All Florida schoolchildren should face annual achievement tests, and parents who choose to transfer children from failing public schools to private schools should be eligible for taxpayer dollars, the Republican candidate for governor said Wednesday. Under a plan unveiled by Jeb Bush and his running mate, Education Commissioner Frank Brogan, schools would be graded on an A-F scale based largely on the annual student test results. Two-thirds said they have changed teaching strategies to prepare students specifically for the state tests and some give more tests, more worksheets and more lectures than they otherwise would. But only 31 percent of black students did the same. But only 62 percent of black students passed.
Educators call it the achievement gap.
The conference, to be held Aug. 9-11, is a first step toward closing it, organizers say, and answering demands that advocates for minority children have been making for years.