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Editorial: Here's one way Florida courts can measure a quality education

 
The question before the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee is whether Florida is following its constitutional duty to provide a high-quality education to public school students.
The question before the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee is whether Florida is following its constitutional duty to provide a high-quality education to public school students.
Published July 28, 2017

The question before the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee is whether Florida is following its constitutional duty to provide a high-quality education to public school students. The point was originally raised in a lawsuit brought by advocacy and parents groups and dismissed by a circuit judge in 2016. When it reached the appeal court earlier this month, the three-judge panel wanted to know what measure can be used to define a quality education, and what specific ways Florida might be failing its children. Since they asked …

The A-F grading system is useful in comparing schools against each other within the state, but it doesn't set a baseline for overall quality. For that, the best measure is SAT test scores. The SAT has been the gold standard for college preparedness for decades, and it is used in school districts across the nation. Unfortunately, no amount of sugarcoating can hide Florida's dismal average on SAT scores.

It is important to point out that SAT performances can vary depending on how many students take the test in a given state. For instance, if only 5 percent of the school population is taking the test, the scores are generally higher because the highest-performing students are more likely to participate. Conversely, if 100 percent of the students take the test, scores are typically lower. In Florida, 74 percent of high school students took the SAT, according to the most recent results. That puts Florida in a pool of 16 similar states that had a 60 percent to 80 percent participation rate. And how does Florida compare? It was 15th out of those 16 states in average SAT scores. So when compared nationally, Florida does a poor job preparing students for graduation.

As to the court's second question regarding specific ways the state might be failing students, that also can be measured by using national averages. According to a 2016 Miami Herald article, when per-pupil spending is adjusted based on the cost of living for each state, Florida ranked 41st in the nation on the amount of money devoted to public education. Once again, a poor national showing.

The constitutional amendment in question was passed in 1998 and requires Florida to provide "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality system of free public schools.'' Since the amendment was passed, the Legislature has gone overboard micromanaging schools, with reforms that include extreme high-stakes testing and dubious accountability standards. At the same time, Florida has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars toward charter schools, which are public but privately run, and toward vouchers to be used at private schools. The results seem clear: Florida schools are underfunded, and their students do not measure up particularly well to their national counterparts.

The state District Court of Appeal will ultimately render its decision in the coming weeks based on legal interpretations and not necessarily data-based evidence. And lawmakers can point to results from Florida's own state-specific tests, which seem to move up or down depending on ever-evolving standards. But the bottom line is the national numbers show Florida is falling short of its constitutional responsibility to provide a "high quality'' education.