Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Matthew Ladner and Bill Price
The Oklahoman
LeBron James isn't the only reason
Florida is making national news. Florida's education reforms are being praised and implemented by other states hoping to mirror Florida's strong academic gains. On the other hand,
Oklahoma's beginning steps toward educational progress are receiving about as much national attention as
Kevin Durant's quiet re-signing... until now.
Since 1998, Florida's and Oklahoma's academic results have taken divergent paths, proved by the National Assessment of Educational Progress's (NAEP) fourth-grade reading exam. Strong performance on this test is important, say researchers, because in students' early years they are learning to read; in their later years, students are reading to learn. Therefore, if students can't read, chances are they won't be learning much.
In 1998, Oklahoma students outscored Florida students, on average, by more than a grade level on NAEP's fourth-grade reading exam. In 2009, Florida students captured the lead and scored almost a grade level ahead of Oklahoma students.
In 1998, all Oklahoma students, on average, performed about two grade levels ahead of Florida's Hispanic students on NAEP's fourth-grade reading test. Ten years later, Florida's Hispanic students are nearly a grade level ahead of the average for all students in Oklahoma and outscore the average of all students in 30 other states.
What's Florida's secret? In 1999,
Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's legislature undertook bold, aggressive education reforms. Those included strengthening curriculum standards, providing school choice to parents, expanding virtual schooling, grading schools with clear A-F labels, allowing alternative teacher certification, and ending social promotion for illiterate third-graders.
Results of these reforms have positioned Florida as a national model for how to transform publicly funded education of children. Notably, Florida's disadvantaged kids and students with special needs have especially benefited from its reforms. Based on its own recent developments, Oklahoma could be heading down this encouraging path.
In 2009, Oklahoma expanded its potential pool of quality teachers by enacting alternative teacher certification. In 2010, Oklahoma legislators made improvements to its charter school law. And last month Oklahoma enacted Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities, which will allow parents of children with special needs the opportunity to find better educational options at equal or lower costs to taxpayers.
Despite these and other positive developments, Oklahoma has a ways to go in enacting the reforms needed to catch up with Florida's. Oklahoma's testing, curriculum standards, school choice, virtual schooling, and school accountability measures lag behind Florida's. Also, Oklahoma doesn't have Florida's strategic approach to ensuring students are reading by the fourth grade.
Although Florida demonstrates that reforms can create enormous educational progress, it, like all states, still must go further. "Reform is never finished," Gov. Bush said. But Florida is at least running the right plays and making the big shots. Oklahoma has now entered the game, and after a couple of slam dunks, has a good start. When Durant re-signed with the
Thunder, he said, "Our best years are ahead of us." Indeed he could be right — in more ways than one.
