The schools, which still await important scores on the reading and math portions of the FCAT, are officially off Bush's controversial voucher list. Under the statewide plan, schools that fail to have at least 50 percent of students pass all three sections of the FCAT are given an F grade and assigned an improvement program. If the 50 percent goal is not reached the following year, parents are allowed to move their children to higher performing public or private schools, with the state picking up the bill. They have even referred to it as the governor's school voucher plan, an unfair and divisive moniker.
Vouchers never see the light of day if schools do what they are supposed to do educate children.
And, criticism that the governor's plan requires too much from public schools, especially those that serve low-income areas where children are somehow hindered when it comes to learning, sells both students and teachers short. In two cases the improvement was extraordinary. At Lake Trafford Elementary School in Immokalee, the success rate went from 43 percent last year to 82 percent this year and at Suncoast Elementary in Lee County the passing rate went from 43 percent to 84 percent. That's the type of improvement envisioned when the plan was fully implemented two years ago. Good things indeed, like reading, writing and arithmetic.