

Conservative education reform

The Floridian school of thought

Inspired by Jeb Bush, more Republicans want to transform the classroom

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Readers' comments




I pulled my kids out of FL public schools. I had high hopes for our school, since it was A rated (thanks to FCAT) but my child was one who "fell through the cracks" and was going to be held back...an A/B honor roll student with no behavior issues and perfect attendance who struggled with the pressure of taking the test. The FCAT is a load of crap. How can children that young be placed under that much stress? My child began to worry about the FCAT 3 months before it was given because it is so highly emphasized all year long. It is shameful for politicians to have that much influence over something MOST know little about--they need to spend time in the classroom to see what it is like for these teachers. And now that teachers' salaries will be partially measured by FCAT scores, they will totally teach to the test. And, can anyone blame them? Also, most of the Arts programs were taken away due to budget cuts.
My other child was not challenged enough. She was bored in school. We are now in private school and my children are in a small classroom setting with a teacher who has a masters degree in Ed. They receive Arts instruction daily (music, drama, art) and foreign language, as well as math and reading etc. It is a stretch for us financially but totally worth it to see my oldest who loves going to school again and to see both of them challenged and confident. I wish other states would realize that the FL public ed system is horrible.


Florida schools declined so badly over the years since Jeb started the "reforms" that I had to take my kids out of the public schools and put them in private schools just to get even a basic education, much less one appropriate for gifted kids. I could write pages and pages on the problems with the extremely narrowed curriculum, the mindless and rote teaching methods, the extreme over testing, the badly designed and badly written FCAT, the de-motivation of teaching professionals, the inability to prepare kids for college in the system, etc., etc. Florida was ranked highly based on two things -- assessment and accountability. But the categories for achievement and college readiness are incredibly low. What purpose does accountability have when the results are so dismal? Anyone who thinks Florida has anything even close to a good school system is either grossly misled and misinformed, too tied to ideology to see the truth, or just plain dumb.

Rachel Tabachnick

Florida has disbursed between 100 and 200 million dollars of public funds for private school scholarships through its corporate tax credit program each of the last several years. Most of these funds have been disbursed by a private non-profit run by John Kirtley, a venture capitalist who is vice-chairman of the Betsy DeVos-led national organization pushing "school choice" across the nation.
Of the over 50,000+ private school tuition recipients, over 80% attend religious schools. While some of these offer quality education, a significant number are teaching young earth creationism, revisionist and factually incorrect history, and bigotry toward other religions. Many of these schools are using A Beka Books and Bob Jones University textbook series, which attack Roman Catholicism, deny global warming, and sacralize unregulated free markets.
It's not hard to understand why Republican legislatures across the country are pushing programs that defund public education and funnel money to these types of schools.

Susan S

Where's the political disclaimer on this campaign piece for Jeb Bush?

I've never read such nonsense. Perhaps if you had spoken to someone who isn't on Jeb's, or a right wing think tank's payroll, you might have gotten a true picture of how these so-called reforms are working. Why not look at the Florida dropout rate, the failing charter schools, or the charges being leveled at our ethically-challenged legislators who benefit from the voucher programs? Or you could report on how Jeb has a financial stake in his online/virtual schemes. Jeb's reforms are nothing but a way to funnel taxpayer dollars into for-profit corporations.

If your publication wants to be taken seriously on the topic of education, you should do some real reporting on Florida schools.

Gary G

Florida schools have not been improved by JEB's "reforms." They have become profit centers for JEB and his friends. The quality of education has not improved. I live in Florida and have studied this issue for years. This article is a complete joke.

zma in reply to Susan S

Agree! If we privatize schools, profits will be made. Who will reap the benefits of these profits? If you think it's the students, I would bet you a million dollars you would be wrong. Shareholders would ultimately make the money and once again, children would be left behind.

I believe that if schools were funded properly and teachers were paid competitively, public schools would be successful. Why is that so hard for politicians to understand?

Susan S in reply to Kroneborge

Everything benefits from competition. That's where you're wrong. Have you ever worked with children? They aren't commodities that can be manipulated for profit. When there's competition, someone wins and someone loses. Why would we want any of our children to lose? We need to adequately fund quality public schools for all children. We also need to address the real problem with our public schools: poverty. Until we do, our education system will never be truly successful.


Teacher's don't have tenure. Where does it say that they have tenure? They have due process rights that prevent administrators from arbitrarily firing them, which every employee should have the right to, to ensure that discrimination isn't going on. When will the Economist start to let us subscribers grade the articles they write?


As someone who works in school reform, I can say with certainty that Florida does not have one of the best school systems in the country. I'm curious what report The Economist based this statement. Its incrediably inaccurate. Addtionally, Florida is rarely mentioned as a model for school reform and usually ranks average or below average in basically every category including math, science, reading, etc. On the other hand, unionized states such as New jersey, Massachusetts, & CT are ranked the best. I agree unions can be an obstruction to necessary reform, but its no coincidence that states with the lowest taxes and investment in education have the worst school systems. Why doesn't The Econmist ever mention this basic fact?


I wouldn't say Florida schools are great just yet. Recently, it was found that only 19.5% of high school seniors were able to make a score good enough on the ACT and SAT College entrance exams to get into college. The FCAT has done a great job at helping the bottom 20% of students and making the Florida high school diploma a little more valuable than it was in 1999. However, the top 30 percentile of students have not benefited any better than it was 15 years ago. If you are a parent of a minority, you have to fight like hell to get your kids into an advance track of studies early( before they are in the sixth grade) otherwise your kid gets an education that will not have them prepared to go to a decent college. They might be ready for junior college or recently converted 4 year college, but that's it! THERE IS STILL A LOT OF IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED IN THE US PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM. The Truth is that the U.S. Public school system has been in decline since 1975.

Kroneborge in reply to Susan S

Jeb Bush isn't running for anything, so I'm not sure how this is a campaign piece.

As far as voucher programs, all public education funding should follow kids and they should be free to go to whatever school they wish.

Schools like EVERYTHING else benefit from competition.

shaun39 in reply to Medicine4theDead

He's stating the bloody obvious.

Teaching is the least competitive of all "professional" training programmes (compared to medicine, dentistry, engineering, pharmacy, law, MBA, technical masters programs or even nursing).

That means that marginal entrants to the profession (and a very large proportion of the total) are the graduates with the weakest academic performance.

Academically, American school teachers suck (mostly). It's inevitable that this hurts kids.

If we want higher standards (what Finnish, South Korean, Canada and Australia - the OECD countries with best education performance - have in common), we must raise standards. Teachers must be drawn from among the best academic performers.

This will require better pay and conditions for good teachers, and less administrative/ infrastructure bloat.


Oh, TE, what an overly one-sided piece. You are right about one thing: legislatures all across the country are looking for ways to hold schools and teachers more accountable for the jobs they are doing (a completely reasonable undertaking).

However, school reforms like the Gov Bush's are more about fulfilling a republican worldview then about improving education.

For example, the St.Petersburg Times did a piece about the online schools, including one lad who loved it bc he could sleep-in until 11 and only had three hours of school a day. Quality, indeed.

Medicine4theDead in reply to Pompatus

Where is the evidence that increased competition in education will decrease the price? This has not been the case with higher education nor is it the case with medicine. This is because it is a service that requires active participation on the part of the receiver of the service. Quoting a Latin phrase is nice but it doesn't actually prove anything.

shaun39 in reply to Medicine4theDead


Sure, all judgements should be empirical, evidence supported and open to review.

Lazy evidence:
Look at the minimum GPAs required to enter respective professional courses. You need a higher GPA to do nursing than teaching at Iowa (engineering, math, computer science, business, law, acturial sci, pharmacy are all much tougher to get into). At practically every college in the US, education has the lowest entry threshold.

I'm amazed if you aren't aware of this. (The same is the case in the UK also - over 20% of all teachers receiving funded places in teacher training college have 3rd class degrees: lowest possible pass.)

The question isn't one of competence here - it is academic aptitude.

Teachers on average are academic underperformers. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are ill-suited to their roles - teaching 12 year olds effectively is more a matter of practical skill and devotion than one of theoretical contemplation.

Likewise, the fact that you need far better academic performance to become a doctor, doesn't necessarily mean that doctors will be competent or skilled in practice. It just means that the typical doctor will be far better at theoretical understanding/ studying/ exams than the typical teacher. Which doesn't mean a whole lot when her hands are shaking in the operating theater.

edumom in reply to Damn Dirty Ape

In Broward County education officials make much of the great scores of hispanic kids, especially at Cypress Bay High School. What they neglect to say is that Cypress Bay HS is located in one of the highest income areas of the county (Weston) and the school population consists of a very large number of kids from wealthy families that moved to the US from South America. These kids went to very good private schools in South America before they moved to the US, so they were already ahead of the US kids when they start public school here.

FCAT scores for individual schools, disaggregated by level, are available on the FDOE web site. Ethnic and racial data for schools is also available.

Public schools aren't a consumer product, but private schools are. And some of them are a good product. I went to excellent public schools myself, so I would prefer for them to succeed in their present form, but I don't see how switching a small, test percentage to charter schools will hurt the system.

I'd believe any data I saw that showed good teachers unable to get jobs because they were improperly fired (I haven't seen it). But you have to admit that schools which acted irrationally, firing people without cause, would suffer compared to schools that acted rationally. That's not even considering what would happen to the principal when the good teachers' friends and students stood up for them. Why bring the law into it?

Public schools are not a consumer product; a child's motivation and effort are their own. Most public schools are established through state constitutions and run by the local community they serve through the electoral process. Anyone can run for school board, but everyone can pretend it isn't their responsibility.

Also, your imaginary scenario about hiring a teacher who was improperly fired is just that - an imaginary scenario created in your mind to suit your dogma.


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