Banking rules, poor schools blamed for detering ‘world class economic development’ for Florida

BY SCOTT ANDRON sandron@MiamiHerald.com Miami Herald July 15th http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1142158.html Florida’s economy needs less onerous regulation of international banking and more investment in education, local business leaders told the state economic development agency Tuesday morning. More than 100 people turned out for a forum at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens to discuss the state economy as…

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What’s a kid worth to you? Tell our state’s leaders by Scott Maxwell

Orlandosentinel.com  July 15, 2009 Sunday’s paper contained stories that should’ve left any taxpayer — no, make that anyone with a heart — shaken. Thanks to some in-depth reporting by Sentinel reporter Rene Stutzman, we learned that more than 70 of the state’s child-welfare workers have been caught falsifying records. The results? One child wound up…

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Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)* – Making A+ schools look like failures. How Florida Hitched Itself to a Flawed System of Accountability

FundEducationNow.org 07/06/09 *Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), HB 991, a priority of Education Commissioner Dr. Eric Smith was signed into law last month by Governor Crist.  Required as part of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act, AYP measures schools based on a pass/fail system.  To achieve AYP, schools must meet proficiency benchmarks in 39 separate…

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5 Public School Cutbacks Students Will Feel

Smart Money published June 29, 2009 Consumer Action by Lisa Scherzer School may be out for the summer, but across the country school boards are now wrestling with mammoth budget shortfalls that will require painful cuts in the upcoming year. Their own budgets1 in shambles, many states are inflicting deep reductions in K-12 funding. At…

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Even Top Schools Feeling The Heat for Kids Who Lag

By Leslie Postal and Denise-Marie Balona Orlando Sentinel Staff Writers June 26, 2009 Many of Florida’s top public schools — even its A-rated ones — need to work harder with students struggling to keep up with state standards,according to results from the latest school-accountability system. The new, complicated state program tries to identify how much…

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