Florida School Boards Association
TAMPA — Florida school districts are ill-prepared to administer state tests this spring and should get a one-year respite from school grades, Hillsborough County school superintendent MaryEllen Elia told the State Board of Education on Monday. Her comments reflect what other Florida superintendents have been saying for months, and they echoed mounting public concern over…
Most educators don’t pursue their profession for the money. That’s a no-brainer these days. But that also doesn’t justify low pay, especially for a profession that makes such a profound difference in young people’s lives. And the sad reality is this: Many teachers are shortchanged with salaries that fail to keep up with inflation. Meanwhile,…
A front-page article in Tuesday’s newspaper contained a stunning number: 1,000. That was the approximate number of new standardized tests Orange County is debuting this year to keep up with all the demands of Florida’s education mandates. We’re talking about standardized tests for P.E. and band. For kindergartners and brain-damaged children. For cooking classes, debate…
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…
Palm Beach County School Board members added their voices Wednesday night to growing opposition to state-mandated testing and its consequences, unanimously adopting a resolution in protest. The resolution was one of the actions board members decided on last week during a workshop. The two-page “Resolution on Accountability” details a long list of problems related to…
When Florida suspended its FAIR exam for kindergarten through second grade, high-stakes testing opponents cheered the change as a step toward a deescalation of the state’s attachment to assessments. Since then, though, the Florida Department of Education has moved to tamp down any such notion. The decision to cut the reading test had nothing to…