State responds to challenge of six bundled amendment proposals, calls them proper

Hours after a Leon County judge tossed proposed constitutional Amendment 8 off the November ballot, calling it misleading, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a 47-page document asking the Supreme Court to leave the measure and five others on the ballot.  Hers was a response to a separate challenge, filed a week earlier by former chief justice…

Judge orders Amendment 8 be removed from Florida ballot

A Leon county judge ordered that Amendment 8, the amendment that would have created a pathway for the state to oversee charter schools and bypass local school boards, be removed from the ballot.  Judge John Cooper wrote in a summary judgement Monday morning that the amendment should be removed “because its ballot title and summary…

RECORD EDITORIAL: Amendment 8: Smoke & mirrors

It’s hard to imagine how toxic Florida’s political landscape might be today, had its legislature and governor been free to act over the past decade without the oversight of the judicial.  Certainly Democrats tested their limits back when they were in power. But the GOP has pushed legislative trickery to all new levels. Read More

Gradebook podcast: Should Amendment 8 remain on Florida’s November ballot?

The Leon County Courthouse was the scene Friday for the first of what looks to be several showdowns over the fate of Amendment 8, a Constitution Revision Commission proposal to change portions of the state constitution’s education article.  The proposal aims to do three things — set school board term limits, embed civics education in…

Florida’s teacher shortage is ‘real, and it’s going to get worse,’ State Board of Ed member worries

As millions of Florida’s school children returned to classes this week, many schools struggled to find enough teachers greet and teach them.  “We are very concerned about the growing teacher shortage,” Cathy Boehme of the Florida Education Association told the state Board of Education on Wednesday.  Her review of three years’ worth of statewide teacher job…

Former Florida chief justice challenges Amendment 8, five others as unconstitutionally bundled

Retired Florida chief justice Harry Lee Anstead has asked his former panel to require justification for why six proposed constitutional amendments including Amendment 8 should remain on the November ballot, or to toss them out.  Anstead, joined by former Florida Elections commissioner Robert Barnas, contend in their filing to the state Supreme Court that the six…

VPK ‘readiness’ test faces growing scrutiny

The practice round was rough.  When Florida implemented a new Kindergarten Readiness test last fall — designed to determine if the state’s thousands of Voluntary PreKindergarten (VPK) programs were preparing children for school — 42 percent of providers statewide missed the minimum threshold of having at least 60 percent of their former students pass a…

Former Florida Supreme Court chief justice: Amendment 8 ‘misleading,’ ‘deceptive’

It’s still a long way to November, when voters will be asked to vote up or down on 13 proposed amendments to the state constitution. But only a few so far have generated as much debate as Amendment 8, a measure that is the subject of a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters. Read…

Congress Sends Career-Technical Education Bill to President Trump

Congress passed a bipartisan overhaul of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act on Wednesday and sent it for signature to President Donald Trump, who has made career and technical education, or CTE, a priority for his administration.  The $1.1 billion program, last reauthorized in 2006, provides funding for job training and related…