The Florida Board of Education heard from Governor Rick Scott Monday on his ideas for shaping the future of the state’s public schools. The board also had an opportunity to bring its concerns to the governor, including a controversial plan of setting student achievement goals based on race.
Florida’s solution to closing the achievement gap is a plan that sets education goals for students based on race. The plan is a requirement of a waiver to the federal No Child Left Behind Law, which state board of education chairman Gary Chartrand called colossal failure. In a meeting Monday with Governor Rick Scott, Chartrand said the state needs to look at different options for closing the gap:
“Perhaps longer school days…we’re going to need our best principals and teachers in the worst schools, and we’re going to have our best principals and teachers in the worst schools, and increase the culture of high expectations, discipline and parental involvement," he said.
Chartrand says the board’s challenge is to have Scott onboard with them in re-examining how it spends money differently. Scott says he wants to invest in areas that get results, but did not give specifics.
It was Scott's first meeting with the State Board of Education since presenting his own 2013 education priorities.
