Florida School Boards Association
TALLAHASSEE — Nearly 40 percent of Florida’s 2015 high school graduates who took the ACT failed to meet all four of the test’s performance benchmarks predicting success in college. According to data released by the organization that develops the ACT, 130,798 students, or 79 percent of the state’s class of 2015, took the college entrance…
TALLAHASSEE — Among Gov. Rick Scott’s legacies after two terms in office will be the role he plays in the next remake of the state Constitution. Florida’s Constitution allows for a “revision commission” to meet every two decades to propose possible changes to the constitution, and Scott selects 15 of the 37 commissioners and a…
The Newsweek High School Rankings—recognizing the achievements of the best public high schools in the United States for college readiness—have been published for more than a decade. Since 2014, Newsweek has published two separate lists in an effort to address the complexities of assessing the “best” high schools when students’ socioeconomic backgrounds are taken into…
As the back-to-school season sweeps through Southwest Florida, some community members are left questioning if Lee County and Collier County schools are on the right track. And that’s a tough question to answer. State and federal lawmakers want success backed by high-stakes tests. Then there’s the community — businesses, taxpayers and folks who keep a…
TALLAHASSEE—Florida is approaching a rough patch in its path to education reform, as the state prepares to release students’ scores on exams aligned to higher academic standards. In other states where public schools have begun testing using the Common Core standards, students’ double-digit drops in performance jump-started countermovements in which parents and teachers rejected the…
Americans overwhelmingly think there is too much emphasis on standardized testing in public schools and that test scores are not the best way to judge schools, teachers or students, according to a national poll. The results released Sunday come from the 47th annual PDK/Gallup poll of attitudes toward public schools, the longest-running survey of Americans’…
Many organizations expend considerable effort to develop strategic plans only to find that actual implementation can be challenging due to difficulties associated with bringing the strategic plan to the forefront of important discussions and organizational decisions. Recognizing this hurdle, FSBA Partner, BoardDocs, is hosting a webinar for current BoardDocs users titled Goal Tracking – Following…
SARASOTA – Members of a task force formed to bridge the achievement gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers presented preliminary recommendations to Sarasota County School Board members Tuesday. The task force suggested the school district work to increase parental involvement, reform discipline practices, increase attendance loss and prevent summer learning loss, among…
The Florida Department of Education continues to issue more guidelines on the controversial Best and Brightest teacher bonus program, as the Oct. 1 application deadline approaches. Its latest round of information seeks to answer questions raised by superintendents charged with determining teacher eligibility. Among the highlights, the department has explained that only classroom teachers are…