Florida School Boards Association
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Nearly 61 percent of St. Johns County voters voted to boost the sales tax to 6.5 percent in order to raise additional revenue for public schools. Just before 9 p.m., the last of the county’s 46 precincts was counted. Of 35,051 ballots cast, the referendum passed by a margin of 7,577…
Frustrated with a variety of issues in public education, nearly 60 percent of the respondents to a Saint Leo University Polling Institute survey conducted nationally and in Florida say they are willing to “pay somewhat more in taxes to better fund public schools in my community.” In the national survey of 1,005 adults conducted between…
WASHINGTON — After five years of bitter clashes, Republican congressional leaders and President Barack Obama on Monday night appeared to settle their last budget fight by reaching a tentative deal that would modestly increase spending over the next two years, cut some social programs, and raise the federal borrowing limit. The accord, which must be…
The Florida Education Association and local teacher unions are investigating the legality of the Best and Brightest teacher scholarship program, in which individual bonuses of $10,000 would be awarded based upon teachers’ past ACT or SAT scores. The $44 million program has drawn the ire of teacher unions since its inception, after it was quietly…
Florida Gov. Rick Scott is seeking money to create a paid summer residency program for teachers in science, technology, engineering and math. Scott is expected on Monday to ask for $1 million in proposed funding for the program. The governor asked the Florida Legislature for the money earlier this year but legislators did not grant…
TALLAHASSEE — Rejected by Florida lawmakers last spring, Gov. Rick Scott is barnstorming for public support for education programs he wants to revive in next year’s state budget. He’s not alone. Legislators are making their own priority lists of projects that died in 2015 because Scott vetoed them. Scott paid visits Monday to high school…
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…
Florida might have one of the perks of no state income tax, but according to one personal finance website, the Sunshine State has among the “least fair” state tax systems in the United States. WalletHub released its annual survey this morning of “2015’s Most & Least Fair State Tax Systems,” and Florida came in near…
Over the summer, the Florida Legislature agreed to spend $44 million to fund a scholarship program that will award big bonuses to teachers who got high SAT and ACT scores before entering college — even if they took the test decades ago and can somehow locate their scores. The proposal was so, well, kooky, that…
TALLAHASSEE — Florida is starting to pull apart as its economy rebounds, as some areas bounce back while other largely rural areas face persitent low wages and poverty. “When things were bad, the whole state was uniformly in a bad situation,” chief state economist Amy Baker told a panel of Senate budget-writers Thursday. “As we…