A Few Words, In Memory of Florida's Education System

Below is an excerpt from Rick Scott's State of the State address, given earlier this evening. The excerpt focuses on his "goals" for education in Florida...or, as I prefer to think of it, this excerpt is a eulogy for education in Florida. For this solemn occasion, I have elected to use the "red pen" approach to offering a critique of Mr. Scott's speech.

"We also need to focus on our incredible opportunity to improve our K-through-12 education system. We now have real innovators offering a 21st century approach to education. And many of those new approaches offer better outcomes without increasing costs. How, exactly, are we going to avoid increasing costs when these "innovators" promise to leave no child untested and promise to add untold additional work to the already overburdened classroom and administrative staff in Florida's schools?

With so many Floridians out of work, and the exhaustion of one-time federal handouts, Florida educators will face challenges in managing limited resources. But our commitment to positive change must not waiver. "Handouts" is an interesting choice of words, when he later refers to Federal money as "the hardearned dollars of Floridians." Yet somehow, when referring to money that funded our education system, Governor Scott again reduces us to beggars to must, well, beg for even the smallest funding scraps from our government.

Let’s begin by agreeing on a few basic principles. Yes, lets.

First, that individual student learning must be the touchstone for all our decisions. Practices that improve student learning must be adopted. Practices that impair student learning must be abolished. I'm glad he pointed that out, because if there's one thing that we've obviously been doing wrong this whole time, it's using practices that actively impair student learning. Every teacher I know asks him or herself at least once a day, how can I stall a student's education today? (I was going to try to be serious and not sarcastic. I'm proud that I made it this far.)

Second, I think we can all also agree that the single most important factor in student learning is the quality of teaching. Florida has to recruit, train, support and promote great teachers, great school principals and great school superintendents. Actually, what we can all agree on is statistical data that shows socioeconomic status as the single most important factor in student achievement. Because, at the end of the day, that's what we're talking about here, isn't it? We're not talking about LEARNING, we're talking about performance on a standardized test. The two are not necessarily synonymous.

Great educators are priceless. Actually....we have a very specific price. Just ask Wisconsin. Every one of us has a teacher in our past who made a lifelong difference in our lives. Educators, like other professionals, should be rewarded based on the effectiveness of their work, not the length of their professional life. Because no other profession awards pay and bonuses based on the length of employment. Good to know...I'd hate for us to be the ONLY profession ANYWHERE that does that. That’s why Florida needs to pay the best educators more and end the practice of guaranteeing educators a job for life regardless of their performance. Ooops...he found us out, guys! (Less sarcasm. Got it.)

The third principle worth remembering is that we all improve through competition. Oh, no you don't, Mr. Scott. NO CHILD WILL BE LEFT BEHIND. "Competition" implies that some will be better than others, and NCLB refuses to acknowledge that. Think of how exciting it will be when schools are recruiting our children, when every school in the state focuses on continual improvement in order to outperform every other school in attracting students. We need to expand the eligibility for opportunity scholarships to harness the power of engaged parents. Why is "the power of engaged parents" so far down on his list? Could it be because he genuinely has no clue what makes education successful?

And I am calling for an increase in the number of charter schools – which are public schools that are allowed to work independently of their school board and can innovate in ways that encourage all schools to improve. They still have A school board, it's just not the county school board. They still use taxpayer money, and thus are still subject to the taxpayer who knows better than they do.

With us here today is the principal of a very successful charter school – Sonia Mitchell of Florida International Academy. This charter school moved from an “F” school to an “A” school. Ms. Mitchell attributes their success to the passion of great educators and weekly measurements of student outcomes. That's oversimplification at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

And finally, we can all agree that measuring results is a key aspect of education. No, actually we can't. People who actually EDUCATE know better. But you haven't asked us, have you? We must test our students (ALL OF THEM. MANY TIMES), and we must evaluate our educators. Those measurements need to be fair and thoughtful, and they need to have rewards and consequences. Here he added, "not just rewards," in case anyone had forgotten just how cushy the teaching profession actually is. Snuck that little jab right on in there.

We must also analyze how much education money is spent in the classroom versus the amount spent on administration or capital outlays. No analysis necessary...we can alreay tell you that 80% of the education budget is salary. Florida has a lot of kids, and it takes a lot of people to run the school system. Hope they're still there after your "eight years."

With these principles in mind, Florida can become the most innovative and effective place in the country to educate the workforce of the future. Or, you know...not.