Sen. David Simmons wants more time to study proposed school grade changes.
Senate lawmakers have pumped the brakes on a Department of Education plan to rewrite rules for grading schools, according to the Miami Herald.
School officials, parent groups and advocates for the disabled have criticized the plan, which would have resulted in 230 additional school earning ‘F’ grades. Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson and the Board of Education have already toned down the initial proposal.
Lawmakers want more time. A Senate committee proposed delaying the new grades by a year.
Polk County Sen. JD Alexander is pushing legislation that would turn USF Poly into the state's 12th university.
The University of South Florida Polytechnic is not recruiting faculty or students while lawmakers debate the school’s future, its interim regional chancellor told The Lakeland Ledger.
From the story:
It’s not an atmosphere under which a quality academic staff can be drawn in, said Touchton. “We just feel like we need to wait and see what happens.” Advertisements previously posted for various open positions have been discontinued.
And it does not make sense to actively recruit students, either, he said.
“We cannot be disingenuous,” he said. “That’s all there is to it.”
USF Poly recruiters expressed concerns last week about continuing to seek new students with all of the uncertainty now surrounding the university.
The results were posted in the Agora for all to see the quality and performance of their teacher. Socrates failed. He simply spent too much time asking them to think. A walk-through evaluation by his supervisor (undisclosed), determined that “ sometimes Socrates’s students meander through endless dialogues examining challenging questions that do not have one right answer.”
Clarification: This post was updated to change the identification of ASCD, which is a curriculum organization.
Jean Clements, president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association
Hillsborough County Classroom Teachers Association president Jean Clements says dual efforts to toughen Florida’s school grading system and approve a law allowing a majority of parents to choose how to restructure their child’s failing school amount to an education land grab for private business.
Clements argues Florida Department of Education is changing its grade standards with the intention of failing more schools. The agency argues raising standards will compel schools to find ways to improve.
Parents at those failing schools could then invoke the newly approved legislation, nicknamed the “parent trigger,” and force the district to restructure the school. That could include closing the school, replacing the principal and/or staff or converting to a charter school.
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