Florida Crushes the Ball on 2009 NAEP Reading

It's great to see that the major reforms in Florida, including a statewide voucher program, are paying huge dividends (yet another data point that Ravitch will conveniently ignore):

The NAEP released reading scores for the 2009 Reading exams for both 4^th and 8^th grade. Florida once again crushed the ball in improving student performance. While the nation's  4^th grade reading scores remained flat, Florida's scores surged ahead.

…Florida's success in improving academic achievement for disadvantaged students should inspire the rest of the nation to action.  Importantly, Florida's reading scores also improved markedly for 8th graders, including very large gains among all the disadvantaged student subgroups, including Hispanics, African Americans, students with disabilities and ELL students. More on that later. 

Congratulations to Florida students, teachers, school leaders and policymakers. Florida serves as a beacon to the rest of the nation, and should inspire us all to even greater reform efforts. I've said it before, and I'll say it again now. When it comes to education reform…I'LL HAVE WHAT FLORIDA IS HAVING!

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Florida Crushes the Ball on 2009 NAEP Reading

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

http://jaypgreene.com/2010/03/24/florida-crushes-the-ball-on-2009-naep-reading/#comment-9248