of students. As such, the state doesn't spend much time setting rural education policy. Providing appropriate services, then, becomes "doubly challenging," the group writes.

What else? The state ranks seventh worst when it comes to rural students who graduate from high school in four years, and 11th worst in per-student instructional funding.

To see the group's Florida evaluation, click here.

Making gains

If NAEP results offer any valid measure, black students actually are showing strong progress in a system that's supposedly failing them, the Economic Policy Institute reports in a release titled "Significant gains in educational achievement by blacks go underappreciated."

Just look at fourth-grade math.

In 1990, the average score for white kids was 220, and for black kids it was 188 - that's a 32-point divide. In 2007, the average score for white fourth-graders was 248, and for black students it was 222 - a 26-point gap.

Even more noteworthy, the EPI points out, the black students' average score rose by 34 points - that's larger than the 1990 gap. And the trend is much the same for eighth graders.

"Educators and policy makers should celebrate these gains in academic performance by blacks and build on this success to improve performance in reading and further narrow the racial gaps," EPI economist Joydeep Roy concludes.

Burnout High

We mean the teachers, not the kids. According to a national survey of rookie teachers released today, middle and high school teachers are much more likely than their elementary school peers to say teaching is what they really want to do, and less likely to think they're in it for the long haul.

Conducted by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, the survey of 641 first-year teachers found that 61 percent of new elementary school teachers strongly agree that teaching is really what they want to be doing now, while only 47 percent of middle and high school teachers saying likewise. (The numbers don't look good either way, though, no?)

"We all know that kids become a handful in the teen years, so we shouldn't be surprised that teaching kids this age is especially challenging," Jean Johnson, Public Agenda's executive vice president, said in a press release. "What's more worrying is the number of brand new teachers who seem to have been left dangling in challenging new jobs. These new high school and middle school teachers are more likely to say their training wasn't practical enough, and less likely to say they get good advice from colleagues once they're on the job."

Does this ring a bell? Is Florida doing enough to prepare middle and high school teachers for their unique challenges? To see the full report, click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

A great place for seniors

And we don't mean high school teens.

Each year, AARP rates the best places to work if you're 50 or older. This year, one Florida school district - actually, only one school district in the country - has made the cut.

Brevard County Schools ranked No. 14 on the list, right before a New Jersey health company and after an upstate New York YMCA. It's the third straight year Brevard has appeared in the rankings. The businesses were rated in seven categories: recruiting practices, workplace culture, continued opportunities, benefits, retiree work opportunities, organization statistics, and innovative practices.

Of the 9,400 employees working for Brevard, 41 percent are 50 or older, the Florida DOE reports.

To see the full AARP list, click here.

Ban this

In honor of Banned Books Week, which begins Saturday, the Gradebook thought it only fitting to excerpt a passage from "To Kill A Mockingbird," which is not only one of the best novels ever, but one of the most censored.

Fortunately, Harper Lee's classic is no longer near the top of the most-banned list (it was No. 41 in the 1990s, according to this list from the American Library Association, and didn't make last year's Top 10). But "Catcher in the Rye," "Of Mice and Men," and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" still are. Sad and pathetic, but true. How could a book, with writing like this, ever be forbidden?

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Teachers are happy?

We know, we know: There are surveys and then there are surveys, and we take them all with a grain of salt. But here's another one we thought worth considering: According to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (which is part of the U.S. Department of Education and has a credible rep), the vast majority of teachers from the 1993 cohort targeted by NCES were happy with their jobs - at least the ones still there a decade after they started.

Even more striking: Fewer than 1 in 5 teachers had changed professions within four years of getting their bachelor's degree, a turnover rate much lower than commonly reported for teachers and relatively low compared to other professions. "I understand why schools and school districts are upset about losing teachers, but it is part of the normal sorting process" in a dynamic job market, NCES Commissioner Mark Schneider told Education Week.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

High school dropouts left behind?

No Child Left Behind has its share of flaws, but some education observers would say none are more glaring than its failure to hold high schools accountable for pathetic graduation rates. That loophole is so big it's undercutting high school reform efforts, suggests a report released this morning by The Education Trust. The Washington D.C. think tank takes No Child to task for allowing states to set anemic goals for improving graduation rates. "Because current graduation rates are so low, we need targets that provoke action on behalf of students, not ones that condone the status quo," said Ed Trust's Daria Hall in a press release.

This isn't a new criticism, but it's not one that's gotten wide coverage. And given that the 2002 federal law is up for re-authorization this year, it's worth re-airing. No Child, of course, mandates that schools find ways to get more and more students to reach minimal bars in reading and math or face an escalating series of consequences. And by more and more students, it means not just students overall, but a long list of subgroups, including poor kids, minority kids and disabled kids.

No Child requires improvements in grad rates, too. But as Ed Trust points out, it allows states to set the improvement targets. The result: Most states have set goals so low (a majority deem any progress, even a fraction of one percent, their goal) that they seem meaningless in terms of prodding schools to improve. Florida, for example, has set a grad-rate target of 85 percent, and an improvement-rate target of 1 percent. At that pace, it'll be 15 to 25 years before Florida meets its goal, depending on whose stats you think are valid. Even worse, critics say, No Child does not require that improvements in grad rates apply to subgroups, which EdTrust's Hall says amounts to "turning a blind eye" to achievement gaps between white and minority students.

-Ron Matus, state education reporter

Not really helping?

As the latest Harry Potter movie debuts today, with the final installment of the book series due shortly, the New York Times deflates the notion that the wildly popular novels have boosted kids' reading habits. The Times article points to studies, test results and anecdotes to show that while youngsters might read Harry Potter, they have not increased their reading for pleasure overall. That's especially true as kids get older and the books get longer. Still, others call Harry Potter a hero for making reading cool for everyone. Whatever the case, we're still looking forward (excitedly, though sadly) to the Deathly Hallows. You?

What do they do in high school?

Here's something for you to chew on as you celebrate the graduating Class of 2007. It's the latest report from OPPAGA, and its title says about all you need to know: "Half of College Students Needing Remediation Drop Out; Remediation Completers Do Almost as Well as Other Students." You don't have to dig past the summary to get this point - 55 percent of all students entering Florida's public college and university systems require remediation in math, reading and/or writing. Only 52 percent of them actually complete the college prep work, taking an average of two years to do so.

Cheat, cheat and cheat some more

As if we didn't need more signs that The End is near. College students cheat like the dickens and pretty much don't think twice about it, according to the results of a poll from an outfit called CollegeHumor.com. We don't know anything about the group, or how credible they are, but they say they polled 30,000 college students around the country and found 61 percent acknowledged cheating and only 17 percent felt remorse. The poll also showed men cheat far more than women; religious students cheat more than non-religious students; and looking over someone's shoulder continues to be the most popular way to cheat. Now, don't you feel good about the future?

Dazed and confused

They don't call it the muddle in the middle for nothing. The vast majority of middle school students think they're destined to graduate from high school, but the vast majority also have no idea what classes they're supposed to take to get it done, according to a survey released this week by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and Phi Delta Kappa International. The poll found 93 percent believe there’s "no chance" they'll drop out, which is encouraging but also out of synch with stats that show only about 70 percent of students graduate nationally - and even fewer in Florida.

Other survey responses may shed light on some of the reasons why: 83 percent said they know little or nothing about the classes they need to graduate, and less than a third said they knew much about what classes they need for college. And here's where it gets disturbing: More than 70 percent said they only had 1 to 5 teachers - during their entire time in school - who were helpful. To see more results, click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Are they really the best?

The latest Newsweek rankings are out, and once again Florida looks amazingly good, with 22 of the Top 100 high schools in the country, including four from the Tampa Bay area: Lakewood High at No. 22, Hillsborough High at No. 26, King High at No. 39 and St. Petersburg High at No. 66. But take a closer look at each of those schools, and you can’t help but scratch your head.

Last year, Lakewood High earned a D grade from the state. Only 39 percent of its ninth- and tenth-graders could read at grade level (down from 43 percent from the year before). And only 74 percent graduated on time. Among black students - who made up 40 percent of the student body last year - only 14 percent of ninth- and tenth-graders were reading on grade level.

So, how can Lakewood be seriously considered among the best in the country? Blame (or credit) the Newsweek formula, which takes the total number of AP and IB test-takers at each high school and divides by the number of graduating seniors. High schools with poor graduation rates are rewarded with higher scores. So are schools that offer AP, IB and specialized academic programs to a minority of students - for example, Lakewood’s fine Center for Advanced Technologies - but don’t seem to get much traction with the majority.

The Gradebook apologizes for being a party pooper. But as long as the Newsweek list keeps getting gobs of media attention, and keeps rewarding schools that look like they need help instead of accolades, isn't it right to keep raising the question? To see the Newsweek list, click here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Is your school safe?

Your school might have plans in place for a hurricane or other major disaster. But chances are, it's not ready for the wide variety of emergencies that could arise, according to a new report from the US Government Accountability Office. Consider this: "56 percent of all school districts have not employed any procedures in their plans for continuing student education in the event of an extended school closure, such as might occur during a pandemic, and many do not include procedures for special needs students." To read a story in Education Week, click here (registration required).