Florida School Boards Association
TAMPA — The State Board of Education took steps Wednesday to prevent charter school applicants with poor past performance from opening new schools. Saying the state should not “pass the trash” from one district to another, board members unanimously approved a rule to require applicants to disclose their past charter school affiliations for the most…
Achievement is the expectation for students enrolled in Dunbar High School’s Academy for Technology Excellence, and students continue to make that expectation a reality each day. Recent graduate Ian Sexton took 1st place in the Excel 2010 category at the Microsoft Office National Championship last week, earning a spot to compete at the upcoming worldwide…
More than 40 years of research shows — no matter a family’s income or socioeconomic background — family engagement in education is essential for student success. Students whose families are involved attend school more regularly, earn better grades, enroll in higher-level programs and have higher graduation rates. Research also shows that family engagement is critical…
$15.4 million of federal funding is headed to Florida to support K-12 education. That money will be paired with state contributions to support nearly 700 Americorps volunteers in three major Florida cities. Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami are receiving a large influx of Americorps volunteers for education. Wendy Spencer heads up the Corporation for National and…
Florida lawmakers have a cooling off period to review their proposed 2015-16 spending plan before voting on it. The details are many, tucked away in pages of text. To get a good understanding of the education budget, it’s best to look at three key documents — the FEFP conference report, the implementing bill and the budget bill conference report,…
TALLAHASSEE | Florida’s contentious and messy budget stalemate that divided the state’s Republicans and threatened to force the shutdown of state government is finally over. With just days left, the Florida Legislature has reached a deal on a nearly $79 billion budget. The final budget was delivered to legislators late Tuesday afternoon. The budget has…
The Florida Education Association, League of Women Voters and assorted other plaintiffs will continue to challenge the state’s tax credit scholarship program in court, despite the recent withdrawal of the Florida School Boards Association from the case. A judge moved to toss the case last month, saying the program was not funded by the state’s general…
In their effort to tie teachers’ job evaluations to student performance, Florida lawmakers acknowledge they initially went too far. “We were trying to prove a point, and we became overprescriptive,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman John Legg, who began pressing the issue five years ago. This spring, comfortable that the idea of increased accountability for…
Not everything labeled a ‘school voucher’ in the news and on social media is technically a voucher, and it seems every time news breaks about another private school choice law passing or getting challenged in court, the same argument pops up. A recent exchange on Twitter between the Washington Post’s Emma Brown and the Cato…
Calling it an issue of school safety, the Florida House nearly unanimously approved a bill this spring encouraging schools to adopt “standard student attire.” The measure, not a Senate priority, died as the legislative session collapsed days before its official end. But now it’s back in special session. How does it live on? It carried…