Pinellas County, FL, leads the state's urban counties in SAT scores and percentage of students heading off to college. They've got an educational system to be proud of.
...as Times writers Thomas Tobin and Donna Winchester reported in a revealing survey of Pinellas education gauges, that laudable record has masked a more disturbing one. Throughout Pinellas schools, as measured by the FCAT, large numbers of students are failing to measure up.
Of Florida's seven most populous counties, Pinellas rates last in the percentage of black students whose reading and math scores place them at or above grade level, last in the performance of Hispanic students, last in the performance of white students, next to last in the gap between white and black students, second from last in the performance of poor students. Last year, Pinellas was the only of the seven districts to post no gains in the percentage of students passing the reading and math tests...
... the raw test scores in math and reading do tell a worrisome story. They suggest Pinellas is letting down far too many of its schoolchildren and that a county that in the 1980s was deemed an education leader has lost some of its vision, if not its direction.
Ask teachers. Morale is so low they at first rejected their contract earlier this year. They complain of unproductive interference and constant changes in the classroom...
Ask administrators. Their own satisfaction with public education dropped from 70 percent in 1998 to 56 percent in 2001.
Ask parents. The rate of private-school enrollment in Pinellas is twice that of comparable districts nationally.
The special report is here. Disturbingly, even those who are more likely to succeed on the FCAT - white and Asian students - are more likely to fail it in Pinellas. Although the county has "relatively few" poor students, the academic underclass is large, with over a third struggling just to graduate. There are no F schools in Pinellas - but half of them are D's.
Pinellas has long been known for innovative educational policies - but when simple tests can throw the whole system "for a loop," it's time to take a closer look.