[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by daedalo

Its easy to load up a school with bright students or load a class with bright students and get good performance out of them and get accolades for the school or class.

But a better measure is to compare the best with the best, It is a well known fact that family income is a high determinant of SAT scores. So the SAT looks at the scores vs. family income. And guess what, no surprise, that students of families in states in the Northeast make higher scores than students of similar incomes in Florida. In fact, a student with a family income of $70k in Massachusetts (that is just getting by up there) scores as well as a student from a family in Florida making over $100k. So all I have to say is that Florida has a very long way to go. In fact it has some of the lowest SAT scores for family income in the entire country. I believe it is in the lowest 25% nationally. Education dollars per student, dollars per square foot for school facilities, and dollars for teachers in Florida all rank very low nationally. I consider these to be the best indicators for student performance along with family income.

Let me run through my logic, however flawed, on why Florida as a whole will NEVER have quality education accross the board. It starts with the fact that Florida predominantly supports a service economy, so the dominant population is from persons in lower paying non-professional jobs, and the percentage of the population with professions is therefore lower. Education is an expensive state undertaking and requires high revenues. Growth is also a factor. Families in a service economy have more kids than professional families. So the proportion of service economy students is widening in Florida, not lessening. So the state, with burgeoning growth must provide more classrooms from a per-capita income population that is low. In addition, the political power to enact/tax is held down because the dominant constituency is the lower income constituency. Even if the politicians are from the professions in Florida there are still not enough of them, not a big enough professional population to make a political difference to enact legislation to pay teachers more yada yada. Now compare this with states that have high performing educational systems. Massachusetts is dominated by the professions. It has a tradition of elite colleges, and low population growth. So the education dollars can focus on upgrading facilities not building new facilities. Teachers also get a decent living wage in Massachusetts.

So education is generally not a good topic of discussion in Florida as a whole. You do have choices as earmarked by this thread, get your student in an elite school if you can, or move to a wealthy county that will have higher performance, or finally, and this would be my recommendation, move to a city that has a big university in it. That all points to Tallahassee or Gainesville. Yes there is UNF at Jacksonville, and USF at Tampa but these are commuter schools in cities that almost don't know they are there. I would be looking for a place where education occupies a substantial component of the civic culture, where daily life activities are impacted by educational institutions and spinoff activities. Look at access to quality libraries. Not just marqee facilities that may be difficult to get to but how good are the accessible neighborhood facilities? Are there numerous and accessible museums, performing theatres, civic choral and instrumental music outlets, galleries, children's museums, bottanical gardens, nature walks, sidewalk arts, zoos, and other educational outlets? You can dump your kid into an elite school and that may be fine, but in my opinion the wider community has a huge impact on interests development. Community venues should by their very nature encourage your kids to be creative, educated, and successful.

Your insights and thoughts about what is most important in having quality schools is most impressive. A very intelligent and well-expressed post!

[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by watsont3

My comment was directed to those who make blanket statements such as "Yet the majority of the schools are still awful".
It does not address the validity of the article, it does not give any reason for the statement and it was definitely criticism aimed at Florida schools. It does not seem that poster has an open mind in regard to Florida schools.
There are good and bad schools in every state in the union. The solution is for the education community, our elected leaders and, most importantly, the community as a whole to take positve actions to improve the quality of the schools.

I understand your position a little better now. I agree that there is nothing worse than a blanket statement without basis or fact...I think that they call this demography. Thanks for responding with your insight.