School Choice Ohio has released a roadmap for improving Buckeye State schools that looks a lot like Florida's plan.
In the trade balance between Ohio and Florida, the Sunshine State usually imports far more than it exports. (Those imports are usually in Clearwater wearing Ohio State jerseys on Saturdays)
But School Choice Ohio believes the Buckeye State should import some education ideas from Florida.
We should note the report was authored by a researcher at the Tallahassee-based Foundation for Excellence in Education, whose founder is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush implemented many of the reforms the report credits for Florida’s improvement. The conclusions echo many of the accomplishments Bush has previously claimed.
Florida’s low-income students saw the largest gains in reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test between 1998 and 2009, the report argues. Florida’s gains put it roughly even with Ohio for fourth grade reading scores.
That’s what happening to Balere Language Academy in South Miami Heights, according to the Miami Herald.
The school with about 85 students is losing $79,000 over suspicions about the school’s staff and finances. How much charters get is based on the number of students enrolled at the school.
Two education-related lawsuits head to court this week.
The Florida Education Association sends a helpful reminder that two lawsuits they filed are heading to Circuit Court in Tallahassee this week.
The first case challenges a new state law which requires state employees take a 3 percent pay cut in order to pay a portion of their pension benefits. The suit argues the law is unconstitutional because public employees, including teachers, have a constitutionally protected right to collective bargaining.
The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
The second suit challenges a ballot question intended to overturn a century-old ban on spending public funds on religious organizations.
The law was a key reason the Florida Supreme Court shut down a state program granting vouchers for private school tuition in 2006.
That case is scheduled for a Thursday afternoon hearing.
University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft told two state Senators that any audit of USF Polytechnic is up to the regional campus chancellor.
Republican state Sens. Paula Dockery and Mike Fasano asked Genshaft to audit USF Polytechnic after learning the school hired regional chancellor Marshall Goodman’s son to run a business incubator program. The school also planned to spend $500,000 on a promotional video.
USF Poly, in Lakeland, is pushing to become an independent university. A state board could consider that request next month.
Bangladesh native, Shamir Ali, now 25, was picked up in a workplace raid in Miami last week and now faces deportation. Ali arrived to Florida when he was seven years old and is DREAM Act eligible.
In August 2011, the Obama administration announced it would prioritize deporting people convicted of crimes.
That meant shifting resources away from low-priority cases—such as undocumented children who came to the U.S. at a young age, or DREAM Act kids, and others.
One idea behind the new policy was to protect DREAM Act-eligible kids from deportation in case Congress were to soon approve the federal bill that would provide a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants.
But last Friday, 25-year-old Shamir Ali, a DREAM Act-eligible undocumented Florida resident, was denied deportation relief by the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office Director, Marc Moore (see the letter from Moore below). Continue Reading →
Gov. Rick Scott attends a governors' summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in June.
Florida Governor Rick Scott is still answering questions after he suggested Florida colleges and universities should get less funding for social science programs, and more funding for science, engineering, technology and math programs, or STEM fields.
Scott told a Miami radio station that he’s related to the angriest anthropologist he’s heard from so far.
With Halloween approaching, the great anthropology debate is the Florida political story that won’t die (background here). But the question remains: Is anthropology a STEM field?
While Rhee was pushing a controversial teacher evaluation system that led to hundreds of firing, Strauss writes, she did not address fundamental issues such as constructing a curriculum for D.C. schools.
The lessons of D.C. apply elsewhere, Strauss writes, including Florida’s new requirement that all high school students must take a class online:
Do not stop charter schools, but question and ask for the highest degree of accountability. Some charter schools are only there is make a profit and use taxpayer’s money. Manny Alonso Pouch unfortunately is a member of that group.
Question, investigate, and demand more from charter schools. If they are well run with a good staff, what charter schools can do is inspiring.
That got us thinking about other recent examples of politicians misquoting data or using data that does not support the point they are trying to make.
The highest-profile example came from Arizona Republican Sen. John Kyl back in April, who claimed that “well over 90 percent” of Planned Parenthood’s activities related to abortion. Planned Parenthood says abortion comprises just 3 percent of its services, according to PoltiFact.org.
The group argues that children of undocumented immigrants should not be charged out-of-state tuition despite those students being both U.S. citizens and Florida residents.
StateImpact Florida profiled one such student in August.
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We should note the report was authored by a researcher at the Tallahassee-based Foundation for Excellence in Education, whose founder is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush implemented many of the reforms the report credits for Florida’s improvement. The conclusions echo many of the accomplishments Bush has previously claimed.
