The Florida State Board of Education met in Tampa on Friday. They have higher targets for the percentage of students meeting FSA academic standards on their minds. Much higher.
High goals are good. Even better would be support to meet those goals. It is all about school leadership claim some Board members.
The Department of Education proposed raising the goal for meeting FSA proficiency six points by 2019-20. In ELA and math the objective is to go from 52% of students to 58%. Much of the discussion revolved around the improvement of the lowest achieving students. Achievement gaps between racial groups are supposed to be reduced by 1/3. Graduation rates are projected to raise to 85%, a seven point increase.
In order to help meet these goals, the Board focused on principals of the 40 turn around schools. Principals who had not moved their school up at least one grade in two years, the superintendent must go to the Board to justify retaining the principal at that school. One Board member did ask for greater clarity about where are the gaps in achievement are turn around schools in order to get a better sense of the context within particular schools. Differentiated accountability