Florida School Boards Association
Your Jan. 3 editorial, “An encouraging Voucher Victory,” fails to correctly explain the basics of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. Vouchers divert money from the public school system by allowing corporations to fund the voucher program instead of paying taxes to the state. A corporation may receive tax credit for up to 100 percent…
Florida, often considered a leader in school reform, wasn’t ranked among the top 10 in the nation for public education this year. It wasn’t even in the top 20. The state earned 28th in an overall ranking of states and the District of Columbia published each year by Education Week in its “Quality Counts” report.…
Following up on a campaign promise, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday released a plan to increase education spending in Florida to a record high. Scott wants the state to spend $7,176 on each public-school student — a $261 bump over this year’s figure and $50 more than the record set in 2007-08. His proposal would…
When lawmakers return to Tallahassee in March for the annual legislative session, they have a lot of questions they need to answer about public school testing. Senators laid out their concerns about the state testing system last week at a series of meetings. They don’t know how many tests the state requires, or how long…
Letter to the Editor in response to the editorial “Encouraging voucher victory” posted on January 3, 2015 Religious freedom? In your Jan. 3 editorial “Encouraging voucher victory” you mention that you fail to see how Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship scheme violates the separation of church and state. I became a plaintiff in this case…
Florida’s public education system has dropped dramatically in a widely cited ranking of the 50 states. The drop from sixth place to 28th place on Education Week’s “Quality Counts” report is a black eye for state educators. Two years ago, Gov. Rick Scott cited Florida’s high ranking as vindication of the state’s education policies. But…
Candidates mouthed the words “education” a lot in 2014, but it was not a decisive election issue. Still, against the odds, 2015 might be the year the Florida Department of Education makes a sincere effort to make its testing policies reasonable. There has been legitimate concern that Rick Scott, safe in his second term and…
Former Senate President and education appropriations committee chairman Don Gaetz wants to know how much the state spends on standardized testing. That’s a question which doesn’t have an easy answer, as captured in this exchange between Gaetz and the Department of Education’s Vince Burgess: Gaetz: “You’re telling me the total cost of all assessments and…
After a year that saw parents rise up against standardized testing, Florida lawmakers on Wednesday said they are prepared to improve the state’s assessment program. “We have a chance to do a rewrite so we can ensure that we are not over-testing our children, and ensure that we provide a road map to the districts…
MIAMI — A federal judge has ruled that Florida’s health care system for impoverished and disabled children violates several U.S. laws. In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan said lawmakers had for years set the state’s Medicaid budget at an artificially low level, causing pediatricians and other specialists for children to opt out…