Gov. Rick Scott vowed to make steep spending cuts upon taking office in 2011. With an assist from state lawmakers, he’s done just that in the past six years. More than 13,000 state positions have been eliminated, which will save $152 million next year. The state has slashed more than $800 million in its mental…
By the end of her teaching career, Mulberry High English teacher Katherine Langford was expected to spend just three days teaching ”Moby Dick.” Langford, who retired last school year after 40 years of teaching in Polk, used to design her own curriculum, pacing and lessons. But the Polk County School District has increasingly tightened its…
When Polk residents ask School Board members why the School District is doing something, they often get the same answer: The state mandates it, or, the federal government mandates it. Protesters are vocal about their frustration with ever-increasing mandates that affect public education, especially when it comes to Florida’s standardized testing and accountability policies. Some…
This Video Update features FSBA Executive Director Andrea Messina providing a final wrap-up on the 2016 Legislative Session. Ms. Messina discusses some of the key elements in the education portion of the state budget and the related implementing and FRS contribution rate bills. She also provides an overview of HB 7029 — a bill that includes…
1. Florida is closing the achievement gap: http://www.educationequalityindex.org/ 2. A national report card on school funding: http://schoolfundingfairness.org/ 3. Computer coding as a foreign language not a dead issue: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/should-computer-coding-be-considered-foreign-language-school-some-say-n543656 4. Let’s do this in Florida. Youth apprenticeship pilot program launched in Maryland: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/state-launches-1st-youth-apprenticeship-pilot-program/2016/03/23/3f791a6c-f0d4-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html 5. ESSA rulemaking has begun: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/03/writing-rules-for-essa-213320
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, March 24, 2016……….Ion Sancho has long been one of the most-outspoken elections officials in Florida. But after overseeing this fall’s voting in Leon County, he will step down after nearly three decades as an elections supervisor. A familiar figure to those who have followed Florida’s frequent election controversies, Sancho often was quoted…
Thousands of children of legal immigrants will be closer to obtaining subsidized health insurance this summer, after the Legislature passed a long-debated expansion of the state’s KidCare program. Until this year, children of legal immigrants were technically eligible for KidCare — the low-cost federal-state health insurance program — but had to wait five years to…
FSBA is please to announce that we have completed our FSBA 2016 Legislative Session Summary. Our Summary provides in-depth information on the education related portions of the state budget, implementing bill, and Florida Retirement System employer contribution rates as well as detailed summaries of the education related bills that passed during the 2016 Legislative Session.…
Florida Education Association president Joanne McCall has big ambitions for the state’s 2016 legislative elections. Many lawmakers who have been unfriendly to the teacher union’s view of public education will depart, while others face more realistic challenges than they have in the past. It’s a chance, McCall said, to begin changing the complexion of Tallahassee…
The Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott didn’t see eye-to-eye on much during the 2016 session, but they both acknowledged education spending should go up. Even then, however, they couldn’t agree on how to do it. Scott wanted to pay for it almost entirely by increasing a share of property taxes known as the Required…