A large number of freshmen reading this newspaper are likely not actually ready for college.
ACT scores released on August 17 show that only 17 percent of Florida high school graduates are ready for higher education, better than only Tennessee and Mississippi. This is an alarming figure, even stacked up next to an average 25 percent college readiness rate nationwide.
While some will point to the teachers and the state of public schooling for this statistic, and others will blame the students, the problem here seems to rest mostly with Florida, which has taken its own look at its high schools and given them a resounding A-OK.
Last year, a record 71 percent of Florida high schools earned an A or B grade from the state. Only 14 percent received a D or an F, even though most students are graduating without meeting required benchmarks.
The inconsistency between these figures and the ACT scores is holding back improvement efforts for Florida schools, according to John Winn, Florida’s interim education commissioner.
“When you change your standards such that you make a school look much better than it is, you can’t get community support for making it better,” Winn said, in an interview with the Associated Press. He said people then say, “We made F’s for all these years and now we’re safe. OK, our work is over.”
Florida’s high school grading formula is based mostly on students’ scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT. Public school students in grades three through 10 take the FCAT annually. The state only requires students to actually pass the FCAT in grades three and 10 to advance—all other annual tests exist merely to provide diagnostic information about students and schools to the state.
The state compiles this information to give each school a grade, which is used to determine the amount of funding a school receives. The higher the grade, the more funding a school receives. Under this system, schools that perform well earn more money, while schools that might need additional funding to improve scores see funding stripped away.
There are clearly a few problems here that need to be remedied if Florida wants to get serious about preparing its students for college.
Overhauling the FCAT system and aligning it with other national tests to provide more realistic grades and reduce grade inflation is a good first step. While fixing the way FCAT scores are tallied won’t solve the problem of underprepared Florida students, it will, at least, provide a better indication of how they are faring.
The second step is already underway. Starting this year, kindergarten is getting a little bit tougher. A new set of heightened requirements, called Common Core Standards, is being implemented in 44 states. Common Core Standards will increase expectations at each grade level, starting with kindergarten this year, and will expand uniformity between states. Students who fall behind under the new, harder standards will not be held back, but instead will be given a progress monitoring plan and extra support and attention to give them more time to develop critical skills.
The plan, devised by governors and school officers across the country, is an attempt to bridge the educational gap between the U.S. and countries with higher rated educational systems, such as China and Finland. Whether Florida will ever stack up to those countries’ schools remains to be seen, but any step forward for the state third-least prepared for college is certainly welcome.
