Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair,  co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

Michigan: The education adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder presents the governor's sweeping public school choice proposal to business and education leaders (Grand Rapids Business Journal). (more…)

From the better-late-than-never file:

The percentage of Florida students eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch rose for the fifth straight year last year to 57.6 percent, according to the state Department of Education.

In total, 1.54 million of the state’s 2.69 million students were eligible, marking the third straight year a majority of Florida students reached that threshold, says a report posted on the DOE web site over the summer (I stumbled on the latest numbers over the weekend, and as far as I can tell, no traditional news outlets have reported them).

The report shows 78.7 percent of black students were eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch last year, compared to 71.5 percent of Hispanic students and 38.2 percent of white students.

Among the state’s biggest districts, Miami-Dade led with the highest percentage, at 71.9 percent, followed by Polk at 68.3 percent and Lee at 64.2 percent.

Since the 2003-04 school year, Florida schools have also been majority minority. Last year, 57 percent of Florida students were minorities.

Despite the challenging demographics, Florida has over the past 10 to 15 years been among the leading states on key academic indicators, including progress on NAEP, performance on Advanced Placement tests and improvement in graduation rates.

The 47 percent graduation rate for black males in Florida is among the lowest in the nation, and two major Florida school districts - Pinellas and Duval - have rates far below that, according to a new report released today.

The grad-rate formula used by the Schott Foundation for Public Education has been criticized as simplistic, but the group's findings have nonetheless been cited by school choice supporters in some communities as another pressing reason to expand vouchers, charter schools and other learning options.

“The bottom-line issue about black male achievement," Michael Holzman, the report's author, told Education Week,  "is that the schools that most of these students attend are not as good as those attended by their white peers."

The foundation listed a moratorium on out-of-school  suspensions, more equitable funding and more learning time among its recommendations for improving the rates. It did not list expanded school choice. Its president and CEO, John H. Jackson, urged a push for what he described as systemic solutions that "help each child, rather than a few."

Using 2009-10 figures, the report found the graduation rate for black males nationally was 52 percent, compared to 78 percent for white males and 58 percent for Hispanic males. The black male rate is up 10 percentage points since 2001-02, but the foundation didn't see cause to celebrate: "This progress has closed the graduation gap between Black male and White, non-Latino males by only three percentage points," the report said. "At this rate, it would take nearly 50 years for Black males to achieve the same high school graduation rates as their White male counterparts."

Florida's rate for black males is 5 percentage points below the national average, according to foundation calculations, putting it in a three-way tie for No. 42 among states. Its rate for white males was 62 percent - 16 percentage points below the national average - and leaving it in a four-way tie for No. 45. (more…)

Media coverage of education reform in Florida never ceases to amaze. What you should be hearing today are the sputtering responses of critics who have drawn widespread media attention in recent weeks with reckless claims that Florida’s ed reforms are an “unmitigated disaster.” Instead ...

The easy prompt for fair and obvious questions was yesterday’s release of the annual “Diplomas Count” report from Education Week. The independent analysis found that between 1999 and 2009, Florida’s graduation rate climbed 18 percentage points – more than all but two states. It also found that Florida’s black and Hispanic students are graduating at rates higher than the national average for like students, which is of no small import for a majority-minority state like Florida. The 2009 rate for Florida’s Hispanic students, in fact, put them at No. 2 among Hispanic students in all 50 states.

So how did the Florida media cover this compelling news? For the most part, it didn’t. (more…)