Governor Scott is distancing himself from the State Board of Education's strategic plan released last week, which lays out five-year goals for students based on achievement gaps between different races and ethnicities.

"The actions taken last week by the State Board of Education in adopting their strategic plan did not clearly articulate our shared commitment to fully close that achievement gap for all students, regardless of race, geography, gender or other circumstance,” Scott said in a statement issued by his office Tuesday.

Scott says that all students can perform at grade level, and the state should strive to get rid of the achievement gap between students of different ethnic and racial groups.

“With this in mind, I would ask the board to more completely incorporate this recognition into its strategic plan so that we can focus our efforts on helping every student to achieve the highest level of success,” Scott said.

His statement was released less than an hour after chairman of the State Board of Education Gary Chartrand released his statement.

“We have to acknowledge that there are different starting points among groups of students today,” Chartrand said.  “We can only close the achievement gap in Florida if we are willing to have an honest conversation about what it will take to get all students to that level of success.”

According to the department, 68 percent of white students and 40 percent of black students are proficient in math, while 69 percent of white students and 38 percent of black students are said to be proficient in English and language arts.

“To be clear, the interim targets will not determine our success; the absence of an achievement gap will,” Chartrand said.

The Board of Education has said that the goal is that “all children would become 100 percent proficient.”

Incoming House Minority Leader Perry Thurston, D-Plantation, agreed with Scott’s comments in a statement issued Tuesday.

“I am hopeful that the Board of Education will recraft the plan so that it seeks improved student performance across the board instead of one based on race and ethnicity.  As I’ve state before, it is simply wrong to imply that one race is academically inferior to another.”