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Friday, January 7, 2011

The Answer Sheet - What really helped Florida's test scores

The Answer Sheet - What really helped Florida's test scores

What really helped Florida's test scores

By Valerie Strauss

I've recently published a number of posts about school reform in Florida, which has been driven over the past decade by Jeb Bush, who was governor there from 1999 to 2007 and who still has a great deal of influence over education policy in the Sunshine State, and, increasingly beyond. Florida's reforms revolved around an expansion of standardized testing and choice (vouchers, charter schools, etc.), and it is these measures that are often given credit for a rise in scores on theNational Assessment of Educational Progress.

In this post, research analyst Michael Martin looks at what reforms really impacted the test scores. It is technical but then again, it's hard not to be when you are talking about test scores. Martin works for the Arizona School Boards Association; this post is his own work and not