Missing the Grade

When stacked up against other states, Florida has a lot in its favor to lure new business: warm weather and quality of life, massive population growth, economic and tax incentives. But when it comes to public education, Florida loses some of its shine. And if employees and their superiors aren't confident their children will get a good education here, they'll be reluctant to uproot their families.

That's true for physicians, says Mark Weber, chairman of Lee County Horizon Council's education task force and chief executive officer of Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center. "They're highly educated people who intend for their children to be highly educated," he says. "They're going to look at public and private schools."

They don't always find what they're looking for in Southwest Florida, and the ability to provide good education opportunities will become more important as Southwest Florida continues to grow. "Lee County's about to hit the half-million mark, so we're going to be on the radar screen for larger employers," Weber says.

The quality of the area's public schools and the school choice program worried employees and prospective recruits when Source Inter-link Companies centralized its corporate headquarters in Bonita Springs. "There was a great concern that people were not going to be able to be successful [getting their children into] a school close to their homes," says Sally Jackson, senior vice president of corporate administration. "We use employees to talk to other people we're recruiting, particularly as we acquire other companies."

The positive personal experiences of others can be more reassuring than checking some of the standard measures of public schools, such as Florida's A+ Plan for Education.

"I'll tell you, it's very difficult to refer people to the school report cards," Jackson says. "In Lee County, we've got A and B [elementary and middle] schools, but we don't have any A high schools, at least the last time I looked."

Schools are not usually a make-or-break factor in a company's decision to relocate or expand in a certain area, but they are important. And the state's reputation for poor-quality education can knock it out of the running.

"Florida could lose out on being short-listed because of the public education system," says Steve Shimp, president of Owen-Ames-Kimball Company and an active education advocate.

But, says Jackson, "the key for people is: Are there other opportunities besides public schools for kids in the area? And there are."

Southwest Florida has a number of independent and parochial schools. "[And] increasingly, people are looking at what's going to be happening with charter schools," Jackson says. "That's a relatively new phenomenon here. Will the charter schools be successful, will they provide an alternative to traditional public schools?"

Apples and Oranges

Lee and collier economic development council directors know of no companies scared away from the area by education worries, but Tom Greer, president of the Florida School Boards Association, has had reports from both Palm Beach and Pinellas counties of companies opting to go out of state because of concerns about the quality of education available. The real problem, he says, is not just the quality of schools, but the criteria companies use to gauge that quality-especially the results of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act.

"It's a deceptive measure," he says. "Every test is different because each state creates its own test, sets up its own assessment levels in what they qualify as 'proficient.'"

Under the NCLB, schools and states strive for Adequately Yearly Progress (AYP) guidelines established by each state, and Florida has established some of the most stringent. In addition, if "subgroups" of students-based on race, language proficiency, disability and other measures-don't achieve proficiency, then the whole school fails.

"Ours is one of three toughest, most rigorous in the nation, and our benchmarks are even more rigid than the FCAT test," says Greer. "So you're not measuring apples to apples and oranges to oranges." Other standards, including SAT and ACT scores, can be just as unreliable. A larger proportion of Florida students takes the tests than in many states, but the highest scores usually come from those schools where a small proportion of those eligible are tested. "They're highly dependent on the percentage of the general population that's tested, so they don't necessarily reflect fairly," says Shimp.

Florida measures up well in some nationally standardized tests, such as Advanced Placement tests, he adds. "We tested the most students on AP, and

we finished second nationally, and only 17 percent of our schools met AYP in the state. Mississippi, on the other hand, which had 87 percent of their schools meet AYP, finished 49th on the AP test."

Greer says the guidelines and standards Florida has set for itself under No Child Left Behind are unattainable. "Florida's the only state that the [Department of Education] has actually set them up to fail with standards and subgroup size," he says.

And that could have an economic impact on the whole state. Companies don't necessarily look behind the numbers; they just see that only 17 percent of Florida's schools met AYP, compared with other states with much higher results.

A major concern now, adds Greer: "Standard and Poor's has put on their Web site the No Child Left Behind/AYP test results for every state."

"Florida may have set such vigorous standards [that] it may hang itself," agrees Shimp.

Quality Questions

The dearth of equitable measures is a big problem in comparing education in different states, and the education community in general tends to resist being measured, says Shimp. But the bigger problem is that in many categories that are equitable, Florida just doesn't make the grade.

Shimp, chairman of the workforce task force of Lee County's Horizon Council, also serves on the bipartisan Constitutional Accountability Commission. Headed up by former attorney general Bob Butterworth and former comptroller Bob Milligan, it was formed in 2003 by the Florida School Boards Association and by Florida Tax Watch to address the issue of educational quality in the state.

In 1998, Florida voters approved an amendment to the state constitution guaranteeing students "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-qual-ity system of free public schools that allow students to obtain a high-quality education."

The commission's purpose is to define a "high-quality education."

Similar quality clauses in other states have led to court challenges by parents and taxpayers upset by schools failing to live up to the promise.

As a result, some school districts operate under judicially imposed systems. That's one of the reasons it's imperative that Florida gives meaning to its promise, according to Shimp.

By the 14 performance criteria that the commission found to provide relatively equitable benchmarks against other states, Florida performs miserably. Nationally, it rates in the top quartile in two categories: students returning for a second year of study at two-year colleges, and average beginning teacher salary. It's in the second quartile in terms of fourth-grade reading scores.

Of the remaining 11 criteria, Florida flounders in the bottom quartile in seven categories, and in the third quartile in four areas. Those criteria range from per-pupil expenditures (Florida ranks 45th out of 50), to eighth-grade reading and math scores (37 out of 50), to high-school graduation rate (49th out of 50). Even in average teacher salary, it rates 33rd among the states, according to 2002 figures, indicating that teachers might be hired on at a decent salary, but they don't keep up after the first year.

"Particularly in consideration of our economic resources and health of our economy, it pales in measure to the nation," says Shimp. "We're hoping it leads to legislative action to start a trend of improvement to fulfill the constitutional amendment." And while improving school performance is largely a "societal and community exercise," he adds, "it will also take funding."

Companies generally refer to such performance measures as graduation rates and per-pupil expenditures, along with information provided regionally or at the state level-such as Florida's A+ Plan. In 2004, out of Collier County school district's 37 schools, 57 percent earned an A, 5 percent got Bs, 30 percent had Cs and 8 percent got D grades. Lee County's 62 schools included 53 percent with As, 19 percent with Bs, 26 percent with Cs, and 2 percent with Ds. No school in Collier, Lee or Charlotte (17 schools) counties had a failing grade.

In 2003, all three counties had four-year graduation rates of about 68 percent, according to the state Department of Education-though an independent study by the Manhattan Institute (whose numbers were used by the accountability commission) has called those calculations into question.

If a company or its employees were to check SAT scores, they'd find Florida trails the nation in verbal and math scores.

In 2004, Florida's total score was 998 out of a possible 1,600 points. That compared with a national total score of 1,026.

And if they check into how Florida is doing by No Child Left Behind standards, they'd find that Collier, Lee and the state as a whole failed to make adequate yearly progress in 2004.

Working for the Future

Economic development officials are quick to point out that Florida's schools are only part of the equation. The state, in fact, is known for having a good workforce, primarily because its quality of life attracts talent to the area.