Editorial: Education

Though it doesn’t tell the whole story, Southwest Florida schools’ FCAT report card shows reasons to smile and opportunities for improvement.

Here is what we see amid the alphabet soup:

-- In Collier County there now are 22 schools earning the grade of A, up from 20 last year, among 43 schools. Lee County is up to 38, from 35 last year, among 77 schools.

-- Two Collier schools jumped by two letter grades, both from C’s to first-time A’s — Estates Elementary School and Golden Gate Middle School. No south Lee school climbed two spots.

-- From six the year before, there are only three D schools left in Lee, with none in Bonita-Estero. There is one remaining in Collier — Everglades City School — down from five last year including Immokalee High School, which fell to an F, making it the only F school at any level in both counties.

-- The rest of the schools in Immokalee, except Lake Trafford Elementary with a C, recorded improvement — most notably Highlands Elementary. A D-ranked school only three years ago, it jumped to a B in 2004 and now attains an A — the first ever anywhere in Immokalee. Congratulations!

-- With Gulf Coast and Barron Collier high schools slipping a single grade, to B’s, Collier and Lee counties can claim only one A high school — Fort Myers. The A was a distinction earned by Barron since 2001.

-- There are changes at far-flung, diverse schools: Bonita Springs Elementary earned a B after three years of A’s; Avalon Elementary in East Naples, Golden Terrace Elementary in Golden Gate and Sabal Palm Elementary in Golden Gate Estates went up a notch to A’s; East Naples Middle School regained its A after a year with a B; and Lely High School regained its C after a year with a D. Shadowlawn and Naples Park elementaries were off by one letter.

-- All south Lee County elementary and middle schools earned A’s or B’s, while the region’s two high schools — Estero and South Fort Myers — earned C’s. Three Oaks Middle School regained an A after last year’s B, and Rayma C. Page Elementary made a nice debut with a B.

In a perfect world, these annual letter grades would come out in April or May so schools could hold informational meetings with students, parents and guardians to explain what happened and outline plans for improvement.

Yet, in a field where accountability is so hard to come by, the FCAT — Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test — scores are welcome points of light.