The legislature has made some progress in moving forward with the task of crafting the state budget. On Thursday, the House amended the Senates main appropriations bills by stripping out the Senate language and replacing it with the House version of each bill. The House version of each of these bills was then Laid on…
DetailsEducation Week takes a page from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross — who coined the five stages of grief — and outline the emotional stages of Common Core supporters and opponents. The math and language arts standards turn five years old this week. Florida schools are wrapping up the first school year of using their version of Common…
DetailsEdWeek’s annual Diplomas Count report shows that the U.S. high school on-time graduation rate has hit another all-time high with 81 percent of students graduating within four-years of entering high school. You may remember last month another report found the same. Both reports were based on similar data so it is not surprising they found…
DetailsDespite Florida’s testing validity study, schools still need to know which third graders scored lowest on the Florida Standards Assessments language arts exams to help them decide whether the children should move to fourth grade or not. They got the list of students in the lowest 20 percent on Thursday. That’s the level at which…
DetailsA committee designed to advise Florida education commissioner Pam Stewart on standards, testing, deregulation and other hot topics has set its first meeting of substance for later this month. Stewart announced she would create the Keep Florida Learning Committee back in December, amid the clamor parents, teachers and others angry over the state’s testing system. Hundreds of…
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U.S. CENSUS REPORT ON EDUCATION SPENDING The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual report on Education Spending. The Report provides comprehensive national and state-by-state data and statistics on a variety of education funding issues. School board members and others may find this information useful in their advocacy efforts, particularly as the Legislature is working…
DetailsLAKELAND | Polk County’s teachers won’t be evaluated based on student performance this year, The Ledger discovered Tuesday. An education bill passed into law in April reduced student performance from 50 percent to 33 percent of a teacher’s evaluation score. But the Polk County School District has decided it will not be used at all,…
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TODAY’S HAPPENINGS In the House Finance & Tax Committee: The committee considered Proposed Committee Bill (PCB) FTC1 that provides a tax cut package valued at approximately $435 million. The bill was filed as HB 33-A. In the Senate Appropriations Committee: The Committee amended and passed SB 2-A — Health Insurance Affordability Exchange which offers premium…
DetailsDunbar High School students have done it again! Because of their exceptionally high scores on Microsoft Office certification tests, students Bennett Hunter (11th grade), Tyler Millis (11th grade) and Ian Sexton (12th grade) have been named tops in the State of Florida in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013, Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Excel 2010, respectively. Competing…
DetailsTALLAHASSEE — A contrite Legislature returned to the capital Monday with a series of concessions and the goal of quieting the bitter intraparty feud over health care that sent lawmakers into overtime. The House, which left the regular session three days early, gaveled open the session as loudspeakers blared the Beatles tuneCome Together, and then…
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