Good news for Florida parents: Mercedes Schneider has written a brief fact sheet to show that Jeb’s “miracle” didn’t happen.
One example: Alabama has a higher graduation rate than Florida.
“Florida’s graduation rate has been among the lowest for years. In 2001-02, Florida’s graduation rate was among the bottom five states. In 2010-11, it was among the bottom seven (three states did not have rates calculated).
The 2010-11 calculation is a better measure for state-to-state comparison since the 2001-02 rate was not calculated uniformly for all states.
For 2012-13, Florida reports its overall graduation rate as 75.6%, up from 70.6% in 2010-11. This article attributes the rise in Florida school district graduation rates– which varies widely from district to district– to an emphasis on college preparedness–and the ACT test. Yet Florida was in the bottom six states for its average ACT score of 19.8 in 2012.
(For comparison sake: Alabama has a 2012-13 graduation rate of 80% and a 2012 average ACT of 20.3, and it does not promote establishing charter schools or grading teachers using student test scores.)”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just Say No to Just Read, Florida, South Carolina
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/just-say-no-to-just-read-florida-south-carolina/
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I have had heated online discussions where we fight over which state has the most poorly regulated privately-run, publicly-funded schools. The contenders were Ohio, Michigan and Florida.
I say Ohio is Number One, and I stand by it, but Michigan is definitely challenging us for the title 🙂
Florida is THIRD. I’ll let you-all know if they move up in the rankings.
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this article is on Slate today
The Schoolyard Fight
Michelle Rhee’s new organization is giving millions to support conservative candidates in dozens of states.
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But, remember, she’s not a “special interest” nor is she “political”.
She’s a full-time lobbyist and political operative, she’s as politically connected as one can possibly be, and she spends her days ordering others- ordinary people- to stop “politicizing” the debate.
I don’t even know what to do with that level of self-delusion and overt fabrication. It’s as if Grover Norquist went around screaming “enough with the POLITICS, already!”
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LOL
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Perhaps Florida should be thankful that Indiana’s Tony Bennett did not last that long there. Indiana’s loss would certainly not have been Florida’s gain.
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Dr. Ravitch, we need help here, as well. The Arizona Legislature is probably going to pass this additional voucher system this week. It will destroy public schools. See: http://www.azcentral.com//news/politics/articles/20140310divisive-arizona-school-plan-advances-in-legislature.html?source=nletter-
The Goldwater Institute is behind this. Parents and teachers need to wake up in Arizona.
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Dottie, I wrote this post for you:
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Alabama now has legislation for charter schools and linking teacher evaluations to student achievement thanks to the Republican supermajority. So Alabama can now suck like Florida.
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Thank you so much, Mercedes. It’s been a busy week. I just found your post. So far, the legislature has delayed voting on this. I think they are waiting for a time when no one is paying attention. We need to stay on them. A reporter who seems to be on our side is Brahm Resnik from NBC, Ch. 12. He’s the one who reported the robo calls.
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