Florida schools aren’t exactly wowing the country

From News Press.com

by Dave Breitenstein, dbreitenstein@news-press.com & Tim Engstrom, tengstrom@news-press.com

It’s hard to win a race when everyone else has brand-new running shoes, and your feet are stuck in concrete.

Florida’s education system is weighted down in politics, testing and regulation, educators and business leaders said Wednesday at The News-Press Market Watch Education Summit. The education system measures student success with test scores rather than readiness for college or the workforce, they said.

And it’s not as if that emphasis on testing is working: Ranking 38th nationally in per-student K-12 spending, 47th on the SAT and 48th on the ACT, Florida schools aren’t exactly wowing the country.

“Florida is not mediocre,” said Paul Woods, CEO of Bonita Springs-based biofuel company Algenol. “Forty-eight out of 50 is not the median. It’s not the middle.

“It’s the bottom.”

The education summit brought 500 educators and business leaders together at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point for a landmark conference aiming to connect K-12 and higher education systems with the region’s employers.

For years, each county school district did its own thing, colleges did their thing and businesses did their thing. The lack of collaboration meant Edison State College, Southwest Florida’s largest institution, has only 29 percent of incoming freshman fully prepared for college. It meant businesses of the future, like Algenol, can’t find qualified workers locally.

"Our educational system just hasn't advanced since my father and grandfather," said Matt Chambers, president of Marine Concepts. "Our kids don't have a chance."
That’s going to change.

SOME SOLUTIONS

Community leaders in attendance Wednesday pledged to put a stop to mediocrity. Among the solutions:

• Increasing the school year beyond 180 days. By contrast, the school year in Japan is 243 days.

• Creating more internship opportunities for students.

• Making college more affordable.

• Rolling out additional programs that focus on science, technology, engineering and math.

Gov. Rick Scott, the summit’s keynote speaker, said Floridians should demand the same level of performance from schools as they demand from businesses.

“We expect a better product, a better service at a better price,” Scott said. “We need the same thing out of our education system.”

So how do we get there?

Listen, Charlotte County Superintendent Doug Whittaker told Scott. Schools want more autonomy, but nearly every aspect of education, from which textbooks to use and when students take tests to how much teachers are paid, is set by policy at the district, state or national level.

“You want deregulation; it’s good for business,” Whittaker said. “So do we.”

Linda McDonald, a retired teacher who now leads a political action group for educators in Collier County, believes the biggest flaw in public education is the constant barrage of testing.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time testing them instead of teaching them,” said Linda McDonald, a retired teacher who now leads a political action group for educators in Collier County. “Start letting teachers teach.”

THE RACE

Unemployment in Southwest Florida has been above 10 percent since 2008, and the state is struggling to bring new corporations into Florida. Scott believes Florida must improve its education system in order to improve the economic climate.

“If we do the right thing, nobody can compete with us,” Scott said.

And if Florida doesn’t fix its flaws?

“The biggest loser is going to be our kids,” Scott said.

Todd Gates, chairman of the Naples-based construction firm Gates Inc., calls the global race a “streetfight without rules,” and Florida and the U.S. must do whatever it takes to catch up to education systems of Finland and Japan or the economic strength of China. If that means bumping up salaries of teachers or paying more attention to results, so be it.

“In a race, you don’t get a trophy for second, third or fourth place,” Gates said.

Whittaker defends the U.S. in global comparisons, saying some nations don’t have the socioeconomic diversity of America or a belief that all students should be given an equal chance at success. Other countries, he said, focus their attention on the academic elite, leaving the rest behind.

“We can’t be everything to everybody, but those are the expectations,” Whittaker said.

MOVING FORWARD

The education summit capped a four-day series of stories in The News-Press that laid out the region’s educational and workforce challenges. Wednesday’s discussion focused on solutions rather than problems.

“It’s really important for us to not have the same old conversation, to sugarcoat anything that’s going on, but to make sure it’s done in a productive way going forward,” said Mei-Mei Chan, president and publisher of The News-Press Media Group.

The News-Press is donating $5,000 to create an “inspiration grant” for area superintendents and college presidents to spend as they see fit, a donation that quickly was matched by five others sitting at Chan’s table.

Woods pledged to open up Algenol’s facility for teachers wanting to bring real-life experience back to their classrooms.

Lee County Superintendent Joseph Burke vowed to explore strategies that would put the district’s best teachers and administrators in schools with the biggest academic and social challenges.

Florida Gulf Coast University President Wilson Bradshaw promised to ramp up programs to motivate groups of capable students who typically don’t see college as a viable option.

The Alliance of Educational Leaders, an informal group of five public school superintendents and five college executives, plans to take the lead on future discussions. Its chairman, Terry McMahan, president of Hodges University, said ideas need to extend beyond each school district or college, beyond the region, beyond the state and beyond the nation.

Southwest Florida doesn’t want to finish last in a global race toward economic prosperity.

“It’s a flat world out there,” McMahan said. “We’re competing against China and we’re competing against India.

“It’s not just Orlando anymore.”

http://www.news-press.com/article/20111005/NEWS0104/111005003/0/BUSINESS/Educators-business-leaders-agree-change-needed