Dan Gelber, a former state senator in Florida, offers a devastating overview of Jeb Bush’s education policies while he was governor of Florida.
Gelber says that Bush was indeed passionate about education, but his passion was tied to ideas that dumbed down the quality of education.
“He force-fed unprecedented testing into public schools, did all he could to neuter the teaching unions and unapologetically pushed private-school alternatives to public education. As he runs for higher office, Bush now relies on his “education revolution” to make his case….
“In 1998 when a newly elected Gov. Bush and a compliant Legislature started Florida’s “education revolution,” our graduation rate was among the lowest in the nation. After Bush’s two terms in office, Florida’s graduation rate was dead last and remains near the bottom.”
With so much emphasis on testing and test prep, the scores went up in the early grades, but the gains were short-lived. The gains might have been the result of a constitutional amendment forcing class-size reduction on the early grades, which Bush opposed.
Gelber says Florida should not be a national model. It is “an example of the perils of combining excessive testing with inadequate funding….
“As schools began teaching to the test and neglecting anything not measured, Florida’s floor of minimal competence became our ceiling. This distortion became especially acute because, while money alone isn’t a solution, money does matter. Under Bush, Florida had one of the lowest per-pupil funding levels in the nation, so principals and administrators did what any overwhelmed emergency-room doctor does. The state began to triage its curriculum and programs in order to devote scarce resources to what was tested.
“Art “carts” replaced art classrooms, physical education was deemed nonessential. Foreign languages, gifted programs, music, higher-level math and English, civics and science all were among courses that were deemphasized or sometimes even abandoned because they were not measured by the FCAT.
“My eldest daughter’s accelerated algebra class didn’t complete its course work one year because the school stopped teaching it to devote time to relearning FCAT math from years earlier. My youngest daughter’s school cut its exciting science lab program. Not taught on the FCAT!
“Talk about a mad dash to mediocrity….
Florida’s incredibly low education spending is, sadly, in sync with its dismal graduation rate, and nearly last in the nation SAT and ACT scores….
“The debate of accountability vs. funding marginalizes the importance of both. Money has to be adequate, and testing has to be thoughtful or you end up with a dumbed-down and narrow curriculum that fails too many kids.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is what happens when we let deadheads and dead♥ get control of education.
After reading Dan Gelber’s article in Florida Today, I sent him a copy of my book, THE GEOGRAPHY BEE, based on my teaching experience in Miami. The courageous protagonist speaks out against THE TEST as she continues teaching rather than drilling for the test. Dr. Marie Fonzi
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
To all the fanboys and fangirls of Dr. Raj Chetty—
A stomach-churning reminder that his wild-eyed assertion that “Campbell’s Law” is rheeally “Campbell’s Conjecture” has once again suffered a self-induced smack down. *Refer to his testimony in the Vergara Trial.*
Campbell’s observation still retains all its relevance and explanatory power. For those not sure what I am referring to, just one example pulled from a google search:
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/05/25/what-is-campbells-law/
Examples pop up everywhere. For just one more: google “ghost cars” and “LAPD” and “Los Angeles.”
And Campbell was not alone. Charles Goodhart:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
😎
“Dumb and narrow” just about describes Jeb Bush. While he is often considered the “smarter” Bush brother, he just sounds smarter because he does not have Texas accent. Ann Richards, were she still with us, with her Texas accent could mop the floor with Jeb any day of the week because she was smart, compassionate and informed. I predict he will make several blunders in the debates because he is a “show pony” with a connected name. He has already suffered from foot in mouth disease regarding his inaccurate statements on Social Security. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/is-jebs-social-security-f_b_7489698.html
One of his biggest challenges will be his temper. He inherited his mother’s proclivity for withering contempt of anyone who disagrees with him and he is vindictive and vengeful. Not sure how that will play out in debates and when questioned by reporters since much of his tenure here in Florida was spent surrounded by sycophants and fanboy reporters and newspaper editors.
What else can one expect from a “shrub”, Moll Ivin’s famous book title.
Anybody who reads Russ Baker’s book, FAMILY OF SECRETS would never vote for another Bush.
I swear I read (maybe from the Alliance for Excellence in Ed.) that Florida’s graduation rate was better than MA. Maybe it was a sub-category??
Massachusetts graduation rate is 86.1% over four years. http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/gradrates/StateTrends.xlsx
Florida’s graduation rate is 76.1% over four years. http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7584/urlt/Historical-Graduation-Rate-Graph.pdf
We were 7th from the bottom in 2014:
http://tbo.com/news/education/floridas-high-school-graduation-rate-among-lowest-20140428/
Mercedes Snyder reported this:
Graduation Rates
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.)
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/equipping-florida-parents-to-expose-jeb-bushs-florida-education-miracle/
Diane,
Given your status as a former Federal Assistant Education Department director, you may be the only person in the USA who can tell the nation the truth by doing interviews on national media. Create a firestorm and put yourself out their on CNN and Fox. They will give you the opportunity. A gadfly like me has no chance, but they will take notice of you. If you do, make sure to include some hard truths, even if it hurts. You know what I mean.
Ian
I sent this post to my son-in-law – a graduate from a Florida public high school and a graduate from the University of Florida, and here is his response:
“As someone who had his AP Bio class suspended for a week during the final push to the AP exam in order to take mandated practice “science” questions from the FCAT despite being ahead of the grades that were to be tested……… I agree “
It’s interesting that no data was actually used to support these ideas presented as fact. I would never allow these broad sweeping statements in my classroom without citations of evidence to back it up. I would actually present this as an example of how not to make an argument.
Maybe some fact checking should happen.
http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/01/education-week-florida-schools-rank-high-achievement-low-funding/
Every statement in the article has a link with a source. Also see earlier comments about Florida’s graduation rate. It is lower than Alabama’s. US DOE data
I am NOT a fan of Jeb Bush. Nor have I been even slightly impressed by the education system in Florida. However, my experience in Florida was not exactly like the one described in this post. After teaching for 36 years in Massachusetts (which I loved) I retired and headed south in 2005 where I taught for six more years in North Port, Florida. My principal was “test obsessed.” If it wasn’t on the test, we were not to bother teaching it. I taught fifth grade. We had great American history books but since Social Studies wasn’t tested, we were told NOT to use them until AFlTER the state tests in April. We weren’t to bother with writing or grammar (that had been tested in fourth grade and wouldn’t be tested again until eighth grade)
However, we did have an art room, music room, science and very strong PE program. The kids had instruction in all of these every week (twice or three times a week for PE) There was a strong gifted and talented program at each individual school and a school for the gifted in the county. Perhaps Jeb was against the class size amendment but my class never had more students than allowed by law. And there seemed to be plenty of money for materials, technology, and professional development.
However, while the particulars of the piece might not have seemed right, the message of the post was spot on. Florida kids (at least at my school) are getting a very rigid, narrow education designed solely to deliver good test scores. I lasted six years and am now very happily retired. It was the hardest six years of my career.