Statistically Speaking, Florida.. I Don't Believe in Them!
Florida's education statistics were front and center all week. As I prepare for my son's college graduation, I can't help but wonder how different his future would be had we lived by statistics.
A '08 graduate of an outstanding public high school in Boca Raton, Jeff attended twelve years of Florida's public schools. He gained admission to some of the finest universities in our nation thanks to a village of supportive teachers, staff, guidance counselors and a host of interesting AP and college courses at his disposal.
Today Florida's education reform decisions are based on failed reforms touted by third parties with vested interests. Worse still -- those decisions are then supported with illogically skewed or fatally flawed statistics vs. real-world, in-the-trenches input.
Last week we learned that children could not write any better than martians arriving on planet earth yet later in the week the news trumpeted that Florida's reading scores improved across the state. Both tests crafted and scored from the same company. They can't write but they can read and comprehend very