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"Top Three" Recommendations

In brief, the first three recommendations are strategic and short-term

First pick a stronger improvement strategy. Include aligning it with implementation.

Continue Florida's FCAT testing. Expand public access to finer grained FCAT data so parents can "see inside" every school to learn quickly what works and what doesn't -- and help produce more of what's is needed.
Change Florida's school grading system to make it clear and simple to understand and support.
Make the #1 priority of Florida public education and reporting to increase the percentage of students who read on grade level as students reach each higher grade (i.e., the more years of education you receive, the more educated you should become).

In detail, these include:

Continue Florida's FCAT testing. Expand public access to finer grained FCAT data so everyone can "see inside" every school to learn quickly what works and what doesn't -- and help produce more of what's needed.

The FCAT is a wonderful, publicly accessible performance measure of Florida's education system.
Florida citizens paid for this data and need even more access to it
Don't just continue it. Expand web access to the "cell" level (30 students in Florida) with sorting options, so parents can look "inside" their childrens' schools and neighborhoods to see which patterns work and help expand them, while helping improve areas that need attention.

Change Florida's school grading system to make it clear and simple to understand and support.

When a kid comes home with a 32% on a test a parent might hear lots of excuses and creative ways to claim it really deserves a "B" or an "A" even though it earned an "F". Gov. Jeb Bush answered the question of what it means when just 32% of Florida's 10th graders read on grade level or above. Florida's schools increased that by only 2% in the last 7 years, between 1999 and 2006.
The purpose of school grades should be clear and honest reporting. Whether intentional or not, school grades should not conceal educational issues. Grades should help surface them and fix them.
End inflated school grades. When a student earns a 32% is it an F or the A the kid wants you to believe it is? Why is it different if the school earns the 32%? Without excuses or creative dancing, would any parent let a kid get away with trying to prove that 32% on a test deserves an A or a B?
For example, use the same A-F percentages on schools that are used to grade students. Shouldn't anything below 59% be an F? Shouldn't schools be graded by the same grades they use to identify students who pass from those who fail?

Make the #1 goal of Florida public education and reporting to increase the percentage of students who read on grade level as students reach each higher grade (i.e., the more years of education you receive, the more educated you become).
- Tweak Florida's #1 educational goal, measurement and reporting systems to the principle that as students receive more years of education, they become more educated.
- Move Florida's "education reward system" AWAY from:
  - End current incentives to "game the system" and restore trust in the educational goals and measurement system: Stop paying money to individual schools based on one year's "gamed" progress and stop rewarding FCAT grades at the school level. Use those and other improvements to stop school boards from gaming strategies like busing students to distant schools to manipulate school test pools and hide education issues.
  - End all parts of the school reward and reporting system that hide Florida's dramatic fall off between 3rd grade and 10th grade, in the percentage of students who read on grade level or above. Stop rewarding schools and districts that fail to make substantial education gains for years at a time.
- Move Florida's "education reward system" TOWARD:
  - Better reporting would force school boards to focus on making visible improvements: Report school grades in ways that are clearer and more honest, producing education improvements for average and needy students. This would produce a higher quality of life for Florida students, families and neighborhoods than a school grading system that leads school boards to move students to manipulate school test pools.
  - What measures and reports? Reporting FCAT scores should be based on each student's and class's lifelong progress toward their goals of becoming educated (cohort reporting with the full 3rd through 10th grades of FCAT test years shown in every report), not just the current year's score.
  - Example: Like a "height and weight growth chart" shows each child's position relative to lifelong growth averages, FCAT scores could show each student's position in each year of their education toward reaching a basic public education goal: Every student's chart should show their current and previous years' scores relative to reaching 10th grade (the last FCAT test year) while reading at a 10th grade level.
  - Shift financial rewards and A and B school grades to those districts, schools and teachers who actually deliver education performance based on demonstrating longer-term, multi-year, larger progress. Shift praise and financial rewards away from those who are effective in concealing their education issues, or manipulate year-over-year short-term numbers to receive rewards that don't reflect real progress.

There are also longer-term issues to consider:

Florida has a "high stakes testing" requirement to receive a high school diploma. If a student does not achieve a high enough FCAT score, that student cannot graduate high school. Two parts of this may need further analysis in light of Florida's education data:

If Florida's education pattern is that more years of public school education mean a larger percentage of students fall below grade level in reading, then what is responsible for students who fail to achieve a high enough FCAT score to graduate?
- Is the public education system responsible, or is the individual student responsible?
- If the public education system is even partly responsible, is it fair to penalize the student for the system's issues?
- Might it be fairer to continue FCAT testing but use its scores only as a diagnostic tool? Might it be fairer to not use FCAT scores as a graduation requirement?
When 2006's 10th grade FCAT shows only 32% of students read on grade level or above, how is it possible for Florida to claim that it graduates over 70% of its high school seniors?
- If the 3rd through 10th grade pattern of decline holds true, then even fewer 12th graders might read on grade level than these 32% of 10th graders.
- For the students who receive a Florida high school diploma but read below grade level, how much does their diploma mean?
- It's one thing to award schools A's and B's but another to produce an effective workforce: Considering Florida's real education data, how educated is Florida's work force, really?
- How well can Florida perform in a global economy where Florida's workforce must compete with others who measure and report education more clearly, and are therefore more able to provide better educations and better educated workers?

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