The Legislature held a fifth round of Interim Committee Meetings last week, Governor Scott released his 2018 Budget Recommendations, the Constitution Revision Commission is considering 103 proposed amendments to the Constitution, and Congress is moving forward with the 2018 federal budget and competing tax reform packages. Please click on the links below to access our…
As a public-school principal for 32 years, and now as an elected school board member, I consider protecting our students from violence and bullying our sacred duty. No child should ever feel afraid to attend our schools. Read More
Another battle about using increases in local property taxes to bolster public schools will complicate upcoming state budget negotiations. In his $87.4 billion budget proposal for 2018-2019, Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday called for a $770 million increase in funding for Florida’s kindergarten through 12th-grade education system. But nearly $7 out of every $10 of…
Bolstered by new research and federal incentives, experts decided about a decade ago that better teacher evaluation was the path to better student achievement. A flood of states started toughening their teacher-evaluation systems, and many of them did it by incorporating student-test scores into educators’ ratings. Read More
Logrolling. It’s defined as the practice of including multiple unrelated items in a single legislative bill, with the goal of attracting wider support for the measure as a whole. Florida’s constitution forbids it, stating: “Every law shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, and the subject shall be briefly expressed in the…
With the 2018 legislative session just weeks away, key failures of the 2017 Legislature continued to frustrate local elected leaders at separate meetings Tuesday in Collier County. Two positive steps the Legislature could take in the next session that starts in January are to immediately repeal — then start over on components of — House…
Raising the prospect of “irreversible damage” to the public education system, nine school boards want the Florida Supreme Court to block a massive education law approved in May.The school boards late Monday filed a constitutional challenge at the Supreme Court to the bill, which has become known in the education world by the shorthand HB…
Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday called for a record-high state budget of $87.4 billion for next year, an election year that offers him one last chance to recast spending priorities before leaving office. It is by far the largest budget Scott has proposed since the Republican governor took office seven years ago, and it’s a…
More than 5,000 students from Puerto Rico have enrolled in Florida public schools since Hurricane Maria. In the seven weeks since the storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, the majority of schools in Puerto Rico still don’t have electricity or running water. While most students have settled in Central and South Florida, school…
For the last time as governor, Rick Scott will roll out a set of budget recommendations Tuesday for the Florida Legislature to consider in its upcoming election-year session that begins Jan. 9. As usual, Scott will soon realize that he and lawmakers will differ on where the state should spend more money. “Every year you…