Florida School Boards Association
The League of Women Voters in Florida was right to challenge a seriously misleading constitutional amendment proposal in court. Many of the amendments proposed by the Florida Constitution Revision Commission for a November vote have serious flaws, such as lumping four issues into one amendment. But one of the batched amendments is so deceptive that…
A lawsuit filed last week may or may not succeed in knocking the education amendment off the ballot, but – win or lose – it has already underscored the duplicity of the Constitution Revision Commission. Amendment 8 on the ballot seems bland enough, proposing eight-year term limits for all school board members and directing the…
A school-safety commission examining the mass shooting at a Parkland high school heard testimony Thursday about Florida’s fractured and overwhelmed mental health system. As part of a three-day hearing in Broward County, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission turned its focus to the role the mental health system may have played in…
A constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would allow charter school organizers to bypass local school boards to get approval is “intentionally misleading” because it doesn’t directly explain to voters that the amendment is designed to circumvent local control and intentionally leaves out the word “charter,’‘ a lawsuit filed Thursday in Leon County Circuit…
Companies with ties to charter schools and a controversial federal visa program are providing the bulk of contributions to an effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would impose an eight-year term limit on school board members. Through June, the 8isGreat.org political committee has raised $54,532 in support of Amendment 8, state election records show.…
Alternative student-discipline programs in Florida need an overhaul, according to the commission investigating the Parkland shooting. Commission members, meeting Tuesday in Sunrise, recommended reforms to school-diversion programs, created to shield students who commit low-risk, non-violent offenses from legal consequences. Read More
Now that private-school scholarships for bullied Florida students are a reality, public school district leaders want to know exactly who will qualify for the available funds. They made clear Wednesday their concerns that the program could be ripe for abuse by families more interested in getting vouchers than in protecting children who really were victimized.…
Your religious views matter, and don’t let anyone ever tell you differently. This goes for evangelicals and agnostics, and everyone in between. A lawyer might argue it’s a First Amendment right, but it’s also a courtesy we should all embrace. Even, or especially, when we don’t agree. I mention this because of a story I…
Some private schools in Florida that rely on public funding teach students that dinosaurs and humans lived together, that God’s intervention prevented Catholics from dominating North America and that slaves who “knew Christ” were better off than free men who did not.The lessons taught at these schools come from three Christian publishing companies whose textbooks…
Florida House Republicans are playing mythbusters on claims of stagnant school spending. The House Majority Office, which is overseen by Speaker Richard Corcoran, released a five-minute video May 17 that takes aim at teachers’ unions and state educators (and unnamed “media allies”) who say the 2018-19 education budget isn’t enough to cover the costs of…