Florida School Boards Association
Most of the students at Royal Palm Elementary in Miami have Spanish-speaking families. But those families also want their kids to speak – and read and write – more Spanish in school. So teacher Alexandra Martin is leading her 1st grade class through “Vamos Papa,” with each child reading a passage from the Spanish language…
The Florida Education Association and local teacher unions are investigating the legality of the Best and Brightest teacher scholarship program, in which individual bonuses of $10,000 would be awarded based upon teachers’ past ACT or SAT scores. The $44 million program has drawn the ire of teacher unions since its inception, after it was quietly…
BOULDER, CO (October 25, 2015) – Yesterday, the Obama Administration acknowledged its own role in escalating the nation’s over-reliance on high-stakes, test-based accountability policies. It issued a Testing Action Plan for states, including a section on “reducing the reliance on student test scores through our rules and executive actions,” backing away somewhat from the Administration’s…
Even though the high school Class of 2013 reached a record on-time graduation rate of 81 percent, it appears like the Class of 2014 is poised to pass their classmates. According to preliminary data released this afternoon from the U.S. Department of Education, 36 states saw improvements in their on-time high school graduates rates over…
MIAMI — When protests from parents and teachers erupted against the new Common Core tests here, Florida thought it had a solution: It dropped the tests. But it abruptly switched sources for the exams, hoping the substitute would be more palatable. Now, nearly six months after students finished taking their exams, Florida faces an even…
The Florida School Boards Association has formally adopted a resolution calling on Gov. Rick Scott to waive the use of 2015 state test results for school grades, personnel evaluations, student progression and other uses. The group also built upon superintendents’ request for a full review of the state’s education accountability program, which several groups have…
Lee County school board members will lay the groundwork for setting goals and expectations for themselves and Superintendent Greg Adkins during a two-day workshop Friday and Saturday. The first meeting, set for noon to 5 p.m. Friday, will take place at the Canal Street Support Services Annex in Fort Myers. The second, budgeted for 9…
Florida’s accountability system is broken. Due to its hasty construction, a third of the questions for third-grade reading are not directly aligned to the standards they are supposed to measure. A lapse in the test construction process, moreover, failed to tie the complexity of the test questions to the proficiency levels being assessed. This FSA…
TALLAHASSEE — A stakeholder group representing school boards is formally pushing the state to halt the use of students’ test scores in accountability measures like teacher evaluations and school grades. The Florida School Boards Association’s legislative committee approved a resolution last week calling on Gov. Rick Scott and the state Department of Education to “waive”…
Before a friendly hometown crowd at the Boys & Girls Club of Marion County on Friday, state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart talked about the success and progress Florida public schools have seen in recent years. She talked about improving graduation rates, top 10 national rankings and the importance of mentoring programs. What she did not…