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Education Reform
POOR SCHOOL CHILDREN AREN'T DESTINED TO FAIL
By Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan
Special to the Tallahassee Democrat, September 1999
Since the Department of Education's recent release of its report grading schools on an A through F scale, many children in Florida's lowest performing schools -- those graded D and F -- have received unprecedented attention and resources from Florida's dedicated educators.
The examples are abundant:
* School officials in Broward County are spending millions of dollars to reduce first-grade class sizes to 18-20 students per class in 104 low-performing schools. An associate superintendent told the local newspaper, "Contrary to public opinion, the schools have really been energized by this (grading system). They are determined to improve their scores."
* In Hillsborough County, Superintendent of Schools Earl Lennard made statewide news recently when he vowed to take a 5-percent pay cut, or a personal loss of $8,250, if any school in Hillsborough County receives an F grade. To meet this high expectation, Lennard promised his schools the support they need, including reduced class sizes for select D schools and money for after-school or Saturday tutoring at all schools.
* In Pensacola, where students at two chronically failing schools have been given Opportunity Scholarships to attend the public school or private school of their choice, Superintendent Jim May posted a hand-lettered sign in his office that reads, "Non-negotiable aim is: Both schools must come off the F list. WHATEVER it takes!"
* In Miami-Dade County, school officials are shifting $11 million in federal funds to increase intensive math and reading instruction at schools receiving low grades, and are hiring 210 additional teachers to work at the 26 schools that received F grades. Elementary school students in Miami-Dade County will see their class sizes shrink, in some cases by half! Even teacher union leader Pat Tornillo told the Miami Herald that teachers are now being given the financial resources and government support they need to succeed at some of the more troubled schools.
Yet, despite this unprecedented attention for the children in Florida's low-performing schools, remarkably, some people believe that this extra help will not make a difference. These people say that the students in Florida's D and F schools are doing just fine --considering how poor their families are. They say that these D and F schools should instead receive B's and C's. Such an upward grading curve would effectively eliminate the unprecedented assistance these students are now receiving under the A+ Plan.
Walter Tschinkel's Aug. 16 "My View" column in the Tallahassee Democrat is a case in point. In his column, Tschinkel, a professor of biological science at Florida State University, offered an alternative school-grading scheme. Instead of grading schools based on student learning as the Bush/Brogan A+ Plan does, Tschinkel's alternative grading system would factor in the students' family income levels. The poorer the children's parents, the less Tschinkel's grading system expects their children to learn.
The result of Tschinkel's alternative grading system? Higher grades for schools with low-income students who have learned less.
While this poverty-is-destiny model of human achievement may be popular in biology departments and other academic circles, it is wholly unworthy of a society that prides itself on the notion that a public education system is essential to provide opportunity to children of all socioeconomic classes.
Sadly, under Professor Tschinkel's alternative grading system, hundreds of thousands of Florida's poor children would be relegated to a world of very low expectations and victimized by a misguided compassion that all too often is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As for the A+ Plan's school grading system, we will never believe that if a child comes from a poor family, he or she automatically can't be expected to attain high standards of learning that will prepare him or her for success. Such a notion goes against everything we stand for and everything public education should stand for.
Instead, we will continue to believe that a focused, more responsive, and more accountable school system can help children of all socioeconomic classes learn a year's worth of knowledge in a year's time. Our goal is to give Florida's dedicated educators the support they need to prepare all students to graduate and succeed.
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