The St. Petersburg Times' award-winning PolitiFact.com took a close look at the claims that Florida has improved its national ranking from 31st to 10th in education, and found out that we haven't been getting the whole story on the Education Week rankings.

The verdict: Only half true (or half false)

While Gov. Crist claims that Florida's rank in education has improved from 31st to 10th in three years, the annual studies "didn't examine the same factors. In other words, the governor is comparing apples to oranges." Crist was right, however, in identifying Education Week as the source of the ranking, so that's something.

For more of the "Truth About #10" click over to our sister site at www.worsttofirstcampus.org.

Our time on the road this past week was significant for me in many ways. We started in DeLand, at the Museum of Florida Art. Jennifer Coolidge, the executive director, assembled a strong group of community leaders to show the Worst To First team what a powerful educational and cultural asset the museum has become, a true statewide treasure. As I listened to the group, I came to a deeper conviction about the FCAT and what I believe to be the devastating impact the “FCAT is all” approach is having on our children, in terms of critical thinking and problem solving. The arts, physical education, history and civics have all virtually been forsaken in the stampede for memorization. Though accountability must live on as one aspect of an evaluation process, I believe it is time for the FCAT to go away.

After our DeLand visit, we moved into Lakeland. My cousins, Joe and Karen Ruthven, live in Lakeland and conducted a brief tour for us while there. When the tour ended, we made our way to Family Fundamentals, a program built on the Success By Six strategy which focuses on providing a wide range of services to struggling families and their children. Amazingly, fifty community organizations are partnering with Family Fundamentals which makes it so much easier for these families to get linked to a comprehensive range of social support services. Director Shawna Butler is a driven and energetic leader. The primary catalyst and financial benefactor of this wonderful program is Carol Jenkins Barnett, and United Way, active in so many Florida communities, is a key player as well.

Click to watch the Bay News 9 story on One Million Steps For Florida's Kids.

Bay News 9 reporter Melissa Sogegian spent some time with us in Lakeland last week and put together a great story for Bay News 9 that took us back in time to 1970, when Lawton Chiles Jr. walked through Lakeland. They even dug through the microfilm files at The Ledger to find some old photos from the story they ran nearly 40 years ago.

Click on the photo to watch the story.

Principal Sharon Neuman shows Bud some of the Chiles memorabilia at the school.

It felt like homecoming on Wednesday when One Million Steps For Florida's Kids visited Lakeland. Read the write-up in The Ledger here. Bud got a chance to visit with the students and teachers at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy, which is at the site of Lakeland High School where Gov. Lawton Chiles Jr. graduated in 1948. Today it's a nationally recognized magnet school with a waiting list for parents.

We got company on our walk in downtown Lakeland too, as we left with a big group from Family Fundamentals, a United Way effort that brings together more than 50 partner agencies to support parents and children. The final visit of the day was at the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce to hear about their education task force.

On Tuesday, Worst To First made a return trip to Volusia County, where we visited the Museum of Florida Art in Deland and met with the Florida Alliance for Arts Education. The museum works closely with Volusia County Schools on an innovative program to engage young people in arts education, and we saw that in action on our visit.

We'll have some video of our visits up soon.

Bud walks with the United Way partners in Lakeland. Photo courtesy of The Ledger.

Sometimes you get surprised. My surprise came yesterday in the form of Marions United, a progressive movement for educational change. In a fairly conservative county like Marion County, I was astonished to find a coalition of concerned teachers, parents, students and others fighting for a stronger, more effective public education system. This group, now boasting 1,000 members, organized a three mile walk for us in west Ocala with the help of Progress Florida’s Ray Seamon. Many folks joined us in our march for awareness about the true state of education in Florida.

Before meeting the Marions United group, we had opportunity to visit Together for Children, a high quality daycare facility and voluntary pre-kindergarten program, and Phoenix House, a substance abuse treatment program for adults. The owner of Together for Children, along with Roseann Fricks of the Early Learning Coalition and chair of the County Commission, Barbara Fitos, helped the Worst To First team understand child care challenges in Marion County. We learned that several day care programs have closed due to inadequate state funding and that over 700 children are currently waiting for day care spots. Parents can’t make a living without access to child care—that much I know.

Phoenix House, the next program we visited, delivers a powerful and effective approach to substance abuse. This program has been extremely successful in rebuilding shattered lives. Of the clients who graduate from the program, 88% have no new criminal violations. Additionally, the cost to house the residents of the program, compared to the cost of incarceration, is half. It seems Florida needs more programs like Phoenix House to divert young lives away from state prisons and recidivism towards rehabilitation and renewal.

Click to see the story on Fox 13 in Tampa.

It was a good day to be in Pasco County. While Florida's Commissioner of Education was in another part of the county talking with school officials, Bud Chiles was offering a strong counterpoint with student members of the Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps, who brought out the entire school to give a boost of youthful energy to One Million Steps For Florida's Kids. Here's how the TV story from Fox 13 summed it up (click the picture to watch the full video): "Some public school students are in the middle of a war of words. On one side, there is Florida's education commissioner, who says public schools are showing consistent improvement on the other, is the son of a former Florida governor, who is walking the entire state to make his point."

Since starting this statewide walk, we have gotten a bit leery of crowd predictions. Today, however, was a gigantic exception! We had 1600 high school students walking with us, all who attended a rally staged for Worst to First! There was a color guard, a marching band, the whole works, and we have the Principal, Pat Reedy, the School Counselor, Beverly Ledbetter, and several high school leaders to thank for delivering such a great crowd.

Beverly and several students attended the Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps, the leadership development conference the foundation hosted at University of Central Florida in August. From that point until now students have worked tirelessly to build awareness and support for Worst to First. Today not only did they provide great support and engagement in the cause, they also presented us with over 1600 pledges for our campaign, pledges that state the students at Pasco High want to "Make Florida a Place for Kids Again." Clearly, this school and its students are leading the state in the school effort piece of Worst To First.

Another Worst To First team member, Michael Winn, made a presentation on the Truth About#10 video contest. Given the turnout today, we could definitely see a statewide winner from Pasco High. The contest engages students in responding to politicians claiming Florida is tenth in national education quality?

The Worst To First team is in Dade City today at the invitation of our hard-working Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps students at Pasco High School. In addition to collecting thousands of signatures on the Pledge For Florida's Children, the Pasco High team is bringing out hundreds of their fellow students to walk with Bud today.

Also today, we're proud to announce the Worst To First “Truth About #10” video contest for high school and college students, which you can read about at www.WorstToFirstCampus.org .

The “Truth About #10” video contest is intended to help set the record straight about Florida’s performance in education, and refers to Education Week’s recent ranking of state education systems, which said Florida ranked tenth nationally. The ranking has provoked controversy because it was based primarily on Florida’s written policies, and less on performance measures where Florida has lagged for many years, such as high school graduation rates, college readiness, and the amount Florida spends to educate each student. The effort to engage high school and college students in educating their peers was inspired by the youth-driven anti-tobacco “truth” campaign, which was created during the administration of Gov. Lawton Chiles.

Bud visits the Happy House in Lake City.

December 1, Lake City. We had a great wintery day in the Suwannee Valley. Our visit was highlighted by a stop over at The Happy House, a preschool for kids aged 0-9. The director, Sheryll Walker, is a great Floridian. She loves children, and she understands that you only get so many chances to get it right with kids. That the early years are so very critical, and kids must have a safe, nurturing, and loving environment to prosper.

Happy House is making that quality environment for kids regardless of their race, class or background. All kids are treated with warmth and respect to great effect.

The campus is creative, colorful and stimulating. And the teachers are dedicated. All of the teachers are encouraged and financially supported to achieve continuing education. Even some of the kitchen aides have gotten teacher certificates. The atmosphere is one that rewards personal growth.

Joining us there was Tom Logan, the director of the Early Learning Coalition and the board chair of Happy House, and the Lake City Reporter came to do an interview.

After a quick lunch, I set out on a seven mile walk through Lake City and west towards Live Oak. It feels good to be on the road again after the Thanksgiving holiday.