Florida model could shape N.M. reform

From the Santa Fe NewMexican.com - by Robert Nott - NewsNM note: this article ran November 22, 2010 but since we are talking about the Florida reforms for education it is good to revisit this article. Matthew Ladner made it clear that legislators have to fire a lot of bullets at the target of education in order to score some successes. Ladner, vice president for research at Phoenix's Goldwater Institute (which he called a free-market think tank), presented a study on Florida's K-12 program to the Legislative Education Study Committee in the Capitol a couple of weeks ago. I wrote about his presentation in last week's column. Among Florida's reforms, initiated over a decade ago, are an A-to-F grading system for schools, a voucher program for special-needs kids to attend private schools, financial incentives for public-school success and recruiting teachers from alternative-certificate programs. Sen. Stephen H. Fischmann, D-Mesilla Park, invited Ladner to speak at the session. "I was supposed to be part of what was to be the 'new liberal' crowd coming into the Legislature," he said with a hearty laugh by phone. "We're elected to get results and put some good policy in place." "Though a Republican governor is coming in, and Ladner is from a conservative think-tank organization, good results are good results, and I don't care where they come from." Fischmann said New Mexico can't try to copy Florida because the demographics of the states are too different. But he likes a lot of the Florida ideas, including the emphasis on reading (if students in Florida can't demonstrate proficient reading skills by the third grade, they are held back). Read more

Florida model could shape N.M. reform