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State's rules may be costly

If federal grants to cities and counties are tied to school scores, Florida would lose out.

ORLANDO - Florida cities and counties stand to lose millions of federal grant dollars for community improvements if Gov. Jeb Bush and state education officials hold onto strict rules on schools to score well on math and reading standards, a newspaper reported Sunday.

President Bush has proposed to give a share of $3.71-billion in federal economic assistance only to communities that can meet certain criteria, such as having schools that are making the academic progress required by his No Child Left Behind law.

Florida received $189-million last year in federal community development block grants, but only two counties - Leon and Wakulla - and 23 percent of schools statewide met federal standards last year, the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday.

If Congress adopts the president's grant proposal, school performance would be a factor used to determine what places would get money for economic and community development, said Sandy Baruah, an administrator for the U.S. Commerce Department.

Florida communities have spent federal block grants on projects such as paving sidewalks and installing street lights in poorer areas, the newspaper reported.

Nonpartisan education experts agree that Florida's standards for success under federal law are among the toughest in the nation.

But Florida has the power to amend its standards and probably improve its performance - states have until Friday to submit revised standards to the U.S. Department of Education for them to be applied to student test scores for the current school year.

However, state Education Commissioner John L. Winn said Friday that the state intends to maintain its current rules.

Florida "is not asking the U.S. Department of Education to lower standards, but instead asking them to look at alternatives in their calculations such as including learning gains," Winn said in a statement.

Lelia Allen, Orlando's housing director, said linking the amount of grant money a community receives to its school performance doesn't make sense. After all, the work that money pays for, such as improving neighborhood safety, helps children do better in school, she said.

The federal law requires all students nationwide to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Schools must show adequate yearly progress toward meeting this goal not only for students in general, but also for children grouped by income, race, ethnicity, disability and English fluency.

If just one group of students misses a performance target, then a school is classified as not making adequate progress.

This year, Florida's goal is 53 percent of students doing math at grade level and 48 percent of them reading at grade level, even for children with disabilities and those who do not speak English fluently.

[Last modified March 29, 2005, 01:30:12]