House freshmen get educated on how state budgetary ‘sausage’ is made

Florida House freshmen attended an introductory course to writing a state budget Tuesday. They learned that the process gives them sweeping authority, but within the limits of fiscal reality.  At present, Florida government is running a $3 billion reserve within a total budget of around $83.5 billion.  But if spending continues at existing levels, that…

Newly crowned political stars likely to give charter schools big lift

From Washington to the state Capitol, political stars are aligning for a major drive to expand charter and voucher schools – a double-barreled push sparking fear among defenders of traditional schools.  President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Michigan school choice advocate Betsy DeVos as new education secretary is viewed as a clear signal he is serious…

Key senators to push for less testing, more support for public schools in 2017 session

Florida education funding could face tight times in the coming legislative session, with revenue low and competition for resources high.  But key state senators told the state’s school board members this week that they remained staunch supporters of public schools, and they would work to direct as much money as possible into the system, while…

Florida Department of Education releases new online tool to empower and inform Florida families

The Florida Department of Education launched a new website that will help Florida families make critical education decisions by enabling them to access school and district-level data and will better inform families about the state’s college and career ready standards and the quality of learning taking place in their students’ classrooms.  The website is live…

Lawmakers will return to Capitol for ‘Legislator University’

A motivational speaker who worked in the White House. A mandatory seminar on sexual harassment. Breakout sessions on the death penalty, workers comp, Medicaid, the courts and the Florida retirement system.  It’s all part of two days of member training next week in the Florida House of Representatives, with code numbers assigned to each seminar,…

Students Struggle With Spotting Fake News, Stanford Researchers Say

According to a report issued by the Stanford History Education Group, which administered the Fukushima flower question and a battery of other “civic online reasoning” tests to students from middle schools to college ages, “young people’s ability to reason about the information on the internet can be summed up in one word: bleak.” The Stanford History Education…