Florida School Boards Association
Sept. 18–Just because the cyber attack on Florida’s online exams was routed through 29,000 computers scattered across the globe and investigators closed the case without an arrest doesn’t mean it was a random assault. Disrupting the debut of new statewide tests last spring simply required a target Internet address and someone with cash — by…
Florida Board of Education members on Monday called for as high as possible cut scores for the Florida Standards Assessments — even tougher levels than the Department of Education review panels have recommended. They suggest that more Florida students might pass the test with lowered standards, but in the long run they won’t be as competitive nationally…
LEESBURG — According to the U.S. Department of Education, 71,277 Florida public school students were homeless last year, a figure that has grown since the Great Recession. In Lake County alone, local school officials report homelessness affects more than 2,600 students. Doug Major, special events coordinator for the Educational Foundation of Lake County, is not…
The Florida Department of Education is forging ahead with its plan to issue and use Florida Standards Assessment results this fall, releasing its explanation of how student test reports will look when they’re published. Students will be assigned a T-score and a percentile rank for each of the exams they took. These are intended to…
A fight over standardized testing and school accountability came close to home on Monday, when the Florida Board of Education’s traveled to fertile ground for criticism: Miami-Dade County. At issue during the board’s monthly meeting was the state’s plan to issue school letter grades based on new state tests given in the Spring. School superintendents…
Every day, 20,000 students miss school in Miami-Dade County. Community leaders on Friday announced a plan to get those students in class — even if it means going door-to-door. “We’re going to have to lace up our boots, come out of our heels and put on some flat shoes,” said school board member Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall.…
TALLAHASSEE — If parents don’t want their children to take standardized tests, they should send them to private schools, the chair of the House education committee said on Friday. “In public school … you cannot opt out of the tests,” Rep. Marlene O’Toole, a Republican from Lady Lake, told reporters after a committee meeting on…
Florida’s education accountability system has lost credibility among too many Floridians to remain effective as-is, Pasco County schools superintendent Kurt Browning said Friday. Without changes, “I think it’s just going to get worse,” said Browning, the only superintendent to attend the state Senate Education Committee’s Thursday hearing on testing. “Whether real or perceived, school administrators,…
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Education reviewed two drafts of an ostensibly independent report on the validity of the state’s controversial new exams, and received the final report the night before it was released to the public, a representative of the company that performed the study and state officials said on Thursday. An official…
TALLAHASSEE — A key state senator said Thursday it’s time to stop harping on the problems that arose during state standardized testing earlier this year because there’s little the Legislature can do to fix it now anyway. Sen. John Legg, who chairs the chamber’s pre-kindergarten to 12th grade education committee, said it’s not worth entertaining…