Florida School Boards Association
Florida economists delivered some sobering news Wednesday to state lawmakers: Money is tight. Citing rising costs — especially in Medicaid spending where pharmaceutical costs have been climbing — economists forecast a $1.3 billion budget shortfall by 2018, when Gov. Rick Scott will be entering his final year as Florida’s chief executive. Read full article
DetailsCalling it a “game changer,” Florida leaders made a sweeping overhaul of teacher evaluations in 2011, tying those reviews to student test scores in a push to boost educator quality and, in turn, student achievement. But by the numbers, the new evaluations have led to little change. At the end of the 2009-10 school year,…
DetailsThe St. Johns County School District is closing in on its superintendent search with four names advancing into the finalist phase. In-person interviews will begin the first week of October. After some debate during Tuesday’s workshop meeting, board members settled on candidates Tim Forson, Mark Porter, Vicke Cartwright and Elizabeth Alves. Read full article
DetailsFlorida will have very little extra money to spend in the coming year, meaning that top legislators and Gov. Rick Scott may have slash the state budget to meet some of their promises. The annual forecast released Tuesday shows that despite the state’s gradual economic recovery Florida is expected to bring in just enough money…
DetailsSeptember 17 is Constitution Day/Citizenship Day, commemorating the September 17, 1787, signing of the U.S. Constitution. In recognition, Congress has mandated that every educational institution receiving federal funding hold an educational program about this seminal document. Read full article
DetailsSarasota County School Board Chairwoman Shirley Brown thanked the the Superintendent Search Committee before the board accepted the committee’s list of superintendent finalists at the school board’s meeting last night. The list features eight applicants, including Executive Director of Career, Technical and Adult Education for the Sarasota County School District Todd Bowden. Although Bowden is the…
DetailsCongress’ failure to provide emergency funding to combat the Zika virus has led to dire consequences — at the worst possible time. As pointed out recently by Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National…
DetailsOften the key benchmark used to assess the strength of the labor market is the unemployment rate. But in a Labor Day-timed snapshot on how Florida workers are faring, researchers at Florida International University zeroed in on two other numbers: $39,099 and $28,236. The first is the average annual salary in Florida; the second figure…
DetailsA Leon County circuit court judge has come down in favor of families challenging Florida’s third-grade retention practices, ruling that school districts ignored the children’s right to alternative forms of promotion and the state Department of Education allowed that to happen. In her order, Judge Karen Gievers highly criticized the Hernando County school district for…
DetailsLeading into Tuesday’s primary, one clearly needed election reform didn’t get deserved attention — closing a loophole that disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of Florida voters. It’s an abuse of the Florida Constitution that we call on state lawmakers to fix in 2017 Read full article
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