Florida School Boards Association
Since adopting the much challenged value-added model for rating teacher performance, Florida has allowed local school districts to assign evaluation performance levels to teachers based in part on local definitions. That’s about to change. When it meets next Thursday in Tampa, the Florida Board of Education is set to adopt a new rule setting standard…
The Senate on Thursday passed an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law, an action that senators on both sides of the aisle agreed was long overdue. Senators voted 81-17 to pass the Every Child Achieves Act, which transfers more decision-making power to state and local authorities. While No Child Left Behind was…
SARASOTA — Florida Sen. Nancy Detert called it the “worst bill of the year,” Rep. Ray Pilon said Gov. Rick Scott should have vetoed it and Rep. Greg Steube ripped the legislation as well. Opposition to an incentive program for teachers that will pay bonuses based on their SAT and ACT scores was a big point…
The number of home-schooled children in Florida saw its biggest increase in five years during 2014-15, according to a recently released Florida Department of Education report. (Thanks to the Redefined blog for bringing attention to the data.) Last year, the state counted 84,096 children in home schooling, up 9.6 percent from a year earlier. The…
ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) – Statistics show that charter schools in Florida fail at a greater rate than traditional public schools, but they also show that charter schools earn more “A” grades than traditional public schools. FOX 35 started examining the statistics after Acclaim Academy in Orange County shut down in May, without…
TALLAHASSEE — Pointing to a time crunch, a Leon County circuit judge has given the Florida Legislature little more than two months to draw new congressional districts and to defend them in court. Judge George S. Reynolds III issued an order Wednesday that said a special legislative session to redraw districts and a subsequent trial…
The Senate on Tuesday defeated an amendment to the Every Child Achieves Act that would have allowed parents nationwide to opt out of federally-mandated state standardized tests without putting school districts at risk of federal sanctions. The chamber voted 64 to 32 against the amendment, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) amid a backlash against…
Christina Waters’s cellphone rang, and she looked down to see that the number was blocked. She knew immediately it was U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, just calling to check in. It has been that way since Waters attended a 2009 church picnic in Chicago and came away with a bullet lodged in her head from…
Earlier this week we told you about AMskills, a program bringing German-style apprenticeships to Tampa-area students. Another way Florida has tried to help school prepare students for jobs is the Career and Professional Education Act. The law helps businesses create academies within public schools to train students and help them earn professional certifications. Those certifications…
Congress is making another run at rewriting the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law, even as the Obama administration urges changes it says would ensure that schools are held accountable when their students are seriously lagging behind their peers in better-performing schools. The Senate opened debate Tuesday on an update to the 2002 law,…