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New law contradicts aim of reforms, some sayBy KENT FISCHER © St. Petersburg Times, published May 17, 1998 Some couldn't wait that long. Last year, the Legislature quietly passed a school-improvement law that some educators say is at odds with Blueprint 2000. The new law requires schools to base promotions at key grade levels on clear academic standards, a practice they abandoned years ago. Educators who think Blueprint 2000 is working fear the new law will compromise six years of hard work. "In my opinion, we're right back where we started, looking for simple solutions to complex problems," said Bill Alexander, an administrator in Pasco County. Blueprint 2000 urged schools to de-emphasize grade levels and instead judge achievement against a student's individual improvement, a philosophy called "continuous progress." The reforms encouraged multi-age classes that might, for example, contain first, second and third graders. In such a system, individual grade levels become inconsequential, the curriculum becomes more flexible -- and so do promotion policies. Retention became a last resort. The mantra became: all children can learn, but only at their own pace. "We're trying to reorganize school so that the programs are right for the child," said Susan Rine, an administrator who oversees Pasco County elementary schools. "It looks like one of those things that should be black and white, but the bottom line is retention doesn't work." But that's exactly what the new law requires. Schools must now determine which children in grades 2, 3 and 4 lack basic skills in reading, writing and math. The schools must then prescribe an individual plan that will bring each student up to par. Children who don't meet the standards after a year of extra help must be held back until they do. "We wanted to try and take those children and give them an opportunity to be remediated, instead of just passing them along ... " said state Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who sponsored the law. "How do we really know whether the kids are learning when we don't have anything to measure them by? Parents want the A's and B's to mean something." Still, the newly written promotion policies give teachers wide latitude to side-step the new law's mandates. In Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco, for example, teachers can push students ahead if they can show that a retention isn't in the student's best interest. "If you start setting specific criteria and don't leave room for a student's individual (academic) development, you've built failure right into the system," said Oscar Robinson, Pinellas' director of elementary schools. This month in schools around Florida, educators are identifying the first batch of students who don't meet the standards under the new law. Many will go to summer school this year, or will be pushed into remedial programs in the fall. If the extra help doesn't produce results, hundreds of thousands of Florida children may be held back this time next year. The consequences could be calamitous, educators warn. "I'm afraid we'll look up five or six years from now and have a whole bunch of students dropping out," said Pinellas' Robinson.
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ix years ago, Florida lawmakers passed one of the nation's most ambitious education reform laws. They called it Blueprint 2000, with hopes it would create world-class schools by the end of the century.
