Florida School Boards Association
Dozens of Florida charter schools withstood tougher high school grading rules and kept their top marks in a new state accountability report released today. For both charter and district schools, there were more F’s and fewer A’s in Thursday’s annual release of high school grades than a year ago. Elementary and middle school grades came out earlier this…
Starting this past spring, parents in Indianapolis; Troy, Mich.; Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.; and Houston, Texas, heard about a new option for their children’s last two years of high school. In each city, a charter school called Early Career Academy planned to offer students the chance to earn associate degrees, either in network systems administration or software…
From dual-language kindergarten, when they are taught a pointer is un puntero, to the day they continue on to Lennard High School, students at the Redlands Christian Migrant Association charter schools get a specialized education. It conforms to state standards and, judging by the test scores, surpasses them. But the schools — an elementary and…
School districts aren’t the only ones raising concerns about a plan to standardize charter school contracts in Florida. Some charter school representatives have indicated they have concerns about the proposal, which is set to be taken up next week by the state Board of Education, and might consider challenging a state rule creating a standard contract…
Florida school boards are questioning the constitutionality of standard charter school contracts as the state Board of Education gets set to vote on rules creating them. Their objections appear in hundreds of pages of recent comments and letters to the state Department of Education. The Florida School Boards Association wrote in July: “We view this as an…
Together, those parents cobbled together about 200 students, earning the faith of locals wanting to keep their kids closer to home. “We had no academic record at that point, and the finances were like hand-to-mouth,” said George Abounader, the school’s current and founding principal. Today, about 450 students attend the school, one of Florida’s best.…
Welcome to Florida’s new era of charter schools. It’s brought to you by some of the same folks who inflicted on Florida a scandal-ridden voucher system and initiated the mania for high-stakes testing that has done so much damage. One of the architects of this new era is Jim Horne, chairman of the Florida Charter…
NAPLES, Fla. — On the verge of seeing his charter school shut down because of academic failures, Archbishop Clarence Davis resorted to bargaining. In three out of four years, Davis’ Imagine Charter School in St. Petersburg received an “F” grade for academic performance from the state, results so poor they warranted closing the school. With…
NAPLES, Fla. — At the end of his tour of Cambridge Christian School, a private academy in northwest Tampa, first-grader Giovanni Scanio had a question. “How long will the school be open?” Giovanni asked, according to his mother, Lisa. Giovanni wanted to know because a few weeks earlier, in July 2012, the charter school he…
NAPLES, Fla. – Seven times since 2006, Richard Milburn Academy of Florida has failed at running a charter school. In Lee County, two RMA schools closed after administrators manipulated student grades. In the Tampa Bay-area, two RMA schools shut down due to poor academic performance. In Manatee County, one RMA school was shuttered after half…