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Legislators are attending committee meetings now to hash out which bills will make it into the next session. Since this is a presidential election year, the 2016 Florida Legislature convenes on January 12th. Every year, most of the same politicians are assigned bills designed to move the “education reform” agenda closer to its ultimate goal of…
by: Andrew Marra|Palm Beach Post September 28, 2015 The state government’s effort to force the opening of a charter school in Delray Beach is an unconstitutional attack on the Palm Beach County School Board’s “exclusive power” to regulate local schools, school board attorneys argue in a new court filing. The school board is fighting in court to…
Parents, teachers and education advocates across the state are relieved that the Florida Association of District School Superintendents (FADSS) has joined them in declaring an open distrust of the high-stakes FSA testing scheme and its broken credibility. FADSS issued a unanimous statement today confirming that they had lost all confidence in the state’s school accountability…
by: Leslie Postal|Orlando Sentinel September 24, 2015 Florida should use paper-and-pencil tests until its public schools have more technology in place and consider national tests in place of much-criticized state ones, the Florida School Boards Association says in its proposed 2016 legislative platform. The association also said Florida should find new ways to assess students…
by: Paula Dockery, Guest Columnist|Tampa Tribune September 24, 2015 The results are in, and the conclusion is — well, it’s confusing. The long-awaited validity study of Florida Standard Assessment tests, as requested by the Legislature, has been released. And the conclusions are clear as mud. Without going into great detail, here is a quick summary…
by: Leslie Postal|Orlando Sentinel September 23, 2015 Florida teachers have about a week left to apply for a $10,000 bonus program that has exasperated many because eligibility hinges on their ACT or SAT scores, even if those college-admissions exams were taken decades ago. “It’s absurd to think that anything I did when I was 17…
Today is National Voter Registration day. Make sure you, your friends and family are registered. Don’t be one of the million of Americans with no voice on election day. If you don’t like the way we’re being treated by our elected officials, voting is the most fundamental way to make a difference, especially in state government,…
by: Marlene Sokol|Tampa Bay Times September 21, 2015 A seven-year effort to put better teachers in Hillsborough County schools is costing the system millions of dollars more than officials projected. And the district’s partner in the project, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is spending $20 million less than expected. The numbers, found in recent…
by: Leslie Postal|Orlando Sentinel September 21, 2015 Echoing the fears of his colleagues around the state, the Miami-Dade superintendent said the A-to-F school grades to be announced in several months will be misleading and unfair and the state should stop their release. Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Florida’s largest school district, told the State Board of…
by: Jeffrey S. Solochek|Tampa Bay Times September 18, 2015 Florida’s education accountability system has lost credibility among too many Floridians to remain effective as-is, Pasco County schools superintendent Kurt Browning said Friday. Without changes, “I think it’s just going to get worse,” said Browning, the only superintendent to attend the state Senate Education Committee’s Thursday…