Florida School Boards Association
Some of Florida’s lowest-performing traditional public schools will have to wait a bit longer to find out if they’ll be among the 25 schools that will get financial help through a new state program called “Schools of Hope.” The State Board of Education was supposed to meet in Tallahassee on Wednesday to select the recipients…
President Donald Trump will end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that gives protection to an estimated 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the order to end DACA Tuesday morning at the U.S. Department of Justice. The decision leaves the undocumented residents, an…
Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran declared Tuesday during a swing through Southwest Florida that he’s planning to stay “on offense” during the 2018 legislative session, potentially foreshadowing another contentious year in the Legislature. Referencing a controversial education bill passed this year that is being challenged in court, Corcoran told the Charlotte-DeSoto County Republican Club that…
How do you fix struggling schools? One idea: Pay teachers more. Teacher bonuses are among several ideas the Miami-Dade and Broward school districts have proposed as they compete for additional funding through a controversial new state program designed to rehabilitate Florida’s lowest performing schools while potentially supplanting them with privately run charters. Read More
The legislators who drafted Florida’s modern Constitution in 1968 were wise enough to know that they weren’t so astute as to foresee every test of time. They made the document easier to amend than the old one, which their forerunners had refused to adapt to the 20th century. One of the reforms was the initiative…
Robert Runcie came to this country at age six from Jamaica, the son of parents with a third grade education. Today he’s superintendent of the Broward County School District, a large system at the forefront of efforts to celebrate the cultural diversity of its students. On Wednesday, he added his voice to a chorus of…
Last week the Orange County School Board voted unanimously to join numerous other Florida school districts in petitioning the courts to declare recently enacted House Bill 7069 unconstitutional. The decision to join the litigation was not made lightly, and was made only after concluding that constitutional principles of a uniform, high-quality education and local control…
Mike Mogil doesn’t believe climate change is caused by humans. The 72-year old former National Weather Service meteorologist says global temperatures have been fluctuating for millennia, and recent extremes could very well have nothing to do with mankind. Now, he wants to make sure Florida’s public school students get the same perspective. Mogil is one…
An effort to equate computer coding with foreign languages for high school students seeking credit for college admission has returned to Tallahassee for a fourth attempt. Killed in 2014, 2016 and 2017, the measure [SB 180] is again sponsored by Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican. And once again, the proponents of strong foreign…
Have you missed fights over whether to increase the U.S. government’s borrowing limit? You might be getting a special treat soon. Many education advocates, however, likely aren’t so thrilled. The recurring squabble over raising the debt ceiling has roots in 2011 when, in exchange for increasing the borrowing limit, Congress imposed mandatory spending caps on…