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…

Still no alternative plan to Florida’s Best and Brightest bonus from state

Florida education commissioner Pam Stewart has yet to present her ideas to replace the state’s controversial teacher bonus plan that’s based in part on educators’ college entry exams, well after she told the State Board of Education she’d give them a plan.  Stewart told the board at its September meeting that she was working on details…

Education Department Releases Final Regulations to Promote a High-Quality, Well-Rounded Education and Support All Students

After considering and incorporating extensive feedback from stakeholders across the education system and the public, the U.S. Department of Education today announced final regulations to implement the accountability, data reporting, and state plan provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), with a focus on supporting states in using their flexibility to provide a high-quality,…

With contrasting styles and priorities, Negron, Corcoran take over leadership of Florida Legislature

The Florida Legislature entered a strange new world Tuesday as the incoming House speaker condemned the power of lobbyists and demanded changes in spending that will face resistance from the Senate and Gov. Rick Scott.  In his inaugural speech as speaker, Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, railed against a Capitol dominated by lobbyists and politically wired…