Demography Defeated: Florida's K-12 Reforms and Their Lessons for the Nation

This study examines the 10-year impact of these reforms and finds remarkable improvement in Florida’s test scores. Between 1992 and 1998, Florida’s already-low fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores were declining. In 1999, when these reforms were enacted, nearly half of Florida fourth-graders scored “below basic” on the NAEP reading test, meaning that they could not read at a basic level. But by 2007, less than a decade after the education reforms took effect, 70 percent of Florida’s fourth-graders scored basic or above. Florida’s Hispanic students now have the second-highest statewide reading scores in the nation, and African-Americans score fourth-highest when compared with their peers. Source: Goldwater Institute

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