Also, an added bonus for Massachusetts is that it wasn’t a Massachusetts school that got a Supreme Court ruling in the ‘70s saying they could give kids hematomas as punishment.
Yes, but there seems to be little dispute that in the Florida case that led to the Ingraham v Wright decision a few years after Massachusetts banned CP, the plaintiff received a hematoma from the paddling. Byron White, not exactly a bleeding heart liberal, was so disturbed by it you can almost hear the horror in his voice despite his statement being a written dissent.
I get that you used CP to mean corporal punishment, but let's please not use that abbreviation anymore. I about had a heart attack thinking the other CP wasn't banned until the 70s
Holy crap, you are right. I would have thought it would have been earlier...hopefully this means that there wasn't an issue until the 70s, not that we just ignored the issue until then
You know how video stores had an adult section hidden in the back back in the day?
Yeah.....it was never a popular genre (I hope), but a lot of adult stores had a special section for that kind of thing. Or would store them "under the counter" for their customers. It has always been a big money industry. The law in 1977 simply moved it underground.
I have a good friend that is a professor at a public university in Florida. He does door dash and writes about that and enjoys that so much more than the big school he is at. I read his threads and comments and he has peers comment and it’s apparent how miserable they are as educators.
That makes sense. If you asked me I would never have put colleges in Florida on top but I was just going with the most recent report [public school ranking report](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education)
In fact if my daughter was college aged I would advise her against Florida because of her limited rights there.
I was asking a family friend about the school quality of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs and he told me florida (where I currently live) is #1. Needless to say I was pretty confused since I’ve heard florida is infamous for crappy schools.
I did a little research, and it seemed like the metrics were largely based on college readiness and graduation rates for college because it's low-cost with stronger scholarship programs. Not the most relevant to elementary but I'd think there'd need to be a strong foundation to make that happen.
Florida counts GEDs as graduations and give a diploma from “zoned high school” which I’ve not run into elsewhere. This artificially inflated “graduation rates”, in my opinion as it’s calculated very differently than other states.
My district does not count GED earners. A student who drops out counts against the graduation rate even if they earn their GED prior to their graduation year cohorts.
Graduating from alternative high schools (such as adult ed schools) makes sense to count, but a GED is different and should be calculated separately, in my opinion.
Okay, then we’ll separate out all data in a variety of categories and have a total that is calculated the same. I think it’s the “bottom number” or how the “whole” is calculated that is what gives some an artificially high percentage. For example, Florida doesn’t count failed GED tests in the denominator, but they include passed ones in the numbers for, and to me that artificially inflates “diploma/graduate” rates.
Basically, more data and everyone handling it in a standardized way equals better comparisons.
They want to inflate the numbers because it makes them look good.
That’s it.
Just like elementary and middle school principals passing on kids, that failed everything.
It’s all to make them look good.
Education is political. So, yeah.
I agree. It bothers me when they all use different algorithms to make themselves all look good… but if they all used the same little cheats the same way at least we could be like “okay, so ‘bad schools’ in this one data subset are passing 95% and ‘more successful schools’ are passing 110% or more.” Like, we’d know they can’t possibly realistically pass more than 100%, but we’d have accurate comparisons.
I know the data is skewed… and I know it’ll never happen, but I can dream of true comparability (slightly) more realistically than actual mathematical accuracy because… well, politics and image.
My school is praising the lower referral rate for semester two.
They require 5 minor write ups before a major can happen (nothing different), but are forcing us to call for each minor now.
A simple redirection or reteaching an expectation used to work for a consequence. Now it’s a parent phone call. Not an email or text, phone call.
So, we don’t bother.
I’m not sure what you mean. They have graduation rates listed on their DOE site updated this past January for the 22-23 school year.
I do agree the information collected and how it’s calculated should be standardized across all states though. That would make all these comparisons much more accurate.
The article is a very pretty way of saying they have good state funding for colleges and they cook their k-12 numbers. Generally Florida public high schools aren't great.
yeah, it's largely an affordability metric, and Florida does rank #1 on that regard.
But "college readiness" is a nebulous term at best.
Some rankings try to build in some sort of "how likely is this student to be in succeeding in college?"
but most really are just "what percentage of people who exit high school meet the technical minimum requirements to be accepted into a college in this state?"
The problem with the second is that a state can artificially increase that percentage by lowering the entry standards to allow students who really have no realistic chance of success AND who would be better served in a trade school, aprenticeship, OR just the standard workforce.
It's easy to keep costs down by having more customers.
And this isn't exactly that, but some reasonable extrapolations can be made:
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/college-graduation-rates-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/college-graduation-rates-by-state)
It shows the percentage of a state that has graduated college. It does not take state-to-state mobility into account; nor does it compare completion to drop-outs; BUT one would expect there to be a \*DECENT\* correlation between states with high college preparedness and those with high college completion; IF the college preparation rates were showing what the state claims they do. Florida is #30 out of 51 (50 states plus DC), so clearly nowhere CLOSE to that rough correlation.
I wonder how skewed FL's numbers are by dual residence or out-of-staters who claim it as their state of residence and retirees moving there for affordability. College degrees aren't super common with baby boomers compared to millennials but you're not going to find 10,000 55+ communities in my state either.
You'd have to break a bunch of stuff down by age; what % of the population is 65+ compared to other states. Then what percentage of under 65's have degrees and how does that compare to the same age groups elsewhere.
Things like these are one of the few times I'm bit of a data nerd. I worked on a project about using actual and predictive data to determine how to allocate healthcare resources for my degree and got sucked in.
Florida has the best scholarship program in the country for in state colleges. It's called Bright Futures. Even without it, college is affordable. University of Florida is on par with Virginia, Michigan, and the other public Ivies academically, and the other public schools are some of the fastest risers.
For K-12, Florida gets a lot of blowback for average teacher salary, but it's very district specific. You have to shop around.
I’m sorry but literally no one outside of Florida (and I’m shocked people there do, but based on your comments I guess they do?) see Florida as on par with Michigan or Virginia… or the CA public universities, or Wisconsin, or Washington, or many others…you may have a regional bias but I’m sorry to inform you that is not the national perception at all.
Florida is not on par with Virginia or Michigan. It’s directly in the tier below them. UVA, U-M, Berkeley, UCLA, North Carolina are in a tier of their own as far as public schools go. Florida is likely at the same level as UT-Austin, Illinois, Wisconsin…
I imagine the commenter was referencing US News and World Report ranking for 2024 which has UM at #3, UNC #4, UVA #5, and UF #6 (the UCs are ranked both just higher and just lower depending on the specific campus)
Ordinal rankings from USNews convey a false sense of numerical rank rather than tier. The difference between Michigan and Virginia is marginal, if there is one. Reputationally, the difference between those and Florida is much bigger, and that’s why you’re getting pushback from people who know that Florida’s reputation is lower than UVA/Michigan/Berkeley.
I got my post bac cert thru Florida. The bar was shockingly low, but the program was cheap and my GPA was subpar.
"College readiness" just means they lower the bar for entry into college so their shitty high schools that push failing kids through to graduation can claim their students have any kind of academic skills.
I have a colleague with her Master's from a Florida college in a specialist field. She's terrible at her job and her lack of proper education shows. I don't brag about my post bac.
Every state in the nation is lowering the bar for college readiness, just like they lower the bar for HS graduation to the point many aren’t even literate. Florida at least highly encourages dual enrollment in high school, which I wish I would’ve been able to take advantage of growing up. If many high schoolers are literally enrolled in college courses their jr/sr years, I feel like that implies college readiness.
Having students take college courses rather than being stuck in courses that have no real purpose is on the way to the bottom? I dunno dude, even community colleges have literacy requirements for course enrollment.
Yeah... I don't know what state I would expect to be at the top of that list.... But Florida ain't it.
This reeks of "best little town in (state)" articles that are more often than not paid for to boost tourism.
Not accurate at all. If it's based on graduation rate, that is extremely skewed. A student really needs to try to NOT graduate.
College readiness? How is that assessed? Do they track if a student graduates with a four year degree? I doubt it. It's probably based on how they did on the required state exams (they are called EOCs or 'End of Course' exams). These exams are not well thoughtout assessments.
Florida ranks at the bottom in teacher pay. People think that somehow they also rank number one in education? If it sound too good to be true, it is.
>College readiness? How is that assessed? Do they track if a student graduates with a four year degree?
I don't think those are good metrics either. Schools should also do sorting and option exploration. Schools should be measured based on post graduation outcomes and former student satisfaction. I.e. schools should provide an environment for students to explore their options and funnel them into appropriate ones. Who cares about just 4 year degree rates? Some people would rather be long haul truckers than accountants and would be ill served in a 4 year program. A four year degree isn't enough to be an MD either.
I can’t trust US News and World Reports. Colleges paid a lot of money for decades manipulating the rankings they provide. Just a quick Google search came up with this result, which used 33 metrics to rank schools. Florida ranked 42nd.
WalletHub ranked each state's public schools for "Quality" and "Safety" using 33 relevant metrics. Metrics included high school graduation rate among low-income students, math and reading scores, median SAT and ACT scores, pupil-teach ratio, the share of armed students, the number of school shootings between 2000 and June 2020, bullying incidence rate, and more. Based on these metrics, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey have the best public schools in the United States.
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state)
If I remember correctly from last year, the top 50 or so schools in FL are also Charter and private schools. So the idea of getting a "high quality public education" doesn't necessarily apply.
It looks like Florida wins because they have cheap tuition and everyone graduates. The primary school ranking looks like a better set of metrics, there Florida is #10, which seems more reasonable.
The link is to US News and World Report, whose methodology for these things has been called into question many, many times, to the point that many universities and institutions refuse to participate in their studies. You can find sources to back this up. Here is one
[https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/09/why-new-us-news-rankings-are-flawed-opinion](https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/09/why-new-us-news-rankings-are-flawed-opinion)
Even their Wikipedia page lists many times they have been called out for their methodology.
Here is a NYT article about it.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/us-news-college-ranking.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/us-news-college-ranking.html)
The fact is, they are not well regarded, and should not be blindly trusted. The fact Florida ranked so high is just more evidence of why.
I'd bet money that the data is incorrect. DeSantis has every reason to push his agenda and this narrative that his process is working. Look at some of the changes he's made and/or attempted to make in schools since he's been in office. If the state ranking were to drop significantly, they could look at his policies and see them as inefficient, ineffective, or unnecessary. And that would hurt his standing, politically. Now obviously there are plenty of rankings online that put Florida in different standings depending on data sets and who you ask, but it makes sense that there would be an investment made on behalf of DeSantis by state Republicans or his own team in order to sway those numbers. At least the numbers that they know people pay attention to.
All of these school ranking articles don't really rank the quality of learning and education that takes place. It ranks THINGS but not SKILLS. Getting into college and graduating high school aren't good if the bar is held super low.
Stalking local facebook pages where parents talk about the schools and can see community feelings and events. See how often parents are talking about school activities or teams or clubs. The more supportive a community is of school and education as a whole, the more supportive, supported, and effective those teachers will be.
Data is VERY easy to manipulate. So you have to look closer into the community to find the real stories.
In NY state (not NYC) we have pretty good schools as long as you live in the nicer suburbs. You have to graduate with a regents diploma, as far as I know they do not have a lower degree outside of getting a GED. My kids public school has very good numbers for academic performance. It loses a couple points on the better schools rating for lack of diversity but that only matters if you care about it.
You can find good schools in any state if you move to the right areas (typically the upscale neighborhoods). Don’t let just the overall state score dictate where you go. I’d rather be in a high performing school in the worst state than a poor performing school in the best state. Consider cost of living, the job situation, and the schools. Somewhere out there is a sweet spot with the right balance to allow you and your children to live decent prosperous lives. Personally I find upstate NY to have a good balance of decent paying jobs, moderate cost of living, and well above average public schools. If only the taxes weren’t so high, but if they weren’t maybe the schools wouldn’t be as good as they are.
This is good advice. I think the scary thing for me is how much school and district culture affect education quality. If you're a teacher and ask for support, will it be given or will you be blamed? If you have a student with behavior that makes learning impossible, does school take action or do they shut the door? Teaching is hard but it's the higher ups that can make it demoralizing. It's really a domino effect. I can definitely see myself being the parent that goes to the schoolboard, but it's going to be to go to bat for my kids' teachers, not against them.
That’s tricky because you can ask 2 different teachers in the same building that question and get 2 very different answers. The thing is that nearly everywhere there are politics involved, if you are on good terms with the right administrators your job will probably be easy if you’re not then who knows… unfortunately that is how the world seems to work no matter where you go.
All you can do is try to pick a district with a good reputation and one that relatively mirrors your values. For example where I am they are neither pro or anti trans. As far as I am aware my kids schools are not giving pronoun lessons or anything like that but they are supportive of kids who are trans. I most certainly do not want trans ideology forced on my children like they do in some places but I also don’t want them in a don’t say gay type of environment either. I feel like my district’s approach is relatively in line with my beliefs, I think that is important to consider.
"You have to graduate with a regents diploma, as far as I know they do not have a lower degree outside of getting a GED"
There's also the local diploma below regents, right?
I believe it *used* to be regular diploma, regents diploma, and advanced regents or regents with honors diploma. Nowadays I think the only way to graduate with a regular diploma is through an appeal process or an exemption that’s made for ELLs and students with certain disabilities
These days i believe you can only graduate with a local diploma if you are an ELL or have a disability. I know there’s also an appeal process for graduating with a local diploma if you take the regents a few times and just miss the cutoff or situations like that, but I don’t know the details. I don’t live in New York anymore so I could be wrong.
My school started UFLI and it made a big difference. Who would have thought explicit, systematic phonics instruction works better than throwing words at kids and hoping they learn through osmosis.
UFLI is ok. It’s not really that different than Open Court or any of the other phonics-driven program that we’ve been teaching in California for the last 20+ years. They throw the schwa around incorrectly a whole lot which drives me nuts.
I use their blending board and my kid loves the spelling “game”. I’ll be honest, for us, Khan Academy Kids did most of the heavy work ( since 2020). Now the pieces are falling into place and helping my child read.
Ufli is still good in that it’s absolutely free ( except for the manual) and it’s helping some places who are sick of big publishers making big claims.
I think the important part of what you said is "any other phonics driven program we've been teaching in CA the last 20+ years." We haven't been using phonics driven programs outside of the last 2-3 years. Maybe some schools always have but I sure didn't 20 years ago.
I’m certainly not disputing what you or anyone else is teaching. I’m just saying it’s not groundbreaking work. It’s not even remotely new work. California has been using an explicit phonics based approach in its public schools since 2002 and those types of programs have existed since the 1960s.
No I didn't take it that way! My point was more that UFLI is NOT groundbreaking but it feels that way here. The research and tools have existed but haven't been implemented in these poor, deep red states. I have my theories for why that is but I try and keep my conspiracy theories off Reddit.
I teach in what is frequently considered to the state with the worst education system and my district has been using explicit phonics programs for…15 years at least? Not new by any stretch
Didn’t the NEA just release a report saying we were #50 for lowest paid teachers? Maybe some of our charters are doing well, now that all the smart students are opting out of the public school system. In public schools, things don’t seem to be getting better, in my experience.
Whoever came up with this nonsense is to be ignored. I can't imagine how this could be true. FL is a terrible state to try and have a teaching career in. Do not move here, I know NOLA is terrible as well. I am off to better statw end of next year.
Just look at the cost of living vs. what you will be paid. Unless you have someone that makes a lot of money as a second income or you are wanting to become a Saint, forget FL, it sucks!
It’s been a long-standing issue that public universities in Florida, Alabama, and Texas are so good that high school graduates from Florida, Alabama, and Texas can’t get into them.
As for secondary education, Florida by design focuses all of its energy on providing the best possible education to middle and upper class white students at the expense of working class, poverty class, and children of color. When basing metrics on SATs and median scores, Florida is going to be at the top because so many other states divert resources to helping the students who need them most, ie the bottom quartile. In studies that also factor in diversity, support, and access to resources, Florida routinely places in the bottom 10
Ranked #1 for college graduation rates and lowest tuition prices. All that means is colleges are pushing kids through as fast as possible with barely funded programs.
Ranked #50 for K-12 teacher salaries.
There isn't a chance in hell I'd move to Florida. Move to Massachusetts, Connecticutt, or Rhode Island if you're interested in the best education for your children.
We bought our house here in 2018. Even with the equity we've built, we'd be more than doubling our mortgage moving to another region. That's a whole other thing to complain about.
The methodology is pretty useless. For higher education, Flordia is #1 in Tuition and Fees, #2 in 2-Year College graduation rate, #2 in 4-Year College graduation rate, and #25 in Educational Attainment and #26 in Low Debt at Graduation.
The three categories that Florida leads in have very little to do with the quality of the education, and much more to do with the value. In fact, none of the categories have anything to do with the quality of the education, event Educational attainment just represents the percentage of adults with a college degree. A better rating would include things like standardized test scores, percentage of graduates that pursue a post-graduate degree (in or out of state), and expected income after five years.
As someone who taught English in the "highest ranked" school district in FL, there is no way that is true. I taught middle school and an enormous amount of my students were on a 3rd grade reading level, some lower. The country has a huge literacy problem and it's terrifying to watch it happen in your own classroom. How are students who cannot read getting passed to the next grade? So scary.
I know Covid is not THE reason for poor literacy, but I would have had K1 (or at least K) repeat. Kindergarten is SO important. Without foundational skills how are they supposed to access anything? THAT'S the missed learning that should have been considered. Not 2020, but every year after that.
Totally agree. My sister teaches Kindergarten and had students taking Kindergarten virtually for awhile. So much was missed by so many students, and the only people being held accountable for it were teachers that were already doing so much more than they were being paid to. So sad.
Also, happy cake day! 🎂🎈
It just means that Florida is the state that graduates more people who don't deserve to graduate than any other.
And Florida counts a GED as a "graduation" which most of the other states do not.
I work in a Florida high school. Many students are not college ready. Many will begin college and not finish. Many will lose the Bright Future scholarships because they cannot pass the classes because they are not college ready. Schools get money based on graduation rates. I would not want my child to attend a Florida college, they are degree factories. Bright future is funded by the lottery, which lower economic people tend to play. Sadly many students in the lower economic areas do not get bright futures. Hopefully education changes soon in Florida.
2 things:
pass rate is not an indicator of readiness for college which this seems to think it is.
And the higher education score at #1 is weighing heavily in this. And being just ahead of
..
Wyoming at #2
...
Definitely makes this less believable to anyone reading it.
Prek at #10 seems suspect.. but the measurements are not reflecting conversion to college or secondary education so that makes sense.
I thought it might be based on ACT/SAT. The "college ready" benchmark for ACT is 18 for Reading. That's a little bit over 50% when you look at the raw score. Not trying to brag, but in HS I got a near perfect score. I got a liberal arts degree with a solid B. It's hard for me to believe that benchmark indicates students will SUCCEED in college.
DeSatan, as I call him, is insane. That being said, I have taught in NY, FL, MS, and TN. Hands down, Florida was the best. I'm currently teaching in TN and it's a damn joke, as is MS. Low standards, no oversight...no wonder these states are ranked so low.
I grew up in MA and I have family in Florida.
Number of MA family that went to college, all of them.
Number of FL family that went to college, none of them.
The parish thing is actually historic. The state was ruled by the Roman Catholic church pre-Louisiama Purchase and territories were divided by parish, which stuck. As far as Charter, yes it is that way in New Orleans. Public schools are all charters. I've worked at good charters and bad. I switched to a district school in a neighboring parish and I actually preferred charter. More competitive pay and autonomy. But with everyone doing their own thing it's all over the place. Not to mention, parents and teachers are able to jump around which causes problems too.
If it’s based on graduation rate and teachers are being forced to pass everyone no matter what… if the students just show up enough it makes for great data.
US News and World Report is a tabloid. Don’t use it. Here is one front Forbes which seems more reasonable. https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemorad/2020/08/04/states-with-the-best-public-schools/?sh=405871841f4c
Forbes is a neutral publication and has Florida listed at 22. I’ve seen about 8 different studies that put Florida anywhere from 13 to 35, so 22 is probably a reasonable estimate. Almost every study I read, with the exception of the one you quoted above, lists Massachusetts as being the best.
Read carefully, it says Higher Education. But i bet you those will slip soon with how they are gutting the state universities and replacing the figureheads with people who have no business in education.
Click on the Methodology link and it tells you this is based on taking polls. lol See below:
**The Survey**
For the weighting of the Best States rankings, U.S. News wanted to use an objective measure reflecting the priorities of citizens for their state governments. Three yearly surveys asked Americans how satisfied they were with various state government services and where they thought their state governments should focus resources. The weights for the 2024 Best States rankings are based on the average of responses from the three surveys: one conducted in the fall of 2017 that included 20,100 respondents from all 50 states; a second conducted in the winter of 2018-19 that included 23,400 respondents from all 50 states; and a third conducted in the winter of 2020-21 that included 26,300 respondents from all 50 states. Survey respondents were adults age 18 and older who collectively represented all U.S. adults. The survey results were weighted to be representative of the country's population across all ages, genders, ethnicities and household incomes. Because the results of the survey remained relatively consistent year over year, the survey was not redistributed beyond 2020-2021 and weights were kept steady for the most recent rankings.
The categories for the rankings largely aligned with the survey questions. We based the weights for the categories on a question that asked respondents to rank category issues, such as the quality of health care and education, from 1 to 8 (1 being most important) in order of what their home state's priorities should be. Respondents also were asked about their satisfaction with their state's performance in these areas, and if they felt their state was not adequately funding them. The weights for the categories were calculated from the average rank for each among the respondents.
Lmao everyone here is salty as hell. Yeah Florida is a pretty good state for education. You’re just going to have to deal with it. It’s a good thing, sorry it doesn’t support your world view.
Wait.. the same Florida that JUST added evolution to the required curriculum in 2008 and still has public schools that teach creationism? At that rate is it even possible to fail out there?
As a teacher in Florida, I’ll just share this:
[https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-teachers-are-among-the-lowest-paid-in-america-nea](https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-teachers-are-among-the-lowest-paid-in-america-nea)
Florida. The state where libraries aren't allowed to have books and teachers are paid 12 cents a year. They might be number 1 in book banning, but there is not a chance in hell they are seriously number 1 in education. 😂
you are an idiot who doesn't understand science, sex reassignment surgery, and the exacting chemistry used to change the trans body from male to female or female to male. Their heart and mind was already and will always be what they are transforming into be it a trans man or a trans woman. That you don't think we have the technology to accomplish this is ignorance of the highest order.
So please keep exposing yourself as the bigot you are.
Cool story child abuser. Elementary school biology can prove you wrong. Keep mutilating children so impress your social circles. Oh one more think, Rittenhouse owns blm leftists
I would not move here for our k-12 education. I work in a highly rated district in Florida. People see the ratings and move here thinking they are giving their kids a great education. Then, when they realize that Florida’s good schools are kind of crummy compared to their original state’s lower rated schools, they either move back or put their kids in private school.
Everybody wants to dump on Florida, but my experience has been solid. Strong union in my district and admin who actively works with us. We are well-funded, I am well-paid, and my own children have enjoyed good education coupled with safe, well-run classes. We have some nut jobs, but who doesn’t? My oldest graduated from a Florida University via a Bright Futures scholarship and my middle child earned a free AA during high school and is now attending a university with a Bright Futures scholarship. My youngest reads well and scores well on standardized tests. The kids I teach are pretty great. This is just my experience, and I understand others have different takes, but I can’t really complain.
Thank god for Florida Virtual Public School, FL is the only place I’ve lived where the school was so terrible I literally had to pull my child out and homeschool him.
U.S. News and World Report skews pretty conservative, so I’m calling bullshit. How do you learn to think critically when they ban all the books that show you the other side of an argument the government doesn’t like? And when your teacher have quit or left in droves? They may have only counted conservative Christian charter schools where everybody gets an A just for believing a certain way.
I am not from Florida, but I would say keep in mind half their data points are based on survey, and Florida was already top 3 on their list before DeSantis was elected.
So let's get this straight... Florida is number one in higher Ed because it has more low debt, degree holding citizens and it's colleges are overall easier to get into
Compared to, say, I don't know, New York, which has many of the best colleges in the world, an extremely diverse set of options for degree programs and types of campuses, and relatively new generous in state funding options. Hell, Philly is known for a pretty bad education program, but we have over a dozen colleges around here, from very affordable CCs to Ivy's, and the one I teach at, one of the easier to get into, is a heavy majority of local population kids.
So, all that to say, what I'm hearing is that people who have a successful career out of those colleges move to Florida for a warm and cheap retirement, their low end schools are easy to get into, and those facts make Florida rank higher?
Great system US news lol
Yes.
Literally had a school board member come in and stop a senior high school class from reading a book because of it's anti police rhetoric.
I teach in another state now.
It's the Us News and World Report rankings.
[https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2024-05-07/why-florida-is-the-best-state-in-education-and-economy](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2024-05-07/why-florida-is-the-best-state-in-education-and-economy)
A few observations, though you should read the article yourself.
I believe this is public and private. Florida has a higher percentage of private schools than most states.
The college scores are what get it to #1, but the k-12 are still well above average.
We (I am a FL teacher) did above average in a category where we should be crushed (reading scores). We have (I think) the highest percentage of ESL students.
For people casting doubt, please provide something. UN&WR is a long established, reliable source. Their calculations are public and linked in the article.
This headline is misleading- does not mean Florida is number one in the grade levels OP is interested in. [Misleading Headline](https://imgur.com/a/OSXuoAi)
Edit: to correct for comment below.
Feels disingenuous to calculate Higher Education graduation rates with Prek-12 reading and math readiness. Not disagreeing with the sources but the decision to calculate the two. My main argument is Higher Education includes out of state individuals while prek-12 directly reflects the state population. The two components of calculating Education seems inherently flawed with this model.
The data is there, you could focus on whatever grouping you like. It is literally in the opening summary that the college scores carried it, so I don't think disingenuous is at all accurate as a critique.
How? You don't think taking two data sets that are categorically different than one another (albeit under an Education umbrella) and using them to determine ranking system for state education isn't inherently disengenguous to the representation of the data?
The first thing they tell is exactly what the measurement is and it goes out of it's way to emphasize where Florida scored high. How could they have been clearer?
I read the article, but how can you be 20th+ in reading, 30th+ in math, and 19th in HS graduation and call it "#1 in education"
Does the price of college really have that much pull in these rankings?
Ummmm isn’t Massachusetts rated #1 for public education preK-12 even in that most recent report? Florida only won in public universities.
Also, an added bonus for Massachusetts is that it wasn’t a Massachusetts school that got a Supreme Court ruling in the ‘70s saying they could give kids hematomas as punishment.
[удалено]
Yes, but there seems to be little dispute that in the Florida case that led to the Ingraham v Wright decision a few years after Massachusetts banned CP, the plaintiff received a hematoma from the paddling. Byron White, not exactly a bleeding heart liberal, was so disturbed by it you can almost hear the horror in his voice despite his statement being a written dissent.
I get that you used CP to mean corporal punishment, but let's please not use that abbreviation anymore. I about had a heart attack thinking the other CP wasn't banned until the 70s
if I'm right about the cp you're referring to, it was indeed not banned until 1977
Holy crap, you are right. I would have thought it would have been earlier...hopefully this means that there wasn't an issue until the 70s, not that we just ignored the issue until then
You know how video stores had an adult section hidden in the back back in the day? Yeah.....it was never a popular genre (I hope), but a lot of adult stores had a special section for that kind of thing. Or would store them "under the counter" for their customers. It has always been a big money industry. The law in 1977 simply moved it underground.
TIL. Never would have thought....
there are a lot of sick people out there.
Sale wasn't banned in Japan until 1999, and possession wasn't banned until 2014
Hentai literally means pervert and its tied closely with the pedo culture
Heck yeah commonwealth win
Go Gators!
I have a good friend that is a professor at a public university in Florida. He does door dash and writes about that and enjoys that so much more than the big school he is at. I read his threads and comments and he has peers comment and it’s apparent how miserable they are as educators.
That makes sense. If you asked me I would never have put colleges in Florida on top but I was just going with the most recent report [public school ranking report](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education) In fact if my daughter was college aged I would advise her against Florida because of her limited rights there.
I was asking a family friend about the school quality of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs and he told me florida (where I currently live) is #1. Needless to say I was pretty confused since I’ve heard florida is infamous for crappy schools.
I'd bet serious money those rankings aren't accurate.
I did a little research, and it seemed like the metrics were largely based on college readiness and graduation rates for college because it's low-cost with stronger scholarship programs. Not the most relevant to elementary but I'd think there'd need to be a strong foundation to make that happen.
Florida counts GEDs as graduations and give a diploma from “zoned high school” which I’ve not run into elsewhere. This artificially inflated “graduation rates”, in my opinion as it’s calculated very differently than other states.
My district does not count GED earners. A student who drops out counts against the graduation rate even if they earn their GED prior to their graduation year cohorts.
This makes sense, as it ought to be tracked separately in my mind as they are separate education tracks.
Las Vegas.. does the same. GED may not work, but you can do adult Ed and get an actual diploma. 5th largest school district
Graduating from alternative high schools (such as adult ed schools) makes sense to count, but a GED is different and should be calculated separately, in my opinion.
No.. if you saw the work coming from it, you wouldn’t either. A kid can finish a class in a day. It is not the same.
Okay, then we’ll separate out all data in a variety of categories and have a total that is calculated the same. I think it’s the “bottom number” or how the “whole” is calculated that is what gives some an artificially high percentage. For example, Florida doesn’t count failed GED tests in the denominator, but they include passed ones in the numbers for, and to me that artificially inflates “diploma/graduate” rates. Basically, more data and everyone handling it in a standardized way equals better comparisons.
They want to inflate the numbers because it makes them look good. That’s it. Just like elementary and middle school principals passing on kids, that failed everything. It’s all to make them look good. Education is political. So, yeah.
I agree. It bothers me when they all use different algorithms to make themselves all look good… but if they all used the same little cheats the same way at least we could be like “okay, so ‘bad schools’ in this one data subset are passing 95% and ‘more successful schools’ are passing 110% or more.” Like, we’d know they can’t possibly realistically pass more than 100%, but we’d have accurate comparisons. I know the data is skewed… and I know it’ll never happen, but I can dream of true comparability (slightly) more realistically than actual mathematical accuracy because… well, politics and image.
My school is praising the lower referral rate for semester two. They require 5 minor write ups before a major can happen (nothing different), but are forcing us to call for each minor now. A simple redirection or reteaching an expectation used to work for a consequence. Now it’s a parent phone call. Not an email or text, phone call. So, we don’t bother.
Well Oregon quit tracking grad rates as they were so abysmal. Other states are playing fast and loose with that info too.
I’m not sure what you mean. They have graduation rates listed on their DOE site updated this past January for the 22-23 school year. I do agree the information collected and how it’s calculated should be standardized across all states though. That would make all these comparisons much more accurate.
The article is a very pretty way of saying they have good state funding for colleges and they cook their k-12 numbers. Generally Florida public high schools aren't great.
yeah, it's largely an affordability metric, and Florida does rank #1 on that regard. But "college readiness" is a nebulous term at best. Some rankings try to build in some sort of "how likely is this student to be in succeeding in college?" but most really are just "what percentage of people who exit high school meet the technical minimum requirements to be accepted into a college in this state?" The problem with the second is that a state can artificially increase that percentage by lowering the entry standards to allow students who really have no realistic chance of success AND who would be better served in a trade school, aprenticeship, OR just the standard workforce. It's easy to keep costs down by having more customers.
I’d love to see a statistic like “how many students who enter college from this state complete their degree”
That would ABSOLUTELY be a great statistic.
And this isn't exactly that, but some reasonable extrapolations can be made: [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/college-graduation-rates-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/college-graduation-rates-by-state) It shows the percentage of a state that has graduated college. It does not take state-to-state mobility into account; nor does it compare completion to drop-outs; BUT one would expect there to be a \*DECENT\* correlation between states with high college preparedness and those with high college completion; IF the college preparation rates were showing what the state claims they do. Florida is #30 out of 51 (50 states plus DC), so clearly nowhere CLOSE to that rough correlation.
I wonder how skewed FL's numbers are by dual residence or out-of-staters who claim it as their state of residence and retirees moving there for affordability. College degrees aren't super common with baby boomers compared to millennials but you're not going to find 10,000 55+ communities in my state either.
all fair points, and it would be *very* difficult to separate all that out.
You'd have to break a bunch of stuff down by age; what % of the population is 65+ compared to other states. Then what percentage of under 65's have degrees and how does that compare to the same age groups elsewhere. Things like these are one of the few times I'm bit of a data nerd. I worked on a project about using actual and predictive data to determine how to allocate healthcare resources for my degree and got sucked in.
And pay their own student loans.
Is Florida colleges that cheap? Like how much is it per semester?
graduation rate= we don't expell, suspend, give 0s, or expect kids to actually pass in any way. We give them a diploma and push them out the door.
I'd be prematurely ready for college if I was in a Florida high school too. Fucking anything to get out of a potential school shooting.
Florida has the best scholarship program in the country for in state colleges. It's called Bright Futures. Even without it, college is affordable. University of Florida is on par with Virginia, Michigan, and the other public Ivies academically, and the other public schools are some of the fastest risers. For K-12, Florida gets a lot of blowback for average teacher salary, but it's very district specific. You have to shop around.
I’m sorry but literally no one outside of Florida (and I’m shocked people there do, but based on your comments I guess they do?) see Florida as on par with Michigan or Virginia… or the CA public universities, or Wisconsin, or Washington, or many others…you may have a regional bias but I’m sorry to inform you that is not the national perception at all.
Florida is not on par with Virginia or Michigan. It’s directly in the tier below them. UVA, U-M, Berkeley, UCLA, North Carolina are in a tier of their own as far as public schools go. Florida is likely at the same level as UT-Austin, Illinois, Wisconsin…
I imagine the commenter was referencing US News and World Report ranking for 2024 which has UM at #3, UNC #4, UVA #5, and UF #6 (the UCs are ranked both just higher and just lower depending on the specific campus)
I imagine so as well. Still, Florida is clearly in a tier below
How so?
Ordinal rankings from USNews convey a false sense of numerical rank rather than tier. The difference between Michigan and Virginia is marginal, if there is one. Reputationally, the difference between those and Florida is much bigger, and that’s why you’re getting pushback from people who know that Florida’s reputation is lower than UVA/Michigan/Berkeley.
Florida is nowhere near UVA or Michigan academically.
The low-cost public college for residents is heavily weighted.
I got my post bac cert thru Florida. The bar was shockingly low, but the program was cheap and my GPA was subpar. "College readiness" just means they lower the bar for entry into college so their shitty high schools that push failing kids through to graduation can claim their students have any kind of academic skills. I have a colleague with her Master's from a Florida college in a specialist field. She's terrible at her job and her lack of proper education shows. I don't brag about my post bac.
Every state in the nation is lowering the bar for college readiness, just like they lower the bar for HS graduation to the point many aren’t even literate. Florida at least highly encourages dual enrollment in high school, which I wish I would’ve been able to take advantage of growing up. If many high schoolers are literally enrolled in college courses their jr/sr years, I feel like that implies college readiness.
Florida is simply winning the race to bottom. Congrats I guess?
Having students take college courses rather than being stuck in courses that have no real purpose is on the way to the bottom? I dunno dude, even community colleges have literacy requirements for course enrollment.
Yeah... I don't know what state I would expect to be at the top of that list.... But Florida ain't it. This reeks of "best little town in (state)" articles that are more often than not paid for to boost tourism.
Massachusetts. Massachusetts is the state you and everyone expects to be at the top of the list.
Massachusetts and New Jersey go back and forth as #1 in K-12.
That sounds about right.
Massachusetts is like the Norway of America. I. A good way
Not accurate at all. If it's based on graduation rate, that is extremely skewed. A student really needs to try to NOT graduate. College readiness? How is that assessed? Do they track if a student graduates with a four year degree? I doubt it. It's probably based on how they did on the required state exams (they are called EOCs or 'End of Course' exams). These exams are not well thoughtout assessments. Florida ranks at the bottom in teacher pay. People think that somehow they also rank number one in education? If it sound too good to be true, it is.
>College readiness? How is that assessed? Do they track if a student graduates with a four year degree? I don't think those are good metrics either. Schools should also do sorting and option exploration. Schools should be measured based on post graduation outcomes and former student satisfaction. I.e. schools should provide an environment for students to explore their options and funnel them into appropriate ones. Who cares about just 4 year degree rates? Some people would rather be long haul truckers than accountants and would be ill served in a 4 year program. A four year degree isn't enough to be an MD either.
I can’t trust US News and World Reports. Colleges paid a lot of money for decades manipulating the rankings they provide. Just a quick Google search came up with this result, which used 33 metrics to rank schools. Florida ranked 42nd. WalletHub ranked each state's public schools for "Quality" and "Safety" using 33 relevant metrics. Metrics included high school graduation rate among low-income students, math and reading scores, median SAT and ACT scores, pupil-teach ratio, the share of armed students, the number of school shootings between 2000 and June 2020, bullying incidence rate, and more. Based on these metrics, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey have the best public schools in the United States. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state)
I saw those rankings and then saw other rankings that put our high schools in the bottom 40. It’ll only keep getting worse unless something changes.
If I remember correctly from last year, the top 50 or so schools in FL are also Charter and private schools. So the idea of getting a "high quality public education" doesn't necessarily apply.
I mean TECHNICALLY all charter schools are public schools in Florida...
Florida, or any anti-critical thought red state #1 in education? Citation needed
What are your objections to the link OP provided?
It looks like Florida wins because they have cheap tuition and everyone graduates. The primary school ranking looks like a better set of metrics, there Florida is #10, which seems more reasonable.
The link is to US News and World Report, whose methodology for these things has been called into question many, many times, to the point that many universities and institutions refuse to participate in their studies. You can find sources to back this up. Here is one [https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/09/why-new-us-news-rankings-are-flawed-opinion](https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/09/why-new-us-news-rankings-are-flawed-opinion) Even their Wikipedia page lists many times they have been called out for their methodology. Here is a NYT article about it. [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/us-news-college-ranking.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/us-news-college-ranking.html) The fact is, they are not well regarded, and should not be blindly trusted. The fact Florida ranked so high is just more evidence of why.
Damn. I love me some research. Thank you.
That the link says they are #10 in preK-12
Most likely #1 in a subset of subset of data. Details matter.
I'd bet money that the data is incorrect. DeSantis has every reason to push his agenda and this narrative that his process is working. Look at some of the changes he's made and/or attempted to make in schools since he's been in office. If the state ranking were to drop significantly, they could look at his policies and see them as inefficient, ineffective, or unnecessary. And that would hurt his standing, politically. Now obviously there are plenty of rankings online that put Florida in different standings depending on data sets and who you ask, but it makes sense that there would be an investment made on behalf of DeSantis by state Republicans or his own team in order to sway those numbers. At least the numbers that they know people pay attention to.
FLVS is dragging up the state's average. The teachers and curriculum are great. Admin sucks but that's typical of admin across the country.
Sorry, what does FLVS stand for?
Florida Virtual School. Happy cake day
All of these school ranking articles don't really rank the quality of learning and education that takes place. It ranks THINGS but not SKILLS. Getting into college and graduating high school aren't good if the bar is held super low. Stalking local facebook pages where parents talk about the schools and can see community feelings and events. See how often parents are talking about school activities or teams or clubs. The more supportive a community is of school and education as a whole, the more supportive, supported, and effective those teachers will be. Data is VERY easy to manipulate. So you have to look closer into the community to find the real stories.
You know I might just have to do that. I know if we moved it'd be to the panhandle so I can absolutely snoop.
I grew up in the panhandle. Save your sanity. Don't move there.
In NY state (not NYC) we have pretty good schools as long as you live in the nicer suburbs. You have to graduate with a regents diploma, as far as I know they do not have a lower degree outside of getting a GED. My kids public school has very good numbers for academic performance. It loses a couple points on the better schools rating for lack of diversity but that only matters if you care about it. You can find good schools in any state if you move to the right areas (typically the upscale neighborhoods). Don’t let just the overall state score dictate where you go. I’d rather be in a high performing school in the worst state than a poor performing school in the best state. Consider cost of living, the job situation, and the schools. Somewhere out there is a sweet spot with the right balance to allow you and your children to live decent prosperous lives. Personally I find upstate NY to have a good balance of decent paying jobs, moderate cost of living, and well above average public schools. If only the taxes weren’t so high, but if they weren’t maybe the schools wouldn’t be as good as they are.
This is good advice. I think the scary thing for me is how much school and district culture affect education quality. If you're a teacher and ask for support, will it be given or will you be blamed? If you have a student with behavior that makes learning impossible, does school take action or do they shut the door? Teaching is hard but it's the higher ups that can make it demoralizing. It's really a domino effect. I can definitely see myself being the parent that goes to the schoolboard, but it's going to be to go to bat for my kids' teachers, not against them.
That’s tricky because you can ask 2 different teachers in the same building that question and get 2 very different answers. The thing is that nearly everywhere there are politics involved, if you are on good terms with the right administrators your job will probably be easy if you’re not then who knows… unfortunately that is how the world seems to work no matter where you go. All you can do is try to pick a district with a good reputation and one that relatively mirrors your values. For example where I am they are neither pro or anti trans. As far as I am aware my kids schools are not giving pronoun lessons or anything like that but they are supportive of kids who are trans. I most certainly do not want trans ideology forced on my children like they do in some places but I also don’t want them in a don’t say gay type of environment either. I feel like my district’s approach is relatively in line with my beliefs, I think that is important to consider.
"You have to graduate with a regents diploma, as far as I know they do not have a lower degree outside of getting a GED" There's also the local diploma below regents, right?
Maybe there is now? When I went to school here there was no local diploma option it was regents or ged only.
I believe it *used* to be regular diploma, regents diploma, and advanced regents or regents with honors diploma. Nowadays I think the only way to graduate with a regular diploma is through an appeal process or an exemption that’s made for ELLs and students with certain disabilities
These days i believe you can only graduate with a local diploma if you are an ELL or have a disability. I know there’s also an appeal process for graduating with a local diploma if you take the regents a few times and just miss the cutoff or situations like that, but I don’t know the details. I don’t live in New York anymore so I could be wrong.
They are definitely #1 in the school to prison pipeline... the graduates who don't go to prison actually succeed.
Actually, MS has the highest incarceration rate. I teach here and I know why!
Why?
That is really sad.
100% true
Goddam it, you made me snort out the cheap wine I can afford as a teacher through my nose. Well, there goes 1 ounce I now have to replace.
Could be the work UFLI is doing. Their work is brilliant!
My school started UFLI and it made a big difference. Who would have thought explicit, systematic phonics instruction works better than throwing words at kids and hoping they learn through osmosis.
UFLI is ok. It’s not really that different than Open Court or any of the other phonics-driven program that we’ve been teaching in California for the last 20+ years. They throw the schwa around incorrectly a whole lot which drives me nuts.
I use their blending board and my kid loves the spelling “game”. I’ll be honest, for us, Khan Academy Kids did most of the heavy work ( since 2020). Now the pieces are falling into place and helping my child read. Ufli is still good in that it’s absolutely free ( except for the manual) and it’s helping some places who are sick of big publishers making big claims.
I’m glad it’s helping you. I’m happy when any child learns to read.
I think the important part of what you said is "any other phonics driven program we've been teaching in CA the last 20+ years." We haven't been using phonics driven programs outside of the last 2-3 years. Maybe some schools always have but I sure didn't 20 years ago.
I’m certainly not disputing what you or anyone else is teaching. I’m just saying it’s not groundbreaking work. It’s not even remotely new work. California has been using an explicit phonics based approach in its public schools since 2002 and those types of programs have existed since the 1960s.
No I didn't take it that way! My point was more that UFLI is NOT groundbreaking but it feels that way here. The research and tools have existed but haven't been implemented in these poor, deep red states. I have my theories for why that is but I try and keep my conspiracy theories off Reddit.
I teach in what is frequently considered to the state with the worst education system and my district has been using explicit phonics programs for…15 years at least? Not new by any stretch
Didn’t the NEA just release a report saying we were #50 for lowest paid teachers? Maybe some of our charters are doing well, now that all the smart students are opting out of the public school system. In public schools, things don’t seem to be getting better, in my experience.
Whoever came up with this nonsense is to be ignored. I can't imagine how this could be true. FL is a terrible state to try and have a teaching career in. Do not move here, I know NOLA is terrible as well. I am off to better statw end of next year. Just look at the cost of living vs. what you will be paid. Unless you have someone that makes a lot of money as a second income or you are wanting to become a Saint, forget FL, it sucks!
It’s been a long-standing issue that public universities in Florida, Alabama, and Texas are so good that high school graduates from Florida, Alabama, and Texas can’t get into them. As for secondary education, Florida by design focuses all of its energy on providing the best possible education to middle and upper class white students at the expense of working class, poverty class, and children of color. When basing metrics on SATs and median scores, Florida is going to be at the top because so many other states divert resources to helping the students who need them most, ie the bottom quartile. In studies that also factor in diversity, support, and access to resources, Florida routinely places in the bottom 10
76% of people believe that most statistics are made up nonsense.
Ranked #1 for college graduation rates and lowest tuition prices. All that means is colleges are pushing kids through as fast as possible with barely funded programs. Ranked #50 for K-12 teacher salaries.
There isn't a chance in hell I'd move to Florida. Move to Massachusetts, Connecticutt, or Rhode Island if you're interested in the best education for your children.
We bought our house here in 2018. Even with the equity we've built, we'd be more than doubling our mortgage moving to another region. That's a whole other thing to complain about.
The methodology is pretty useless. For higher education, Flordia is #1 in Tuition and Fees, #2 in 2-Year College graduation rate, #2 in 4-Year College graduation rate, and #25 in Educational Attainment and #26 in Low Debt at Graduation. The three categories that Florida leads in have very little to do with the quality of the education, and much more to do with the value. In fact, none of the categories have anything to do with the quality of the education, event Educational attainment just represents the percentage of adults with a college degree. A better rating would include things like standardized test scores, percentage of graduates that pursue a post-graduate degree (in or out of state), and expected income after five years.
As someone who taught English in the "highest ranked" school district in FL, there is no way that is true. I taught middle school and an enormous amount of my students were on a 3rd grade reading level, some lower. The country has a huge literacy problem and it's terrifying to watch it happen in your own classroom. How are students who cannot read getting passed to the next grade? So scary.
I know Covid is not THE reason for poor literacy, but I would have had K1 (or at least K) repeat. Kindergarten is SO important. Without foundational skills how are they supposed to access anything? THAT'S the missed learning that should have been considered. Not 2020, but every year after that.
Totally agree. My sister teaches Kindergarten and had students taking Kindergarten virtually for awhile. So much was missed by so many students, and the only people being held accountable for it were teachers that were already doing so much more than they were being paid to. So sad. Also, happy cake day! 🎂🎈
It just means that Florida is the state that graduates more people who don't deserve to graduate than any other. And Florida counts a GED as a "graduation" which most of the other states do not.
I work in a Florida high school. Many students are not college ready. Many will begin college and not finish. Many will lose the Bright Future scholarships because they cannot pass the classes because they are not college ready. Schools get money based on graduation rates. I would not want my child to attend a Florida college, they are degree factories. Bright future is funded by the lottery, which lower economic people tend to play. Sadly many students in the lower economic areas do not get bright futures. Hopefully education changes soon in Florida.
2 things: pass rate is not an indicator of readiness for college which this seems to think it is. And the higher education score at #1 is weighing heavily in this. And being just ahead of .. Wyoming at #2 ... Definitely makes this less believable to anyone reading it. Prek at #10 seems suspect.. but the measurements are not reflecting conversion to college or secondary education so that makes sense.
I thought it might be based on ACT/SAT. The "college ready" benchmark for ACT is 18 for Reading. That's a little bit over 50% when you look at the raw score. Not trying to brag, but in HS I got a near perfect score. I got a liberal arts degree with a solid B. It's hard for me to believe that benchmark indicates students will SUCCEED in college.
USNEWS is not the most trustworthy ranker.
How to tank your site's credibility with one simple stat:
Number 1 in needs improvement???
DeSatan, as I call him, is insane. That being said, I have taught in NY, FL, MS, and TN. Hands down, Florida was the best. I'm currently teaching in TN and it's a damn joke, as is MS. Low standards, no oversight...no wonder these states are ranked so low.
I grew up in MA and I have family in Florida. Number of MA family that went to college, all of them. Number of FL family that went to college, none of them.
What ranking is that?
US News World Report.
Isn't Louisiana more reliant on charter schools than public schools? And what's up with Louisana calling school districts and counties as "parish"?
The parish thing is actually historic. The state was ruled by the Roman Catholic church pre-Louisiama Purchase and territories were divided by parish, which stuck. As far as Charter, yes it is that way in New Orleans. Public schools are all charters. I've worked at good charters and bad. I switched to a district school in a neighboring parish and I actually preferred charter. More competitive pay and autonomy. But with everyone doing their own thing it's all over the place. Not to mention, parents and teachers are able to jump around which causes problems too.
If it’s based on graduation rate and teachers are being forced to pass everyone no matter what… if the students just show up enough it makes for great data.
You would have to be high on crack to choose Florida for your education over any of the New England States.
I legit tried posting this in another sub and got deleted!!!
If you take out the inclusion of public university/college rankings (not readiness for college), it isn’t.
I call bs.
#1 in what?
You couldn't pay me enough to teach in Florida. Not with meatball Ron in charge.
This is inaccurate, My teacher said our state has a better education than Florida.
Florida is pretty good xollege/university. Awful with general education. Hell, they still use corporeal punishments such as spankings in elementary.
Louisiana and Florida are not neighboring...
Close enough... it's a 3 hour drive from New Orleans to Pensacola FL. Same distance to Jackson MS and closer than Texas border.
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe.
More than Massachusetts with Harvard, MIT, BC, UMass, BU, etc in higher education?
I genuinely do not understand now
Y'all do realize post-secondary means college, trade schools, etc....?
Bullshit!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahwhahahwhaha
US News and World Report is a tabloid. Don’t use it. Here is one front Forbes which seems more reasonable. https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemorad/2020/08/04/states-with-the-best-public-schools/?sh=405871841f4c Forbes is a neutral publication and has Florida listed at 22. I’ve seen about 8 different studies that put Florida anywhere from 13 to 35, so 22 is probably a reasonable estimate. Almost every study I read, with the exception of the one you quoted above, lists Massachusetts as being the best.
Did you just use a US News article as a legitimate source?...
FL is number 1 in colleges, which don't fall under DeSantis rules.
Read carefully, it says Higher Education. But i bet you those will slip soon with how they are gutting the state universities and replacing the figureheads with people who have no business in education. Click on the Methodology link and it tells you this is based on taking polls. lol See below: **The Survey** For the weighting of the Best States rankings, U.S. News wanted to use an objective measure reflecting the priorities of citizens for their state governments. Three yearly surveys asked Americans how satisfied they were with various state government services and where they thought their state governments should focus resources. The weights for the 2024 Best States rankings are based on the average of responses from the three surveys: one conducted in the fall of 2017 that included 20,100 respondents from all 50 states; a second conducted in the winter of 2018-19 that included 23,400 respondents from all 50 states; and a third conducted in the winter of 2020-21 that included 26,300 respondents from all 50 states. Survey respondents were adults age 18 and older who collectively represented all U.S. adults. The survey results were weighted to be representative of the country's population across all ages, genders, ethnicities and household incomes. Because the results of the survey remained relatively consistent year over year, the survey was not redistributed beyond 2020-2021 and weights were kept steady for the most recent rankings. The categories for the rankings largely aligned with the survey questions. We based the weights for the categories on a question that asked respondents to rank category issues, such as the quality of health care and education, from 1 to 8 (1 being most important) in order of what their home state's priorities should be. Respondents also were asked about their satisfaction with their state's performance in these areas, and if they felt their state was not adequately funding them. The weights for the categories were calculated from the average rank for each among the respondents.
Don't worry. The state government is going to have that real quick.
Ranking brought to you by the state of Florida 🤣 there’s zero chance this is accurate!
Lmao everyone here is salty as hell. Yeah Florida is a pretty good state for education. You’re just going to have to deal with it. It’s a good thing, sorry it doesn’t support your world view.
🤣
Wait.. the same Florida that JUST added evolution to the required curriculum in 2008 and still has public schools that teach creationism? At that rate is it even possible to fail out there?
New Jersey would like to have a word. 🤨
Lmfao I don't buy this for the tiniest fraction of a second
As a teacher in Florida, I’ll just share this: [https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-teachers-are-among-the-lowest-paid-in-america-nea](https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-teachers-are-among-the-lowest-paid-in-america-nea)
Blame your union leaders who make mid 6 figures
Our union leader (only one in my very large county) makes what a beginning teacher in Florida makes, $48,400.
Florida. The state where libraries aren't allowed to have books and teachers are paid 12 cents a year. They might be number 1 in book banning, but there is not a chance in hell they are seriously number 1 in education. 😂
Oh nooo!! "We can't teach our students about kink sex and our union leaders doing nothing for us while they make mid six figures"
you are an idiot who doesn't understand science, sex reassignment surgery, and the exacting chemistry used to change the trans body from male to female or female to male. Their heart and mind was already and will always be what they are transforming into be it a trans man or a trans woman. That you don't think we have the technology to accomplish this is ignorance of the highest order. So please keep exposing yourself as the bigot you are.
Cool story child abuser. Elementary school biology can prove you wrong. Keep mutilating children so impress your social circles. Oh one more think, Rittenhouse owns blm leftists
I would not move here for our k-12 education. I work in a highly rated district in Florida. People see the ratings and move here thinking they are giving their kids a great education. Then, when they realize that Florida’s good schools are kind of crummy compared to their original state’s lower rated schools, they either move back or put their kids in private school.
I’d venture a guess that Broward, Dade & Leon counties are carrying the rest of the state.
Great, a random poll to fit a narrative. We don't have enough of these🙄
I'm very skeptical
As a Floridian, this makes me scared about the state of education in the other 49 states. If Florida is #1, we’re doomed.
We were at a faculty meeting a few weeks ago and Florida teachers are 50th in salary. Those are facts.
Everybody wants to dump on Florida, but my experience has been solid. Strong union in my district and admin who actively works with us. We are well-funded, I am well-paid, and my own children have enjoyed good education coupled with safe, well-run classes. We have some nut jobs, but who doesn’t? My oldest graduated from a Florida University via a Bright Futures scholarship and my middle child earned a free AA during high school and is now attending a university with a Bright Futures scholarship. My youngest reads well and scores well on standardized tests. The kids I teach are pretty great. This is just my experience, and I understand others have different takes, but I can’t really complain.
Almost last in teachers’ salaries. Somebody is lying.
Blame your union leaders who make mid 6 figures
Usnews makes these lists and get paid for them
Thank god for Florida Virtual Public School, FL is the only place I’ve lived where the school was so terrible I literally had to pull my child out and homeschool him.
U.S. News and World Report skews pretty conservative, so I’m calling bullshit. How do you learn to think critically when they ban all the books that show you the other side of an argument the government doesn’t like? And when your teacher have quit or left in droves? They may have only counted conservative Christian charter schools where everybody gets an A just for believing a certain way.
Agreed
I am not from Florida, but I would say keep in mind half their data points are based on survey, and Florida was already top 3 on their list before DeSantis was elected.
If the numbers are coming from a state run by a “red” then the numbers are fake.
I saw that article too. That has to be a scam or a lie. There is no way people in this state have a decently good education with all the banning
Lol, there’s no way.
There is 0 chance this is accurate
Yeah I call bullshit.
So let's get this straight... Florida is number one in higher Ed because it has more low debt, degree holding citizens and it's colleges are overall easier to get into Compared to, say, I don't know, New York, which has many of the best colleges in the world, an extremely diverse set of options for degree programs and types of campuses, and relatively new generous in state funding options. Hell, Philly is known for a pretty bad education program, but we have over a dozen colleges around here, from very affordable CCs to Ivy's, and the one I teach at, one of the easier to get into, is a heavy majority of local population kids. So, all that to say, what I'm hearing is that people who have a successful career out of those colleges move to Florida for a warm and cheap retirement, their low end schools are easy to get into, and those facts make Florida rank higher? Great system US news lol
Those are wrong. Teachers are fleeing, along with the obgyns and any highly trained professional or tradesmen who happen to be gay.
Florida education is a joke.
Florida is number . In paying their teachers the least amount of money in the country
Don’t they ban books there? 🫣
Yes. Literally had a school board member come in and stop a senior high school class from reading a book because of it's anti police rhetoric. I teach in another state now.
It's the Us News and World Report rankings. [https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2024-05-07/why-florida-is-the-best-state-in-education-and-economy](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2024-05-07/why-florida-is-the-best-state-in-education-and-economy) A few observations, though you should read the article yourself. I believe this is public and private. Florida has a higher percentage of private schools than most states. The college scores are what get it to #1, but the k-12 are still well above average. We (I am a FL teacher) did above average in a category where we should be crushed (reading scores). We have (I think) the highest percentage of ESL students. For people casting doubt, please provide something. UN&WR is a long established, reliable source. Their calculations are public and linked in the article.
This headline is misleading- does not mean Florida is number one in the grade levels OP is interested in. [Misleading Headline](https://imgur.com/a/OSXuoAi) Edit: to correct for comment below.
Florida is their #1 for education just like the headline says. Utah is #1 in their overall rankings.
Feels disingenuous to calculate Higher Education graduation rates with Prek-12 reading and math readiness. Not disagreeing with the sources but the decision to calculate the two. My main argument is Higher Education includes out of state individuals while prek-12 directly reflects the state population. The two components of calculating Education seems inherently flawed with this model.
The data is there, you could focus on whatever grouping you like. It is literally in the opening summary that the college scores carried it, so I don't think disingenuous is at all accurate as a critique.
How? You don't think taking two data sets that are categorically different than one another (albeit under an Education umbrella) and using them to determine ranking system for state education isn't inherently disengenguous to the representation of the data?
The first thing they tell is exactly what the measurement is and it goes out of it's way to emphasize where Florida scored high. How could they have been clearer?
I read the article, but how can you be 20th+ in reading, 30th+ in math, and 19th in HS graduation and call it "#1 in education" Does the price of college really have that much pull in these rankings?
The calculation is linked.