It’s not really fair to compare Duval’s public schools to St. Johns or even Clay counties. We have a lot more kids and as a group our kids and parents are poorer but it is fair to compare us to Miami Dade’s public schools because they are a lot bigger and as a group their kids are parents are poorer than ours.
They have 350 thousand kids, we have 123 thousand.
70% of their kids are on free or reduced lunch where only 55% of ours are. That means they have more kids on free and reduced lunch than we have kids total.
On the FCAT Miami Dade ranked 37th we ranked 50th. Despite having three times as many high schools as we do they only have five ranked in the bottom 25 (out of 404) and we have 8 including Jackson at 404. Inversely we have two in the top 12 and they have four in the top 9.
According to the federal government, Duval graduates 63.1% of its kids on time, 54.8% of African Americans and is ranked 50th out of 67 Florida counties.*
Miami Dade on the other hand graduates 71.3 percent overall, 62.4% of their African American students and is ranked 23rd out of 67.
I am sure Miami Dade has issues, but many of them are the same as ours and they are doing a much better job handling them.
The bottom line is we need new leadership, the powers that be in the superintendent’s office and on the school board are not getting the job done. If you want proof of that don't look at how we have outsourced several of our high schools and millions of dollars to an EMO, how less than half our high school kids arrive to ninth grade on grade level or the poor morale of the districts teachers, just look south.
*many believe the less than judicious use of Grade recovery is at least responsible for our recent graduation gains.
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