Both sides pressure Scott on schools bill

With a controversial and wide-ranging education bill now on his desk, Gov. Rick Scott faces intense pressure from both sides as he weighs whether to sign or veto the legislation.  Rumors have begun floating that Scott will sign HB 7069 later this week, but officially the governor maintains that he hasn’t made a final decision. …

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Framework of a deal takes shape as lawmakers agree to increase money for higher ed and dike

Facing a 6 p.m. deadline, Florida legislative leaders struck a last-minute agreement with the governor to resolve their differences and avoid an embarrassing override of the governor’s budget vetoes Friday. House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, agreed to the Senate’s call to restore $60 million of the $114 million cut from…

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Senate backs off defunding controversial schools bill, not wanting conflict with House

Florida senators wanting a second crack at stopping a contentious $419 million education reform bill that narrowly passed the Legislature last month were unsuccessful on Thursday in defunding it to redirect the dollars to general K-12 public school spending.  Broward County Democratic Sen. Gary Farmer led the charge to undo HB 7069, after Senate Pre-K-12…

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FSBA Session Spotlight — June 8, 2017

Today, legislators made some progress in resolving the differences between the House and Senate versions of the FEFP funding bills . As we reported yesterday, the only significant difference between the House and Senate versions of their funding bills was the source of funds used to increase total FEFP funding by $215 million — the…

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Florida students make significant improvement on statewide assessments

The Department of Education today announced that scores on the 2017 statewide, standardized assessments are on the rise and that students narrowed the achievement gap across multiple subjects and grades.  Governor Rick Scott said, “Today’s announcement is great news for Florida’s students and demonstrates that Florida’s dedicated teachers coupled with our continued focus on education…

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FSBA Session Spotlight — June 7, 2017

As had been requested by FSBA and other education groups, Governor Scott vetoed the FEFP portion of the state budget and called on legislators to increase total FEFP funding per student by $100 over the current year (2016-2017) level.   Florida’s Legislature convened in Special Session 2017-A on Wednesday to address this K-12 funding issue as…

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Miami-Dade Republican: I’m ‘not comfortable’ with more K-12 funding without changing HB 7069

Hialeah Republican Sen. René García told Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, in a letter today that he’s “not comfortable supporting any compromise” on increasing K-12 funding for 2017-18 that does not also address a controversial education policy bill that awaits Gov. Rick Scott‘s approval.  García was one of three Senate Republicans to vote against HB 7069…

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