When I took office in 1999, I made it my highest priority to provide a quality education to all of Florida’s children. For the past seven years, I have had the honor of working with thousands of educators, policymakers, parents and students to make that happen by bringing true reform to Florida’s public education system. Five rules have guided our success.
Rule number one applies long before the ballots are counted on Election Day. Simply, when you run for office, you need to say what you’re going to do and then do what you said you would. Candidates who aren’t willing to take political risks won’t take the policy risks required to drive real change.
By taking a stand during our campaign, my running mate and I gave voters a chance to examine and debate our plan to transform Florida schools. As a result, our election came with a mandate to implement a comprehensive education reform based on high standards and expectations, clear measurement and accountability, and rewards and consequences for results.
Since 1999, we have eliminated social promotion, increased the exit exam requirements for high school graduation, raised standards for school performance, and made reading instruction a primary focus in the early grades and, more recently, in our middle schools.
The second rule of reform is that if you don’t measure, you don’t care. You must be willing to measure the outcomes of reforms, and equally important, you must be willing to share the results – the ones you’re proud of, as well as the ones that show more work is needed – with the rest of the world.
We know our reforms are working because we measure progress. Today, Florida’s graduation rate is up from 60 percent to 72 percent, our drop-out rate is down by half, and our
