I’ve got to admit, Florida’s K-12 outcomes, punctuated by a woeful 58.8% graduation rate in 2006, were so astonishingly poor for so long, its taken me some time to fully wrap my brain around the incredible progress we’ve made.
Florida had a record high 90% graduation rate last year. A stunning reversal of where we’d been 15 years earlier. And we achieved it through 15 consecutive years of steady progress.Make no mistake, graduation rates are extremely important. There’s no more predictive statistic of career outcomes than graduations rates. That’s generally true of grade school students and college alike. But the latest news we’ve received is some serious icing on the cake.
Advanced Placement (AP) classes in high school are no joke. By definition they are college equivalent courses. Not only did Florida have a record number of successful AP students last year, we ranked 2nd nationally on a percentage basis according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. A remarkable 34.2% of Florida’s graduating seniors completed at least one AP course last year. That’s 71% better than the national average and second to only Connecticut by 0.3%. There’s never been a time when Florida’s grade school education system would have been thought of as among the best. But now it should be.
Florida’s now 18th in graduation rate, second in AP outcomes and has a top five collegiate system. This combination of successes allows our kids to be born, raised and fully educated within our state with a realistic expectation for top outcomes. That had already led and will only continue to lead to a more mature economy with diverse industries and career opportunities here at home as well.
Photo by: John Moore/Getty Images