Q&A of the Day – What’s the top priority for Florida this year? Part 1
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: You never told us what your top priority for Florida is. I’d like to know.
Bottom Line: Yesterday I pointed out that only 19% of people ever take the time to reach out to their locally elected officials. In my top three takeaways I challenged listeners to identify one priority for the upcoming Florida state session and to communicate that priority to their state representative and state senator. It’s the best way for your voice to be directly heard by people elected to represent your interests as they head into a session in which they can directly address your issue. What I didn’t do, as noted, is provide mine. Here goes. Education.
While there are many issues I’m personally interested in, my top concern remains education. Florida has made significant progress in recent years. This includes the move to replace the failed Common Core curriculum with Florida’s B.E.S.T plan and an increased school voucher program. We've also had huge improvement in graduation rates. Florida grad rates have risen from only 58.8% in 2006 to a record high 90% last year. In fact, Florida had 40 schools with a 100% graduation rate. That’s also a new high. All of this has culminated in Florida going from one of the worst states nationally in education outcomes to better than average – as Florida is now 18th nationally. All good. Still, there’s obviously still room for improvement and in my view there’s no more important component in one’s life this side of faith, than what occurs, or doesn’t, during a grade school education.
On one hand we can look at the progress we’ve made relative to the country and feel good about it. On the other hand, we can realize that the relative improvement still isn’t all that impressive in context. The United States ranked 2nd in the world in education outcomes in 1980 at the onset of the Department of Education. Most recently we rank 27th in overall outcomes. Yes, Florida has made real progress in key areas like graduation rates, but most other metrics, like “A” rated school districts in South Florida, look and sound better than the reality because the bar has consistently been lowered across the country.
So, what needs to happen to ensure we make meaningful progress from here? I’ll address that in the 2nd part of today’s Q&A.
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