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

Jeb Bush campaigned for governor on a clear and bracing set of education reforms in 1998. Having won office, he immediately pursued a dual-track strategy of education reform: standards and accountability for public schools, and choice options for dissatisfied parents. Florida lawmakers followed these reforms with additional measures, including instruction-based reforms; the curtailing of social promotion, which advances students to higher grades regardless of academic achievement; merit pay...