We now have 73 charter schools serving nearly 11,000 children. Thirty-five percent of charter school students in Florida are African American. This was not a very demanding standard, but we had to have a starting point. I can t say we were surprised, but we were still very troubled to find that 158 schools could not reach even this minimal standard. We put those schools and the local school districts on notice that this kind of performance would not be accepted.
Children deserve better.
The Department of Education and State Board of Education were empowered to assist schools in instituting approved improvement plans and demand changes in curriculum and staff if schools did not improve. We also showed that identifying low performing schools is the beginning of the solution, not an end. Importantly, schools will also be measured according to how well their lowest performing students learn, and will not receive high marks if these students are left behind. These grades are not simply window dressing. Our accountability package contains significant incentives and rewards for success as well as serious remediation and consequences for failure.