Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Picking the best schools in America is no easy endeavor, but the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act may have claimed another casualty: Blue Ribbons.
The U.S. Department of Education has recognized a couple hundred "blue ribbon schools" across the nation for each of the past 20 years, under a system that tended to reward enterprise. Schools had to apply for the honor and submit to a lengthy application that identified strengths and weaknesses in a variety of areas, including academic achievement, teacher qualifications, curriculum and learning strategies. The schools on a short list then received a site visit, with the winners selected by an appointed board of educators.
U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige threw that out last year in favor of an award that is, like so much else in education reform today, based entirely on standardized test results. Score in the top 10 percent, or show marked improvement if at least 40 percent of your students are poor, and you have a shot at winning a blue ribbon. "We will reward schools based on student achievement results, not process," Paige says. "Blue Ribbon recipients will be national models of excellence that others can learn from."
Well, maybe.
The old rating system certainly placed too little emphasis on test results, but Florida is a good example of the new twist in blue ribbons. Among the 233 schools this year to receive the honor, only seven hailed from Florida. Of those seven, only two are public schools and both serve academically gifted students. That's two schools out of 2,594 in a state whose own Department of Education grades 1,230 of them with an A. One reason is that schools not meeting federal standards for "adequate yearly progress" are declared ineligible, which eliminates 87 percent of Florida public schools. Private schools, on the other hand, don't have to worry because "adequate progress" doesn't apply to them.
Blue ribbons are mostly beauty contests anyway, but Paige might want to explain to the president's brother why Florida has so few "models of excellence."