Davis' education plan places less emphasis on FCAT

It's so depressing to see Jim Davis, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for governor of Florida, come up with such a pathetic education platform.  Did he just copy and paste it from the teacher union's web site?  Bash testing (which is just about the only thing shining a light on failing schools and teachers), get rid of the remaining voucher programs (which have proven to be successful and are massively popular among the mostly low-income, minority parents who benefit from them), eliminate all merit-based money to outstanding teachers and schools, water down the evaluation of schools, etc.  LAME, LAME, LAME!

Democrat Jim Davis unveiled a plan to dramatically overhaul Gov. Jeb Bush's "A-plus" education plan by deemphasizing the annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and ending the hundreds of millions of dollars of reward money that flowed to the state's highest-performing schools.

Davis, his party's nominee to replace the term-limited Bush in January, said his five-point "Achieve Florida" plan would provide real accountability by using the standardized test more as a diagnostic tool and helping the schools that most need help.

"Right now we have a false sense of accountability, where the assessment of our children, the effectiveness of our teachers and the performance of our schools are judged on the basis of one, single standardized test," said Davis as he stood in front of F-rated Edison High School in one of Miami's poorest neighborhoods. "We will have long overdue change."

Davis' opponent, Attorney General Charlie Crist, has run a campaign that promises to build upon Bush's education legacy, including a strong reliance on the FCAT to measure students' progress and to grade schools.

But Davis said teachers know that spending months prepping for a single test is not bringing true improvement to education.

Scott Miller, a 10th-grade math teacher at Edison, said he had just finished the first of many mock FCAT exams, with the test still half a year away. "Under this punishment plan, we lose the good teachers. We can't bring them in here," he said.

"These teachers are succeeding in spite of what's happening in Tallahassee, not because of what's happening," Davis said. "It's not the school that deserves an F, it's Charlie Crist and the politicians in Tallahassee."

The last line is especially classic: standing in front of what I have no doubt is a truly dismal school -- one that, if failing schools nationwide are any guide, is chock full of highly ineffective teachers -- Davis has the gall to blame the system that is finally "outing" this disgraceful failure of a school!

 

As I wrote this paragraph, I said to myself: "Whoa there, Whitney.  Maybe you're jumping to conclusions.  Maybe Davis was clever enough to pick a school that got an F unfairly and it's really a decent and/or improving school."  So I Googled "Edison High School Miami" and the first link was to the school's web site (http://edison.dadeschools.net/academics-05.htm), which had no useful information whatsoever, even under the Academics tab -- just a bunch of trite banalities.  But just below this was a link (http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/fl/799/) to a site with MUCH more useful information, which confirmed my hypothesis in spades:

a) On this page (http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/parents/fl/799?currpage=1&sortval=&perpage=125), of the 10 parents and students who posted comments, 8 blasted the school with comments like this:

 (July 2005)
"Hi,I'm an ex-student of Miami Edison High,And i'm not joking when I say that is not a school for any child to attend. There were one or tow great teachers in that school that I'll never forget like my history teacher Mr.Givens, And my English teacher Mr.Jones. But I knew if I wanted to Graduate High school it was going to be possible to do it at Edison. So I made a choice to transfre my self out of that school.There were not many after school programs. The class rooms were totally over crowdit."

 

 (June 2005)
"Edison is not at all a great school. I am currently a student here. The school never has enough supplies for students to get proper learning. Also the administration has no kind of leadership qualities and they all run around like they are lost. But Edison does have a great band and an okay football team. Also our chess club is really great. Many parents are not involved."
- Sabrina

 

 (June 2005)
"This is a poor school whit no money and a poor teaching staff. Dont send your kids here."

 

 (April 2005)
"Miami Edison is a poor, inner-city high school with a large number of English language learners. In past year the 'basics' - that is the FCAT basics - have been pushed and students have lost electives, magnet programs and many extracurriculars. The school is host to an extremely talented group of students in spite of all these obstacles as evidenced by a recent National Geographic project in which students photographed the daily life of Little Haiti. Teaching quality is highly variable. If you are a parent at this school, fight to get your child into classes with the better teachers. Unfortunately, some child are passed along through teachers who do not teach them for years."

 

 (February 2005)
"I had the worst high school experience at Miami Edison. Only a handful of techers actually cared for the students. I am now in college learning what I was suppose to know in high school. Miami Edison needs some help."

 

 (August 2004)
"Well I think this school is a terrible school and I do not recommand this school to anyone.they would lie to your face for example they said the class room capacity is twenty six but its actually forty my daughter tells me that she has 40 kids in her class and she feels like she isn't learnig anything because of the number of kids thats disrupting the teacher so if you ask me edison is an 'F' school because of the unorganize hardly care about the kids administrative staff. The counselors seems like they don't have time for the students because apparently they have a 'waiting list' shouldn't the students be able to see the counselor when needed? So Edison is a waste of time! They need smaller size classes! If you ask me. They also have a medical program where they took my daughter out of. They don't care at all about the students."
- joanna doe

 

 (April 2004)
"The academic situation at Miami Edison Senioir High School is saddening. The first half of the school year was chaotic. Great teachers were transferred, students were left without adequate supplies imperative to learning properly, and there was ineffective leadership among the administrative staff. It was near the Christmas vacation before the school was on an orderly path. Without adequate resources, and effective teachers, the students had to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in Febuary, and March. How could school board officials expect major results from the students, if they are failing to provide the materials needed for academic success? I pray that the school board takes the necessary steps in ensuring that this school strives, and reaches its potential."

b) On the test scores page (http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/achievement/fl/799), we can see that only 5% of 9th graders and 6% of 10th graders are reading at grade level!  (The numbers are 22% and 28%, respectively, in math.)  Believe it or not, these dreadful scores are actually an improvement over past years...

 

c) On the student data page (the bottom of this page: http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/fl/other/799), we can see that 91% of the students are black with the remainder Hispanic and 73% are low-income -- typical demographics for an inner-city school.  And, sadly, the rest of the numbers were typical for such a school as well: 34% of students were absent more than 21 days (vs. a 15% average statewide), the graduation rate was a horrifying 28% (vs. 72% statewide), and there was violence and chaos galore (29 "Violent acts against persons", 57 incidents of "Vandalism of property" and 113 incidents of "Fighting and harassment").

THIS is the school Davis picked to argue for LESS accountability, FEWER options for parents whose kids are stuck in such a nightmare, etc.?!?!?!!?!

 

Coincidentally, I just received an invitation this morning to a fundraiser for Davis here in NYC (hosted by Hillary and Eliot).  I'm tempted to go just to give him a piece of my mind!

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Davis' education plan places less emphasis on FCAT

By S.V. Date, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau, Thursday, September 28, 2006

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/state/epaper/2006/09/28/a8a_davis_0928.html

MIAMI - Democrat Jim Davis unveiled a plan to dramatically overhaul Gov. Jeb Bush's "A-plus" education plan by deemphasizing the annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and ending the hundreds of millions of dollars of reward money that flowed to the state's highest-performing schools.