Keeping the Promise: Business Leaders
- Keeping the Promise: Business Leaders links
- Education Can Boost Economic Growth
- The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth
- The Effects of Education Quality on Income Growth and Mortality Decline
- Education Quality and Economic Growth
- Economic Outcomes and School Quality
- School Accountability and Student Performance
- Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different?
- Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared for College and Work?
- On Course for Success: A Close Look at Selected High School Courses That Prepare All Students for College and Work
- Crisis at the Core: Preparing All Students for College and Work
- Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts
The Foundation for Florida’s Future recognizes that business leaders seek to employ highly skilled, highly educated individuals so that their respective organizations can successfully thrive in today’s global economy. In order to employ a highly skilled, highly educated workforce, we believe that business leaders must embrace and advocate on behalf of various education reform initiatives that have been implemented in Florida during the past eight years.
Borrowing a page from the private sector, Florida has implemented numerous education reform initiatives that share certain themes that are common in the business community. Such themes include accountability, measurement of progress, financial incentives, rewards for exceptional performance, and competition.
In 1999, Florida infused a strong dosage of accountability into its K-12 education system. Using student data from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), public schools are held accountable for the academic performance of their students. Specifically, under the School Grading System, public schools are assigned a letter grade (“A” through “F”) that is based on the academic achievement of their students. This school grade is determined, in part, by calculating the percentage of students who are performing at or above grade level in reading, math, writing, and science. The other part that is used to determine a public school’s grade is based on measuring the progress of certain low-performing students. This measurement of progress focuses on the percentage of certain low-performing students who learn a year’s worth of knowledge in reading and math in a year’s time.
A key ingredient in Florida’s K-12 education system is its commitment to provide financial incentives to public schools that demonstrate an ability to improve student achievement or maintain a high level of student achievement. Florida provides financial incentives to public schools by awarding $100 per student to those schools that earn an “A” or improve their school grade by at least one letter grade under the School Grading System. In 2007, Florida awarded more than $129 million in financial incentives to public schools.
Because a highly qualified teacher is the most important factor influencing a student’s academic achievement, Florida has made a commitment to certain teachers by rewarding exceptional performance. Traditionally, a teacher’s salary has been determined by his/her years of experience and by his/her highest level of education that was attained. More recently; however, Florida is requiring teachers to be financially rewarded for the academic achievement and the academic progress of their students.
One of the cornerstones of Florida’s K-12 education system relies on the introduction of competition into the public school system by providing parents with several options when selecting the best academic setting for their children. Regardless of whether these options include other traditional public schools; charter schools; on-line schools; or private schools, research indicates that when students leave a public school for a different academic setting, student achievement in that public school increases as a result of the competition that public school faces.
The Foundation for Florida’s Future strongly believes that building upon these education reform initiatives is not only critical to the development of Florida’s academic pipeline, but it is also critical to the development of Florida’s skilled workforce, which is needed to compete in an ever-changing global economy. We encourage business leaders to review the research posted on the left-hand side of this page and ultimately, take a vested interest in education reform.
