Alex Sink for Governor of Florida | Alex Sink’s Plan for Education

Alex Sink for Governor of Florida | Alex Sink’s Plan for Education

Alex Sink’s Plan for Education

BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY & ACCOUNTABLE EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE

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“Without a strong education system, Florida cannot build a more prosperous economy because the quality of our workforce depends directly on the quality of our schools.”
-- Alex Sink

THE ISSUE:

Children are our most valuable asset. They literally are our future – our next workforce, the new generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, parents and caretakers. Our country recognizes the importance of giving each child a foundation for success by providing free public schools, supplemented by a higher education system of universities, colleges, technical institutions and career schools.

Education is a cornerstone of our free society, but the quality of education that America’s children receive has been of concern for decades. As far back as 1983, a federal report titled “A Nation at Risk” found that students in other developed countries outperformed U.S. students and that American test scores were declining.

Although performance trends among American students in the past 30 years have been improving in some subject areas – including in Florida – the U.S. continues to be outpaced by other nations.

Compared to other states, Florida students score near or slightly above the national average in math and reading, but the state lags behind in several other key educational measures. We are 38th in the country for per-student spending, 45th nationally in our high school graduation rate and last in the quality of our pre-kindergarten program. More than half of students entering Florida colleges need remediation in math, reading or writing.

We live in the 21st century “knowledge economy” but our children are ill-prepared for it. In 2008 nearly 45 percent of Floridians age 25 and older had only a high school diploma or less and earned under $26,000 a year, according to the US Census.

HOW IT AFFECTS YOU:

Whether or not you are a parent, how well Florida's children do in school touches all of us:

• If our state has a poor education system, Florida will not be able to attract or keep high-tech industries and other employment opportunities that bring better-paying jobs in an increasingly global economy.
• We will suffer statewide "brain drain," losing our top-performing students, teachers, professors, researchers and scientists to jobs in other states or countries - creating a cycle of mediocrity.
• If we can't grow and retain a globally competitive, 21^st century educated and skilled workforce, our state economy will suffer and so will every Floridian's quality of life. The consequences could be far-reaching - from higher crime in our communities to reduced police, fire or other public services to crumbling roads, bridges and other infrastructure that governments won't have the resources to maintain.

ALEX SINK'S SOLUTIONS:

Alex Sink knows that many innovative ideas are being implemented all across Florida by dedicated, hardworking teachers, principals and school/community leaders. What Florida needs is a Governor who will lead on statewide education reform -- by inspiring more innovation and supporting the spread of best practices to all school districts.

As a proven business leader -- and as Florida's Chief Financial Officer -- Alex Sink understands the vital link between a vibrant economy, high-paying jobs and a quality education system. If elected Governor, Alex will implement a comprehensive education plan during her administration that will focus on child readiness for school, quality instruction, accountability that measures real student performance, investment in our teachers and principals, and getting parents and communities more engaged in our schools. Alex's educational priorities will:

• Help our students stop failing in school and dropping out
• Reprioritize education funding
• Invest in training and rewarding quality teachers
• Build better school leadership
• Demand quality outcomes and appropriate accountability measures and tools
• Strengthen involvement of parents, guardians, neighborhoods and communities in schools
• Encourage public/private partnerships that help develop a 21^st century curriculum focusing on science, technology, engineering, arts and math skills needed to produce a more skilled, innovative, globally-competitive and higher-paid workforce
• Support colleges and universities in being more affordable, accessible and responsive to the workforce needs of the 21^st century - leveraging them to transform Florida as a knowledge- and innovation-based economy

ALEX'S EDUCATIONAL ROOTS RUN DEEP

Alex has championed education her entire life and is herself a product of public schools. After graduating from Wake Forest University with a degree in mathematics, Alex taught math for three years. Alex will be the first Governor in 12 years whose own children graduated from Florida public schools. She also was a member of the PTA and helped found the Math Club while her daughter attended high school.

Her involvement in and knowledge of improving education goes even further.

In the mid-1990s, Alex served on former Gov. Lawton Chiles' Commission on Education, a blue-ribbon panel of business leaders who took a comprehensive look at the state's education system. Their recommendations to the Legislature initially met with resistance and still have yet to be fully addressed.

Alex also dedicated herself to Florida's children by promoting business philanthropy for education as a founding supporter of the New World School of the Arts high school in Dade County. She chaired the Hillsborough Education Foundation Board of Directors and chaired Florida's Take Stock in Children, which provides public-private matching scholarships and mentoring. She spearheaded the building of Junior Achievement's JA BizTown, where students "run" businesses like a supermarket or a bank branch to learn basic skills about money, commerce and customer service. Every Hillsborough County child in elementary school now spends one day at this educational marketplace as part of the local curriculum.

In further service to education, Alex also was on the boards of a Hillsborough County charter school and the University of South Florida Foundation. She has also served on the Advisory Board of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Florida.

Alex Sink understands the importance of education. Even more, she understands how to make education work - from the classroom to the highest levels of oversight. Alex is ready to bring her lifelong involvement, commitment and experience into the Governor's Office. Other candidates may talk about how education will be a priority for them in office. For Alex Sink, it will not be just talking about priorities, but about taking action on priorities that achieve results.

Keeping Our Children from Failing and Dropping Out

From grade school to high school and beyond, Florida's students are failing school at alarming and unacceptably high rates. Consider:

• Florida spends more than $300 million a year just on children repeating pre-K through 3^rdgrade. This past spring it was reported that, in South Florida alone, one fifth of third-graders in Miami-Dade schools - nearly 5,500 children - were facing retention for the 2010-11 school year. Even when children advance to the next grade, their performance lags behind:
  • According to a 2010 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 36 percent of Florida's fourth-graders are proficient readers. Of those, only 18 percent of African-American fourth-graders and 31 percent of Hispanic students can read with comprehension.

• By the time these students reach high school, many will become yet another statistic: among the 39.5 percent of students who fail to graduate in Florida, according to Education Week. In fact, only 37 percent of African-American males graduated from Florida schools in 2008 - second-worst in the nation behind New York, according to the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation for Public Education. That is 20 percentage points lower than the graduation rate for white male students in Florida. The financial impact on the child of dropping out can last a lifetime:
  • According to the US Department of Education, the median income of people aged 18 through 65 who had not completed high school was roughly $24,000 in 2007. By comparison, the median income of people in the same age group with a diploma or educational certificate was approximately $40,000.

• For students who make it through high school and are able to attend a Florida college or university, even their achievement rates fall short:
  • A 2007 study by the Office of Program Performance and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) found that 55 percent of all Florida students entering higher education needed remediation in math, reading or writing. And only about half of students who completed required college preparatory classes went on to college.

Alex Sink believes these failure rates are unacceptable and that Florida's families, businesses and communities deserve better. During her administration, Governor Alex Sink will implement these initiatives to address Florida's education failure rates:

• Invest in a quality pre-kindergarten program. Florida was one of the first states to make pre-K available to all four-year-olds; currently about 67 percent of four-year-olds attend pre-K. However, our investment in pre-K ranks the state 34^th out of 38 states that provide the program: Florida averages less than $2,500 per child while the national average is more than $4,700 per student.

According to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), Florida ranks last among states by meeting only three of NIEER's 10 benchmark measures for quality pre-K: having comprehensive early learning standards, small class sizes and monitoring site visits. Florida fails to require degreed teachers, teachers with a pre-K specialty, credentialed assistant teachers, daily meals, health screenings, low staff-to-child ratios and at least 15 hours of teacher in-service training annually.

To ensure that Florida's pre-K program has the foundation to deliver the quality that voters expected, during her administration Alex will:

• Implement a plan and timeline to put a bachelor-degreed teacher in every pre-K classroom. Alex will work with pre-K providers, parents, educators and other stakeholders to develop a reasonable timeline for transitioning pre-K programs toward having at least one degreed teacher in every classroom. Research has demonstrated that birth to age five are the most important brain development years of a child's life. NIEER's research shows that students in a pre-K program taught by a degreed teacher perform much better when tested for learning gains in printing, spelling and math than students in programs without credentialed instructors. These children are less likely to be held back when they reach 3^rdgrade. Florida must reject the notion that pre-K is glorified baby-sitting: a quality program with a degreed teacher is proven to give children a measurable leap forward in learning ability and lifetime success.


• Require a consistent curriculum for all pre-K providers. Currently, Florida does not have a standard curriculum for pre-K, meaning that a child's learning experience can vary across the state. Alex will support the implementation of statewide curriculum standards to help ensure that all children have the same learning opportunities across Florida.


• Reform admission and accountability procedures to encourage pre-K enrollment of low-income and lower-performing children. Currently any family wanting to enroll a child in pre-K must meet in person with school personnel, which can present barriers to parents who work long hours and cannot take off. Alex will provide alternatives such as volunteer-staffed extended or weekend hours as well as telephone and web-based application processes.
  
  Pre-K programs currently are measured by how well each child does on a "school readiness" exam given when the child enters kindergarten. Performance on these exams is the only measure of accountability for how well the pre-K program prepared the child for kindergarten. This could create a disincentive for some pre-K providers to enroll students from disadvantaged backgrounds who tend to score lower on tests, as it may reflect poorly on the provider. Alex will support changing the accountability criteria to appropriately and timely measure the progress of a child's learning from the start of pre-K to the start of kindergarten. Students - and pre-K providers - should be judged on how well the child improved over time rather than relying solely on a single test score or "baby FCAT."


• Improve accountability for early education programs. Once reauthorized, the federal No Child Left Behind law will most likely allow states to use individual student achievement models to determine whether schools are making "adequate yearly progress." To do so, states must establish systems that track trends in individual students' performance over time, starting with their pre-K experiences. Florida could use this system to evaluate the long-term impact of pre-K investments by following a child's progress through K-12 schooling and beyond.


• Advance public-private partnerships with the business community to enhance the quality of early childhood education. Involving the business community as stakeholders is an investment in their future workforce. Business leaders who commit private funds to early education are likely to become vocal advocates in legislation affecting education. Federal incentives may provide even further rationale for such partnerships: an Early Learning Challenge Fund proposal backed by the federal administration would give higher priority for competitive grants to states building public-private partnerships. Successful models that have been noted by the Pew Center include:
  
  
  • Smart Start North Carolina has raised more than $257 million in private funding to improve early learning opportunities for children in child care centers and other venues.
  
  
  • The Mississippi Economic Council worked to raise $10.5 million to create the Mississippi Building Blocks program, which will partner with local early education centers to evaluate and improve program quality. Business leaders will also provide unpaid accounting and business strategies consulting for the program.
  
  
  • Thrive by Five Washington is a public-private partnership created by Washington's governor, legislature, business community, and philanthropists including Bill and Melinda Gates. The mission is to develop a sustainable system for improving statewide early learning outcomes, using demonstration projects, parenting education, and other activities in early education. The Boeing Company committed $500,000 to pilot early education centers in two communities with large concentrations of Boeing employees. By investing in areas where companies' workers will benefit, corporate partners are incentivized to ensure the success of the partnership's early learning programs.

As children advance into the K-12 system and beyond, Alex will:

• Develop an early warning system to deter dropouts. Alex will work with educators and other stakeholders to create a statewide data system for tracking students at risk of dropping out as early as middle school. She will engage local communities and businesses to work with teachers, parents and schools in identifying causes and solutions for kids dropping out. Factors such as absenteeism, behavioral problems and failing grades in math and English as early as the sixth grade are strong predictors of a student's success or failure in high school. Schools will identify students who show signs of falling behind and develop improvement plans with the community stakeholders, students, and parents or guardians.

• Support career and technical academies in high schools focused on specialized learning. Alex will work with education stakeholders to develop specialized high school diplomas to recognize students with technical skills and certifications for careers. Potential drop-out students must be encouraged to stay in school through alternative learning opportunities that will lead them to jobs after graduation. Specialized diplomas that note a graduating student's proficiency in a technical skill or a vocational career requiring certification could give students not bound for college a head start to the workplace.

• Assign dedicated career counselors from colleges to high schools. High school counselors often wear multiple hats - administering tests or other administrative tasks - which can limit their time actually counseling students. Alex will pilot a program - similar to a successful initiative in Texas - to assign college counselors to nearby high schools, working with students on career options, internships, summer institutes and scholarships. Helping students develop career goals and understand what it takes to achieve them can keep more students in school and on track to graduate.

• Pair older student mentors with younger at-risk students. Alex will pilot a peer mentoring program in the middle and high schools as an added resource for helping troubled youth. High-performing high school students, as peer mentors, can become positive role models for younger students - helping them with homework or peer pressure-related issues and demonstrating how to diffuse confrontations with other students to keep them out of trouble. Student role models could be rewarded with incentives to participate such as extra grade credits or scholarship opportunities. Local girl and boy scouts programs also can be engaged to allow scouts to earn merit badges as peer mentors and tutors. Even college students who previously attended a particular high school could return to mentor younger students as part of the state's Service Learning initiative and through the Community/Higher Education/School Partnership.

• Expand college partnerships to engage more high school students in challenging learning. Dual enrollment shouldn't just be for the best and brightest kids. Many marginal students are simply bored with high school. Offering them college courses in both basic and career education can keep them in high school and move them down the path to a successful future career. One model being launched at Sarasota-Manatee State College of Florida this year focuses on students whose parents don't have a bachelor's degree and will ultimately allow attendees to get both a high school diploma and an associate in arts degree. Sixty-four percent of the 132 students who are in the school's inaugural 6^th and 7^th grades are "first generation" - meaning neither parent holds a bachelor's degree. As a tuition-free charter school in partnership with Manatee County's public school district, the initiative will save college tuition costs for parents and is expected to save taxpayer dollars by lowering the number of local high school graduates needing college remediation courses. Based on a model in Sweden, the curriculum emphasizes self-paced learning, requires teachers to serve as "coaches" in individual and small group settings, and builds a culture where students are expected to take responsibility for their own learning.

• Improve college remediation programs. According to OPPAGA, of the higher education students needing remediation, 94% of them attend the community or state colleges of the Florida College System. These students must complete college preparatory programs before they can enroll in college-level courses. However, the typical student usually takes two years to complete these programs, and only about half of those students actually finish. Alex will work to reduce and strive to eliminate this drop-out rate. One promising program is the Developmental Education Initiative sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps students overcome their academic deficiencies and earn degrees. Florida is one of six states participating in this effort, which will produce a final report in 2012. But Florida can use the lessons being learned right now through this program to begin improving remedial education and academic progress at all of Florida's colleges.

Another approach Alex will support is to allow students needing remediation in specific areas to take college credit courses in their area of focus at the same time. This would reduce the lag time that students needing remediation typically experience between entering the college system and beginning their intended course of study. This lag time typically is when students get discouraged and drop out. By allowing these students to "mainstream" into college credit courses that interest them -- even as they are getting remediation in their weak areas of learning - the chances of their dropping out will be reduced.

Reprioritize Education Funding

Florida's investment in its education system is one of the largest budget items in state government - K-12 funding alone totals approximately $15.5 billion - and when the state's contribution to higher education is added it totals $22.6 billion. Yet that investment isn't producing good enough results.

Education Week's 2010 "Quality Counts" study gave Florida "A" grades for having in place standards, assessments, accountability measures and an early childhood education program. But in actual implementation and results, Florida rated only a:

• C for each Florida student's "chance for success"
• C for K-12 achievement
• C- for building and supporting capacity for the teaching profession
• F for college readiness
• F for school spending

When Florida voters approved a state lottery in 1986, supporters promised it would be used to supplement existing state dollars dedicated to education. In reality, lottery funds have actually replaced GR dollars. Prior to 1986, education received almost 61% of Florida's general revenue; since then, it has received only 53%. And the proportion devoted to public schools dropped between 1988 and 2005 from about 70% to only 40%.

During her administration, and as Florida's economy recovers, Governor Alex Sink will work to reverse the shrinking proportion of Florida's General Revenue investment in education funding. She also will seek to use lottery funding to enhance educational programs as originally intended.

Another school funding issue involves a debate over the most appropriate number of students per classroom to ensure that all children learn and get adequate attention from teachers. In 2002, Florida voters mandated a reduction in class size by amending the state Constitution to require by the 2010-2011 school year:

• No more than 18 students per class in prekindergarten through grade 3;
• No more than 22 students in grades 4 through 8; and
• No more than 25 students in grades 9 through 12.

This is costly, because it means hiring more teachers and building more classrooms. To date, the Florida Legislature has appropriated more than $16 billion toward operational expenses and $2.5 billion in facilities funding to implement the amendment. For FY 2010/11, the Department of Education requested approximately $354 million to implement the class size requirement but the Legislature appropriated only $82 million, putting the burden on local school districts to fund the difference.

Voicing concerns about the cost and the need for flexibility, the 2010 Legislature approved a constitutional amendment for the November ballot asking voters to change the standard from a "per class" limit to a "school-wide average" limit. This means that some classrooms could have more students so long as the school's overall average stays at or below the original size limits. In addition, the proposed change would slightly increase the "per class" limits to the following:

• 21 students in prekindergarten through grade 3;
• 27 students in grades 4 through 8; and
• 30 students in grades 9 through 12.

Alex Sink supports the proposed amendment as a common-sense approach that gives schools more flexibility to meet class size limits without having to build expensive new classrooms for a handful of additional students. That money is better used to enhance high-performing teacher salaries and improve curriculum for students to help them succeed in school and, ultimately, in the workplace.

Regardless of the ballot issue's outcome, as Governor, Alex will continue working with legislators, business leaders, teachers, parents, school officials and other key stakeholders to address class size concerns without compromising other reform efforts that improve student, teacher and school performance outcomes.

Investing in Teachers

The quality of teaching may well be the single biggest determinant of the quality of education. Young school children spend more time each day with teachers than they do with their parents. A teacher's skill, knowledge and effective use of resources - even more than the quality of textbooks, classrooms, or technology - determine what kind of education the child receives.

As far back as 1986, national education leaders recognized this country's failing in consistently graduating well-prepared instructors from its professional teaching programs. The Holmes Group's report - written by a coalition of university deans of education - stated then that professional education programs were part of the reason for underperforming schools.

Twenty years later, in 2006, a report by Columbia University's college of education president found similar issues: what future teachers learned in their college classrooms and what they needed to know when actually teaching in public school classrooms were often disconnected. Consequently, education schools are turning out graduates who are not fully prepared for the classroom. Rather than learning educational "theory," fledgling teachers need to learn more practical teaching "methods" - ideally from veterans of classroom teaching - so they can better control their classes and get children to pay attention, follow instructions and learn.

Alex Sink believes that we must do everything we can to help turn out future teachers from Florida's higher educational institutions who are more prepared to teach, and then give talented teachers incentives to stay in Florida and keep advancing.

Alex will:

• Work with Florida's higher education leaders to improve teacher education programs and advance practical research in teaching skills. This includes ensuring that professors of educational programs periodically spend time in public school classrooms to gain insights into the challenges teachers face and incorporate this knowledge into improved curriculum and instruction methods. And it means putting more emphasis on honing "classroom management" skills and content knowledge of young teachers. Alex will look across the nation and even other countries to adopt and adapt innovative approaches for Florida's professional education programs - such as the "Match Teacher Residency" program in Boston that uses a medical school model to prepare educators. And it means looking to replicate in Florida cutting-edge research institutes dedicated to the study of teaching -- such as those at Michigan State University -- through seeking a combination of private-sector, philanthropic and federal funding opportunities. For example, the federal administration has proposed doubling its 2011 budget for teacher training to $235 million. Alex will be diligent in seeking federal funding opportunities to support innovation in teaching methods.

• Attract more bright minds to stay and teach in Florida. Alex will propose a competitive pilot program offering partial or full state university loan forgiveness for high-performing Florida students who earn their bachelor's degree and commit to teaching in a Florida public school or pre-K program for at least 5 years. Alex will put together a work group of educators to design the pilot, qualifications for students to compete in it, along with a fair and transparent selection process. This program will help to:

o Reduce Florida's teacher shortage.

o Encourage new teachers to stay in Florida longer, reducing our high attrition rate for new teachers and the cost to continually hire and train teachers.

o Increase the quality of the pre-K program by increasing the number of instructors with college degrees.

• Support teacher mentoring efforts. A survey of former teachers in Florida found that 43 percent of first-year teachers felt that they were "minimally prepared" or "not prepared" to manage their classrooms. Research shows that beginning teachers who have the continuous support of a skilled mentor are twice as likely to stay in teaching and much more likely to master classroom management and focus on student learning. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the benefit of mentoring is linked to the amount of time that a mentor and beginning teacher work together. Only 36 percent of beginning teachers who work with their mentor "a few times a year" report substantial improvements in their professional skills; in contrast, 88 percent who work with mentors at least once a week reported the relationship has a major benefit.

Alex will work with educational leaders and the business community to consider piloting programs such as the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) that is being used in seven states. Teachers meet weekly in groups, led by master and mentor teachers, to review student work and improve instruction techniques. Similar programs have been piloted in Florida in the past but were discontinued due to funding issues. Alex will work to ensure that a sustainable funding stream using a combination of public/private/philanthropic resources is in place as part of each pilot effort.

• Work with local schools to reform teacher compensation around a fair and comprehensive performance-based salary system. According to Education Week, Florida ranks 29^th among states with an average teacher salary of $40,281 - more than $5,000 below the national average. If states are to attract the best minds to the classroom, they must pay teachers like valued professionals. Increasing teacher salaries must come with increased expectations through a performance-based or differential salary system that truly rewards excellence and recognizes additional demands placed on participating teachers.

In the last decade, Florida has made numerous attempts to recognize teaching performance with various bonus or merit programs; none has been successful. And earlier this year Gov. Charlie Crist correctly vetoed Senate Bill 6, which would have imposed a top-down, rigid, one-size-fits-all directive on local schools.

A more promising alternative has just emerged. On August 24^th, the U.S. Department of Education awarded Florida a $700 million "Race to the Top" grant to improve education in areas such as teacher performance and training, student achievement and low-performing schools. The grant allows local control and flexibility for school districts, which Alex strongly supports and firmly believes is the only way to achieve real reform.

Alex will work with local teachers, unions, principals and school districts to implement components of Race to the Top. Alex supports a fair compensation system that is built on collaboration and considers a variety of factors such as:

o Teachers who meet agreed-upon annual performance standards

o Service in under-performing schools or with poorer-performing students

o Teachers who are willing to mentor less experienced teachers or teachers needing assistance to improve

o How well the teacher helped individual students progress throughout the school year, not just a student's score on an annual test

o Students with learning disabilities or limited English proficiency

o Input from other teachers and principals - similar to a "360-degree feedback" evaluation system used in the private sector and by some government agencies

Florida's Hillsborough County Public Schools are making progress in this area through a seven-year, $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The district is collaborating with the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association to create a voluntary teacher compensation system that ties pay to student performance instead of seniority. Current teachers have the option of staying under the traditional pay system or opting to be evaluated under the new pay-for-performance system; new teachers will enter the performance-pay scale.

If the Hillsborough pilot proves successful, Alex will work during her administration to expand similar models to other school districts. She will require strict accountability measures to ensure that teachers are fairly rated and that student performance outcomes are being achieved.

• Provide teachers with career advancement opportunities in the classroom. Typically teachers are rewarded for the number of years they have been teaching, not for their expertise. Most opportunities to advance professionally are found outside the classroom - becoming a principal or working in a central office administration. Additionally, too many teachers are working more than one job just to pay their bills.

As Governor, Alex Sink will work with educators to expand career ladders so teachers can earn additional compensation for taking on extra roles and responsibilities, for demonstrating mastery of certain professional standards or for earning advanced degrees.

Florida already has become a leader in board certification. Alex will restore the application fee reimbursement for the National Board candidates under the Dale Hickman Excellent Teaching program, which the Legislature eliminated. This small outlay makes it possible for Florida to encourage more teachers to obtain their National Board certification, an important component of building a world-class teaching corps. Alex also will continue to support the incentive bonus for teachers who achieve National Board certification.

• Work with teachers' unions and school boards to increase in-service professional development hours. New professional development models incorporate training in schools and classrooms, rather than counting "seat" time in an outside course. Alex will work with teachers' unions and districts to find creative ways to deliver this training. For example, one school district in Colorado negotiated with the teachers' union to add 18 minutes to the school day. This slight increase allowed teachers to get 1.5 hours of professional training per week without taking time away from teaching or adding additional costs.

Build Better School Leadership

As the "CEO" of a school, principals have critical influence over whether an education reform effort will succeed or fail at the school level. The importance of principal leadership is one of the key findings of a five-year University of Miami study. Among the report's conclusions:

• Principals are catalysts of change. Education reform flourishes under principals who share decision-making, advocate for their school, and develop partnerships in the community.

• An excellent school environment is closely linked to high student test scores. Principals are central to creating a learning environment at the school that helps students succeed.

A principal's job has become far more complex and harder to fill than in years past. Principals report spending more time on legal concerns, budget, and social service issues than did their counterparts a generation ago. Consequently, it is imperative that Florida do a better job of recruiting and retaining competent school leaders by making sure they have the right training and resources to succeed at their rapidly evolving jobs.

As Governor, Alex Sink will:

• Expand public-private partnerships to develop leadership skills for principals. Alex will work to broaden participation in current and expanded leadership programs for principals - particularly leaders from poorer-performing schools.

One model, coordinated by Florida's Council for Educational Change, provides access to the latest knowledge and skills as well as an on-going support system for those on the front lines of organizational change in public education. Participants develop a personal leadership plan with a mentor that is tailored for their individual school. Follow-up results from the 2009 Academy showed that:

• • 94% of respondents successfully completed the leadership plan they had developed.
  • 98% used the leadership plan to collaborate with school staff on school improvement.
  • 99% used the leadership plan to improve their skills as a school leader.

Another model that the Council has spearheaded pairs principals with successful corporate CEOs to advance change in schools. Funded through a mix of state, corporate and philanthropic dollars, the CEO mentoring program links financial and technical support to accountability measures such as:

o implementation of an approved three-year plan for school improvement

o documentation of expenditures

o local monitoring of progress.

The State University programs also offer a number of K-12 leadership development programs. These programs provide K-12 school leaders with the knowledge and tools that enable them to build supportive environments and provide guidance to teachers. Surveys of teachers about what they most need to be successful and to remain in the classroom consistently rank effective leadership at the top.

• Encourage certification initiatives for principals. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has developed a new and rigorous assessment for school leaders, beginning with certification for principals. Working with top professional educators and associations, the new certification has the strong support of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The new program could be piloted in Florida with leadership provided by the Council for Educational Change and private foundations. Alex Sink will support efforts to identify and reward outstanding school leaders.

• Provide more information resources to principals and schools for tackling problems and implementing goals. Florida is nationally known for its collection of educational data and is one of only a handful of states with the ability to implement a comprehensive "longitudinal" data system that can track trends in school and student performance over time. Florida recently received a $10 million federally funded grant from the Institute of Education Sciences to support continued development of its data system. As Governor, Alex will make it a priority to implement this system and make comprehensive data on school and student performance available to principals, teachers, parents and the public, while also protecting student privacy in accordance with confidentiality laws.

We cannot hold principals to the highest standards of performance without giving them adequate tools to succeed. Not only principals, but parents, educators, and policy makers should have access to timely and user-friendly data about public school performance - and simple explanation as to how results have changed over time.

Demanding Quality Outcomes & Accountability Measures

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) has been a controversial issue for both educators and parents since its inception in 1998. Concerns have included:

• Funding Issues. School funding is partially tied to the test scores, meaning low-performing schools which may need more resources to improve are being penalized the most.
• Teaching to the Test. Instructors, knowing the high stakes associated with school funding, feel pressure to "teach to the test" by designing their lesson plans around test-taking skills rather than engaging students in activities that help them learn.
• Costly Remediation. Children scoring on the low end of the test must be held back a grade, which research has shown can start the child down a path of failure. It costs approximately $6,000 per child to repeat a grade, dollars that could be invested in efforts to keep the child from failing in the first place.

• Questionable Results. Critics question whether the tests are appropriate for the age of the child taking them, if they are culturally biased against minority students and whether they are scored correctly. Earlier this year the out-of-state testing company hired for $254 million to administer and score the FCAT delayed its results because of problems with the exams. The same company and state Department of Education officials have come under fire because another company hired to audit the integrity of the FCAT results is a subcontractor of the testing company.
• Minimal Transparency. Teachers and parents get only general feedback on FCAT results where the child may be having problems but not on how the child can improve. Massachusetts, Virginia and Texas make their student tests public to parents; Minnesota and Delaware allow parents to review tests in the classroom and make teachers available to help interpret results.
• Discrepancy with National Assessments. There are significant differences between FCAT assessment of student success and the US Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). For example, the 2009 FCAT reported that 74% of Florida's fourth-graders were proficient readers while the NAEP assessment indicated that only 36% demonstrated proficiency.

Alex Sink believes that the FCAT must be reformed as part of a comprehensive effort to raise student achievement standards, expand how students and schools are assessed, and link both to clearly identified performance outcomes for students and schools. The educational curriculum - what we want our students to learn -- should be considered when achievement standards and tests are being developed. That way we can ensure that the desired "learning" is in sync with the expectations (standards) for students and the right tests are being given to accurately measure their performance.

To accomplish this, as Governor, Alex Sink will:

• Move Florida toward common performance standards. Florida is part of a nationwide effort, led by the National Governors Association and educators, to define what every American student should know and demonstrate -- from kindergarten through high school -- in English and math. This effort will eliminate the patchwork quilt of educational standards and provide a consistent blueprint for the knowledge and skills that every student needs to be competitive in today's global economy.

Alex will be a leader in ensuring that Florida is a key player in this effort, as these "Common Core Standards" will be internationally benchmarked. She will make sure that the unique needs of Florida's schools are addressed in this initiative and that reform efforts start at the local level - not in Tallahassee. Alex will end the era of "top-down" reform, of micromanagement and unfunded mandates.

In fact, Alex will initiate a review of state-mandated educational policies requiring local administrative spending to determine if these expenses can be reduced through greater efficiencies and/or elimination of policies that haven't achieved the desired results. She will return primary leadership authority for instructional and curriculum decisions to Florida's professional educators, who will be held accountable for results. The state Department of Education must redefine itself from a focus on identifying and punishing low-performing schools to being the catalyst for statewide school improvement. DOE should become a clearinghouse for research-based best practices from around the world.

• Grade schools on improvements in children's overall performance and other measures. Alex believes that performance should be graded based on how each student progresses throughout the school year, not on one "high stakes" test score. She will create apeer-selected, statewide advisory group of school board members, principals, teachers, parents, business and community leaders to revamp the current system for assessing schools - including charter schools -- that will include credible benchmarks and specified times for reporting results to the public - annually or more frequently. Additional measures that could be considered include:
  • teachers with advanced degrees and National Board certified teachers
  • student absenteeism and suspensions
  • the amount of parental involvement in a child's progress
  • the number of students repeating a grade or requiring remediation
  • high school drop-out rates
  • the percentage of graduates who enroll in college and/or earn an industry-recognized skill credential
  • the percentage of high school graduates who need remediation after enrolling in college.

Alex also understands that there are many factors outside the classroom that can impact a child's learning - such as the quality of the home environment or neighborhood, drug or alcohol abuse and peer pressure. Alex will charge her advisory group to also consider such external factors that are outside a teacher's control when evaluating a school's performance; communities must do a better job of supporting their schools, teachers and principals in this respect, which is addressed in the next section of this plan.

Finally, Alex will insist on accurately counting in a high school's dropout rates the number of adult education transfer students who fail to finish. Not counting these students artificially inflates a school's graduation rate; this practice must stop if Florida intends to get serious about improving education.

• Provide more oversight, transparency and analysis of testing and test scores. Alex supports the recommendations of school superintendents to create a statewide "technical oversight committee" comprised of educators and testing experts to review how tests are developed and make recommendations for improvement. She supports proposals to resume "norm-referenced tests" in which Florida students' performance is compared to students tested across the nation to validate our results and establish a statistical "norm" for student achievement.

Alex also will support providing detailed results on testing to parents, teachers and principals. These stakeholders need to understand where children are having learning problems in order to help them improve. Testing shouldn't just assign our students a passing or failing score, it should serve as a comprehensive tool for identifying the specific areas in which our children must get better.

Finally, Alex will ensure that there is no conflict of interest - real or perceived - between testing companies and testing auditors. And she will work to bring test development, scanning and scoring efforts into Florida to give those jobs to capable Floridians rather than out-of-state companies.

• Support Many Paths to Success. In a Sink Administration, Florida will use multiple ways of improving alternative learning opportunities for students at risk of failing or dropping out as well as non-traditional learners. Simply failing kids who aren't making the grade - who may be poor test-takers -- doesn't do the child much good and isn't a good use of scarce taxpayer dollars.

Alex will support initiatives to help students earn their diploma through alternative schools, mastery learning programs and technical skills programs to give students who may not be college-bound real preparation for entering the adult workforce.

• Ensure Accountability for All Students. While minors 16 years of age are currently "prohibited" from withdrawing from school without parental permission, such prohibitions are largely unenforced. The law allowing children to leave school before earning a diploma is outdated -- based on agricultural needs from another era. In the 21^st Century, without a diploma, the kids frankly don't stand a chance. Withdrawing from education is a risky, life-changing decision that should not be left to a 16-year-old.

Alex will support the creation of a statewide panel of experts to explore the merit of compulsory school attendance to age18 and will work with local schools and communities to develop reasonable and effective enforcement mechanisms.

Strengthening Involvement of Parents, Guardians & Communities

Schools alone cannot be expected to help a child navigate all the emotions, temptations and choices of growing up that often confront children outside the classroom but certainly can impact each student's performance in school. The entire community must respond in ways that help ensure each child has the same opportunity to succeed in school.

The role model behavior exhibited by a parent or adult caretaker - positive or negative -- is one of the most important influencing factors in a child's life. When it comes to their child's education, parents and guardians need to be involved, but many lack the tools or skills to get engaged in this critical aspect of the child's life.

As Governor, Alex Sink will work to strengthen the involvement of parents and communities in schools, including:

• Expanding parental involvement programs. Alex will support successful, school-based models of school/parent collaborations - such as the "Parents Club" program at Gulfside Elementary in Pasco County. The principal holds periodic breakfasts with his students' parents to get them more engaged in their children's school and educational success. Another example is The Parent Academy implemented in Miami-Dade schools that offers parents an array of courses helping them to help their children improve in school. These programs would complement local Parent-Teacher Association efforts, not duplicate or replace, with a primary goal of getting parents more involved in their schools, creating new communications channels to parents on school and student performance, and giving parents and guardians more accessibility to school officials.

• Changing the role of the schoolhouse. Schools are a brick-and-mortar community resource that need not lock down when the last class bell rings. Alex will explore the establishment of collaborative pilots with local schools, state and local agencies, and their communities to transform schools into full-time neighborhood activity centers. The centers would provide consolidated and more cost-effective delivery of community services for students, parents/guardians and families. These could include:
  • After-school child learning and activity programs
  • Parenting skills classes
  • Adult financial literacy programs
  • GED classes for high school dropouts
  • Job skills programs
  • Nutritional & wellness programs for students and parents
  • Science, art and music appreciation programs

Typically, such programs are provided through a multitude of state and local agencies in various facilities that often are miles from the families they serve. Alex believes that, where appropriate, we should take these programs to one location - the neighborhood school - to service students and parents through a single, cost-effective and convenient delivery system.

A similar model has been used successfully in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. The school is open 15 hours a day, six days a week to students, their parents and neighborhood children - providing a location for community services such as dental and medical care, mental health counseling, child care, recreation, fitness programs, drug and pregnancy prevention programs, adult education and parenting classes. The school's core curriculum is organized around three themes: community service, business enterprise and science. The results: test scores in reading and math have increased, student attendance has been the best in the school district, and incidents of violence, graffiti and vandalism have fallen.

• Promoting Healthier Students. In 2009, approximately 18 percent of Florida sixth-graders were overweight and another 20 percent were considered obese. In Duval County, as one example, 70 percent of students scored below average on the 2007 Presidential Physical Fitness Test. Physical fitness has been on a declining trend in schools since 1984, and Alex Sink thinks this must be reversed. She believes it is time to get serious about health and fitness among Florida's school children.

During her Administration, Alex will:

o Launch a statewide "Florida Fit" campaign to raise awareness about the health consequences of obesity and encourage more local efforts to improve student health. As part of the Florida Fit campaign, schools will be encouraged to invite guest physical education instructors - professional instructors and trainers at local fitness centers and gyms - to lead school P.E. classes in the latest and most popular fitness activities.

o Increase Physical Education Participation & Quality. State law requires elementary students to have at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, and requires middle schoolers to take a semester of physical education per year. Last year, Florida introduced physical education waivers that allow students to opt-out of these requirements with a note from a parent. In less than a year, the opt-out became the default: for example, as many as 80 percent of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in Central Florida waived their gym requirements. This is exactly opposite what Florida students need. Alex will work with school leaders to make the opt-out waiver the exception, not the rule.

o Support Healthier School Menus & Snacks with a "Governor's Garden" Initiative. Alex will work to further expand ongoing efforts at schools across Florida to engage children in learning activities that also incorporate fresh, locally-grown foods into the traditional school lunch systems and snack machines. For example, the Miami-Dade district brings fresh vegetables from a Collier County farm directly to school cafeterias and is installing fresh fruit and vegetable vending machines at schools. Alex will encourage additional community-school partnerships that involve assistance from Florida businesses and philanthropic organizations. In Jacksonville, the Jaguars Foundation and Baptist Health provided a $23,000 grant to create on-campus community gardens at three schools in communities with high rates of infant mortality, chronic disease, and obesity. Similarly, 30 orange trees and labor were granted by a local health-care technology company to Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley Rawlings Elementary School for their orange grove. The grove was planted at the school five years ago to educate and feed students as part of the school's health initiative.

To lead by example, Alex will sow her own seeds for reform in student wellness by creating a "Governor's Garden" at the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. The garden will be maintained with assistance from local school students, parents, citizen and corporate volunteers. It will be available as a learning experience and healthy activity for Florida students on field trips to Tallahassee. While school children are touring the Capitol they also can spend time working in the Governor's Garden. Food from the garden will be served during meetings held at the Mansion and highlight healthy menus adopted in collaboration with schools across Florida. For example, an Orange County school's menu may be featured at the mansion one month and highlight a vegetable grown in the Governor's Garden.

o Convene a "Florida Fit" Task Force of experts in child nutrition & physical education. Alex will bring together a task force of physicians, nutritionists, physical education experts, parents, students and educators. The task force will address reforming school lunches and physical education curriculums to underscore the learning and health benefits of "movement science." Longstanding research has demonstrated that structured physical activities are the basis for a child's cognitive, analytical and social development.

Recommendations for new school lunch requirements would need to be within the scope of U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, but could incorporate additional standards for fresh or natural foods, for example, or provide contract preference to local growers.

In conjunction with the Florida Fit campaign, these recommendations could initially be used as voluntary guidelines for schools and community groups seeking to improve students' eating habits. As Governor, Alex will use the task force recommendations and findings of pilot schools to advance a statewide change in school nutrition and fitness.

Building a 21^st Century Curriculum

We all want our young people to succeed in the economy of tomorrow. That means our students not only must learn the basics - they need the knowledge and skills to compete in a global economy that's fast-paced, high-tech, and specialized. This means a well-rounded curriculum that includes science, technology, engineering, math, economics, civics and the arts. Alex Sink applauds the Legislature's passage this year of the Sandra Day O'Connor Act, which requires that civics courses be included for all grades and that students successfully complete these courses for advancement beyond middle school.

Alex wants to ensure that all Florida children and young adults have the opportunity to:

• Receive a solid foundation in critical areas, especially Science, Technology, Engineering Arts and Mathematics (STEAM)
• Learn on age-appropriate classroom technology to prepare them for the jobs of the 21^stCentury
• Have more opportunities for advanced learning in high school that is both rigorous and rewarding

To accomplish these objectives, during her administration, Alex will:

• Work with stakeholders in the public and private sectors to improve and expand STEAM initiatives. In the last year, Florida workforce leaders have focused on boosting the science, technology, engineering and math skills of Florida's students to help better prepare them for jobs in innovative industries. High tech companies have positions they cannot fill due to lack of qualified candidates, which leads to overseas outsourcing of jobs - with the gap expected to widen. While the demand for scientists and mathematicians continues to grow, the number of students going into these fields is not growing at an equal rate.

Alex supports these efforts and, as Governor, would take "STEM" to the next level by ensuring that a strong arts curriculum is included as part of a more expansive "STEAM" initiative. A recent Florida Department of Education study found that students whose learning included arts courses demonstrated better overall academic performance and lower dropout rates. National studies have shown similar results and that this is consistent for both racial and socio-economic sectors.

Alex will make STEAM a focal point of education in Florida. Her efforts will include:

o Strengthening Florida's college preparatory curriculum for high school students to ensure a strong STEAM component. Arkansas requires all of its students to complete a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum called Smart Core. This curriculum includes four years of math and three years of science. Conversely, in 2006 Florida was one of only two states where the percentage of high school students taking upper-level science courses has actually declined in the past 12 years. Florida's Legislature took an important step in the right direction this spring by raising the graduation requirements in math and science to include geometry and algebra 2, biology, chemistry, and physics - requirements that will be phased in at the start of the 2014-2015 school year. But we can do even more to raise the bar for math and science achievement. As Governor, Alex will work with schools to ensure a strong STEAM curriculum that will help students meet competitive collegiate standards.

o Supporting STEAM education outside the classroom through expanded learning opportunities. These could include afterschool and summer programs, complementing what students learn during the school day with hands-on experiences, enrichment projects, and access to community resources and industries that spark interest in STEAM-related activities. Alex believes that underserved students and schools without extra resources should not be excluded from programs like these, and supports awarding grant funding to low-performing schools for STEAM enrichment activities. As Governor she will also work to ensure that parents have access to information through their local schools about the programs available for their children to participate in.

o Encouraging new approaches to teacher preparation for math and science teachers. For example, UTeach is a cooperative partnership involving the Natural Sciences and Education departments within the University of Texas at Austin and the Austin Independent School District. It allows aspiring teachers to earn their math or science degree simultaneously with their teaching certificate. The result: the number of math and science teachers being certified has increased by 500 percent. The program has been recognized as one of the top innovations in government by Harvard University's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Florida can begin to address its shortage in qualified math and science teachers by promoting similar innovative partnerships and teaching certification programs.

• Improve technology opportunities in the classroom. Today's generation of students is more comfortable with technology than ever before. Florida's schools should leverage that fact to help students learn and succeed through age-appropriate technology. Interactive technologies aid teachers and students in communicating about every field of study, from math and science to the arts, humanities and computer-aided design.

In today's classroom, electronic "interactive white boards" are replacing chalkboards, and iPads and Kindles are supplementing or replacing textbooks. Every classroom in Tampa's Essrig Elementary school uses Smart Boards because they help teachers cater to multiple learning styles. At Manatee-Sarasota State College of Florida's newly opened collegiate charter school, every student in the 6^th and 7^th grades will be assigned an iPad and learn using a web portal containing all their lessons and class assignments. Parents will have access to updated instructor assessments of their child's progress and technology training will be offered to parents to help them keep pace with students.

As Governor, Alex will support evaluating traditional textbook expenses against cost savings potentially achieved by using "e-textbooks" available over the Internet. She also will support efforts - where appropriate and demonstrated to be effective -- to incorporate relevant technologies into lessons, and expand these opportunities for more Florida schools. This includes:

• • • Linking school sites and classrooms with video teleconferencing.Technologies that expand the reach of activities beyond one classroom or school are a cost-effective way to make unique learning experiences more accessible to more students. For example, a college-level algebra class taught at Port Charlotte High School can be attended virtually by students at Lemon Bay High School in another town who do not have direct access to the special course. Alex will work to develop private-public grants for schools to expand the use of teleconferencing technologies to enhance learning opportunities for more students.

• • • Seeking matching grants for technology to support curriculum-based learning objectives. Alex will seek out initiatives that partner private-sector expertise and resources with our public schools. For example, a Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley elementary school was recently the beneficiary of a $100,000 donation in cash and in-kind services from a technology company to buy and provide training for Smart Boards, computers, and other associated materials.

• Support expansion of accelerated learning programs in high schools. These programs are designed to reduce the amount of time it takes students to get a degree in higher education or earn credit toward a degree or certificate program. They include dual enrollment programs, early admission to a college or university, and advanced placement (AP) courses.

This is one area in which Florida's secondary and postsecondary schools have excelled.

In 2007-2008, more than 33,000 Florida students participated in dual and early enrollment programs at the 28 community and state colleges and another 130,000 students took AP courses. Last year, Florida ranked 4^th nationally in participation rates and 11^th in passage. Participation and passage rates have increased steadily for Hispanic and African American students. Still, under-performing secondary schools, many of them with high numbers and percentages of low-income and minority students, generally offer fewer AP courses.

One of the most significant tools to support accelerated course work is the development of a statewide course numbering system, which facilitates transfer of credits and understanding of course requirements. While many states are moving to establish such systems, Florida already has it in place.

Alex Sink will build on these successes during her administration to make Florida a leader in accelerated learning by:

o Increasing emphasis on advanced programs. Quality and expectations should be raised across the board, and not just for high-achieving students. Kids do better if we expect more of them. At Miami-Dade College, high school students attend the School for Advanced Studies, a dual-enrollment high school that allows them to earn an associate of arts degree during their last two years of high school. The school boasts a 100 percent graduation rate. Accelerated programs such as dual enrollment, AP classes and early admission are helping students to bridge the gap between high school and postsecondary education and encouraging better use of students' time, especially in the upper grades.

o Piloting a "Green Technology" curriculum in high schools. Green jobs and green technologies are among the fastest-growing technical fields in the world. By partnering with renewable energy companies and higher education institutions, Florida could offer high school courses in alternative energy-related fields -- ranging from equipment manufacturing and installation to sales and environmental science. Students could earn career certificates and/or early college credit in green technology.

o Boosting Financial Literacy. A 2006 Junior Achievement report showed that 10 percent of 17-year-olds -- and 20 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds -- have credit cards. Furthermore, nearly 16 percent of teens with credit cards make only the minimum payment. In a survey of 5,775 high school seniors in 2006 from 37 states including Florida, students answered only 52 percent of the basic financial literacy questions correctly.

Clearly, too many of our students are entering adulthood already in over their heads when it comes to personal finance. Florida must educate our youth to be savvy consumers able to make informed financial decisions that can affect the rest of their lives. As Governor, Alex will convene a multi-stakeholder task force including educators, financial experts, students and parents to develop recommendations for the best way to integrate practical financial competency into Florida's public school curriculum. She will support requiring all students to complete a course in financial literacy in order to graduate from high school.

Accessible, Affordable, Responsive Colleges & Universities

Florida's higher education system consists of 11 public universities, 28 public community and state colleges, and 28 private, non-profit independent colleges and universities. In addition, Florida is home to several hundred licensed for-profit career colleges and universities.

Alex Sink recognizes the value that these public and private institutions bring in serving the diverse and varied needs of Florida's postsecondary students. For example, more than half of Florida's 2008 graduates in allied health and medical services were from for-profit institutions, as were 63% of the state's computer science and information technology graduates.

Alex also understands the important role these institutions play in building a better-educated workforce for Florida - and not just to meet the challenges of today. We must have skilled workers if we are to leverage tomorrow's opportunities and transform our state from largely a tourist destination into a home for innovative industries, cutting-edge technologies, breakthroughs in medical research and a gateway to world trade. That requires a bold vision to move Florida's colleges and universities on par not only with other states but other countries as well.

Despite the emphasis for the last few generations on higher education as a goal for most Americans, in fact only about a fourth of high school graduates receive college degrees. Most studies project that, for the foreseeable future, about two-thirds of jobs will require some level of college education. Higher-paying jobs require even more education and possibly advanced degrees.

Florida does not compare well with other states in this area. Each year, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education publishes Measuring Up: The State Report Card on Higher Education. For 2008, Florida received a "C" grade for how well students are prepared for higher education or the workforce. On college attendance indicators, 69% of Florida freshmen returned to a college or university for their sophomore year - compared to 82% for freshmen attending colleges in the five best-performing states. And according to the Florida Council of 100, in 2006 Florida ranked 43^rd for the number of bachelor's degrees per 1,000 residents aged 18-44 and 47^th for graduates in science and technology.

The Florida College System is the major provider of two-year degrees and workforce development for all of Florida's citizens, particularly for first-generation-in-college, low-income, African Americans and Hispanics. These colleges are the vital key to turning our nation's economy around by educating or retraining the 21^st century workforce. As the economy declined, enrollment has soared in the "open-door" Florida College System as displaced and unemployed workers update skills for employment. At the same time, however, state funding has been reduced, forcing colleges to raise tuition and rely on more part-time faculty.

Accessibility and affordability are two key reasons why higher education is out of reach for many Floridians - particularly in the wake of the recent global recession. Others simply prefer to enter the workplace sooner, but are often frustrated at the shortage of customized workforce training programs for various industries. To cope with funding shortages, our colleges and universities have been forced to eliminate hundreds of faculty positions and cap enrollment. For example, Miami-Dade College has frozen enrollment in numerous course offerings, meaning thousands of students have been shut out of classes they need to earn degrees.

At the same time, tuition increases have made higher education less affordable. Florida families spend anywhere between 18% to nearly 40% of their incomes on community college or state university tuition, according to the Measuring Up report - which gave the state an F in affordability even though Florida's public universities charge among the lowest tuition fees in the country.

During her administration, Alex Sink will work to increase the number of students graduating from high schools and completing some form of workforce training or post-secondary education - be it a technical certificate, a two- or four-year degree program or a graduate degree. Her administration will focus on improving access to higher education, increasing affordability and ensuring that the programs are in place to prepare Floridians for the high-skilled workplace of tomorrow.

Alex Sink will:

• Work with the Higher Education Coordinating Council and others to improve higher education accessibility. Florida's colleges are serving more than 860,000 students, with enrollment at the larger institutions growing by a double-digit pace since the economic recession began. A major concern is whether our colleges will have the professors, sustainable funding and other resources necessary to meet this increasing demand.

Alex will work with the Higher Education Coordinating Council, created by the 2010 Legislature, and bring together a task force of representatives of our K-12 system, state/community colleges and state universities to provide recommendations for improving access to higher education in Florida. Our state institutions have a number of good programs in place, but we can do better. We must ensure that the best ideas are tapped to create educational opportunities for more students and eliminate roadblocks to their success.

• Maintain the 2+2 promise. Florida has long been a leader in successfully advancing students from colleges to universities with courses and credits that easily transfer. It's a good deal for both students and taxpayers: OPPAGA reported that associate degree graduates of the Florida College System save $8.7 million on cheaper tuition - and the state saves $13.8 million - if students complete their lower division courses in the college system prior to entering the State University System. However, universities increasingly don't have room for all the transfer students, especially in Florida's urban areas. Many students are working as well as attending class and need a guaranteed slot to continue their education. Our community and state colleges deliver high-quality instruction at lower tuition than universities and therefore can be a gateway to a four-year degree for students who don't start out considering one. Alex will charge her task force to recommend ways to ensure that Florida's "2 + 2" system will be preserved and adequately supports students.

• Promote greater use of colleges for high-need and/or four-year programs. Florida was one of the first states to allow two-year colleges to offer four-year degrees. Previously known as the Florida Community College System, the revamped Florida College System is an essential network of higher education that meets the demand for skilled employees in chronically under-filled positions. Those include allied health programs, such as emergency medical technicians, medical technology (cardiology to radiology and more) as well as nursing. Also, teaching programs such as Educator Preparation Institutes (EPI) that train bachelor-degreed students in the latest innovative teaching practices help fill Florida's critical need for highly qualified K-12 teachers. Alex will build on this initiative to ensure that the right programs are being offered in the right places to best serve local workforce needs and aren't just duplicating programs in the university system.

• Offer more courses online. Alex will support expanded use of technology to provide more instruction via the Web or in combination with classroom teaching. This approach can create educational opportunities for students who live far from campus or whose work schedules or health challenges are barriers to attending classes on a regular course schedule. It also accommodates different learning styles of students. Alex will work with the Board of Education, Board of Governors and the Higher Education Coordinating Council to ensure that this important delivery method is expanded in a way that ensures quality and strives to avoid unnecessary duplication.

• Increase the proportion of needs-based student aid. Compared to most states, Florida's investment in needs-based financial aid is quite low - comprising about 20% of the state's overall student financial aid for the 2007-08 fiscal year. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2008-09, Florida was one of only a dozen states that spent more on merit-based scholarships than needs-based aid; only six of those states spent a smaller proportion of their scholarship budgets on needs-based aid than did Florida. The dollars available for needs-based scholarships have not kept pace with demand, forcing more students to rely on loans and be burdened with heavy debt. Nationwide, in 2007-08 approximately 66% of graduating college seniors had an average of nearly $28,000 in debt, including education-related debt.

Alex will work to strike a fairer balance between needs-based aid and merit-based scholarships such as the Bright Futures program, which is based on testing scores and in 2007-08 represented approximately 60% of the state's student financial aid program.

Created in 1997, the Bright Futures program initially dispersed about 42,000 scholarships worth $70 million in aid. Over the last decade the scholarships have ballooned to more than 170,000 awards totaling more than $430 million. Although the Legislature in recent years has raised the standards to qualify for Bright Futures, more needs to be done to ensure that Florida's student aid goes to both high-performing students and to those most in need of assistance.

• Offer more financial counseling for students on financial aid. Money problems are a major reason students drop out of school. In addition, many don't understand when they are taking out student loans how difficult it will be to repay them when they leave school. Alex will work to ensure that career counselors and higher education student ombudsman offices include financial literacy guidance and information when advising students and seek out public/private partnerships - particularly with the financial sectors - to underwrite financial literacy materials.

• Better integrate state workforce development efforts with the Florida College Systemand in K-12. Florida has done a better job than most states of integrating community and state colleges into the higher education structure. For example, by state law, Florida guarantees state university admission to virtually every community college graduate holding an associate of arts degree. While Alex applauds this progress, she thinks Florida needs to do a better job integrating these students into our workforce system. She will ensure that Florida is focused on education and training from cradle to career - through better integration into the middle- and high-school curricula as well as at the community and state college level. We need to expand partnerships and develop new ones with community and state colleges as well as universities to provide employer-specific, customized training of students. This will help provide a job-ready workforce that can attract new businesses to Florida.

• Create postsecondary pathways to occupational credentials and good jobs. Alex will work with Florida's school districts, colleges and the industries within their communities to identify the specific education, training programs, and support services needed to gain employment in each industry and have a career advancement ladder over time.

• Promote cooperative partnerships between local businesses, school districts and state and community colleges to develop more apprenticeships. Alex will seek out businesses to expand paid apprenticeships that offer on-the-job training and formal instruction. These programs help develop specialized skills and often lead to permanent positions.

• Focus on Middle Skills. "Middle skill" jobs - such as plumbers, electricians, health care workers, legal assistants, machinists -- require more than a high school education but not necessarily a four-year degree. It is estimated that up to half of Florida's new jobs will require a middle-skill level of education, such as those offered in vocational schools and in the two-year allied health technician programs of the Florida College System. Particularly in northern Florida, the demand for practical technology skills has many companies looking elsewhere to find the qualified workforce they need.

Alex's Middle Skill Jobs initiative, in partnership with Florida Ready to Work, will analyze the training, occupational credentialing, and industry certifications needed to fill the middle skill job demand and the capacity within our training and education institutions to meet that labor market demand. The initiative will also help efforts to expand the statewide implementation of the Career Readiness Certificate (CRC), a credential for middle skill jobs. Currently used by 23 states, the CRC is becoming a nationally-recognized credential, with 25 other states in various stages of pilots and research.

Florida Ready to Work, a state-sponsored program for improving workforce development, currently administers the CRC program. The Florida College System partners with industries and responds to community needs for workforce training, retraining and industry certification through "corporate colleges." As Governor, Alex will direct Florida Ready to Work to engage more high schools and community and state colleges to increase awareness and adoption of the CRC.

• Ensure Accountability. Educational accountability doesn't stop at high school - higher education must be held to performance standards for improvement as well. In Florida, there is a great deal of focus on accessibility to higher education -- and rightfully so -- but we also must focus on getting students to earn a degree once they enter college. According to the College Completion Agenda, only 56 percent of college students earn an undergraduate degree in six years or less. The completion rate drops even more in community colleges, where only 28 percent earn a degree in three years or less. The U.S. is losing its competitive advantage in the world because it's not producing nearly enough people with the level of education necessary to keep high-paying jobs from leaving the country, and the graduation rates of some Florida institutions do not even meet the national average.

As Governor, Alex Sink will ensure accountability in public higher education by:

o Working with the Board of Governors and the Board of Education to hold college and university administrators accountable for ensuring their students graduate in a timely manner.

o Supporting initiatives designed to increase the likelihood of success in college for "first generation" college students - children of parents without postsecondary degrees -- such as enhanced mentoring and advising to help them navigate through the higher education system.

IN SUMMARY:

Alex Sink has a comprehensive plan for reforming Florida's education system - from the earliest grades through a lifetime of learning. As a businesswoman, and as Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Alex knows the importance of getting the most value for our money, and she knows how to do it. The Sink plan for education is built on a foundation of making wise investments and focusing on quality and accountability. During her administration, Alex will ensure that Florida provides its children and workforce with the education and training needed for a globally competitive 21^stcentury economy. This is a commitment that Florida must make for its future, even with the resource constraints we face today.

Quality in education begins in the classroom, and that means that our primary educational investment needs to be in teaching. Alex wants to use our education dollars to improve the quality of classroom teaching by enhancing our teacher support system and educational resources. She will follow up on bold experiments underway in Florida to give teachers the ability to earn more by using their skills in innovative and demanding ways - all focused on helping students, teachers and schools do better. Alex also understands that capable leadership is an integral part of a school's success. She will work with education policymakers to lead Florida's schools, colleges and universities toward higher levels of measureable achievement that will support the future economic growth and prosperity of this state.

Alex knows that Florida also must leverage its higher education systems to diversify our economic base and be globally competitive in a knowledge- and innovation-based economy. While our traditional foundations of retirees, tourism and growth have served us well, the recent global recession highlights Florida's vulnerability and need to diversify. Accelerating Florida's movement toward innovation will attract companies with high wage/high tech jobs and spur the growth of similar startup ventures. A vibrant public university system is a major component of this economic transformation - producing both a talented future workforce and serving as economic research engines to create new jobs and industries.

Most of all, Alex understands that investments in education must include defining what returns are expected, how to measure those returns, and how to ensure both accountability and recognition for achieving the desired result. As Governor, Alex Sink will be a collaborative leader in working with parents, educators, schools, colleges, universities, communities and other stakeholders to drive better outcomes for our students and ensure accountability for how our education dollars are spent.

Floridians - and the future of our children - deserve no less.