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College dropout rate puzzles state educators
By STEPHEN HEGARTY, Times Staff Writer PORT ORANGE -- Florida lags behind most states in getting students into college, but the problem gets worse after the freshman year.
What's more, a decade after high school, about six of 10 Florida high school graduates do not have a college degree. That troubling statistic was part of a report to the Florida Board of Education on Monday that provided a snapshot of what Florida's education system does well, and not so well. "A lot of students are dropping out after year one and year two," said board member Charles Garcia. "These kids, they've made it through this system and they made it into college. Why are they dropping out?" Much of the workshop Monday was devoted to the slow, and still abstract, task of setting seven strategic imperatives -- a kind of finely crafted to-do list that will guide the board as it reforms the state's entire educational system from kindergarten through graduate school. But first, board members got a report on the pressure points in the education system. "It is a baseline. It's showing us that picture of what we do have," said Education Secretary Jim Horne. There's no shortage of theories about why Florida students might fall short of earning a college degree. But the board is attempting to take a systematic approach to that problem and others. A case in point: Board members were shown a large chart on high school graduation rates, college admissions and success in college. Officials with the Florida Department of Education, which collects the data, were able to plug in different variables to show what impact, for instance, an improved high school graduation rate might have on college degrees. "We know the higher education system can't be all it can be unless (students) are prepared in K-12," Horne said. According to the formula, an improved high school graduation rate certainly will help create more college degrees. But evidently an even more important pressure point is getting beyond the sophomore year of college; the formula showed that changing that variable would produce even more college degrees. The Board of Education spent hours Monday trying to sort through its seven strategic imperatives, hoping to isolate a limited number of priorities to work on. The imperatives include things such as increasing the supply of qualified teachers, increasing student performance and completion rates in high school and college, and improving school leadership. The goals are broad enough to encompass just about everything related to education, from revamping colleges of education to ending social promotion in elementary schools. Ideally, they would be specific enough to set clear priorities. Many of the imperatives are sure to lead to controversy. For instance, one of the proposals to address student achievement is the possibility of introducing an "exit exam" at the end of high school. Now, the last test a student has to take is the 10th-grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which students must pass to get a standard diploma. The exit exam would address one problem: Research shows that many high school students take fluff courses as they near graduation. But it would create other problems, especially in a state where many educators and parents question whether students are tested too frequently. Board members appear to line up on both sides of that divide. Board member Bill Proctor said he supports some sort of exit exam to assess what students have learned since 10th grade. But board member Linda Eads made it clear that "I don't support going test crazy and coming up with a whole new test." The idea still is in its infancy, but Florida is looking at the regents exam in New York, a high-level test that students must pass to get a regents diploma.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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About a quarter of the state's college freshmen fail to show up for their sophomore year, and another quarter of those are lost before their junior year.
