A new report says changes former Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett made to Indiana's school grading formula were "plausible."
An Indiana report has found that school grading formula changes former Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett made in 2012 while the elected superintendent of Hoosier State schools were “plausible” and “consistently applied” to all schools.
Indiana lawmakers requested the review after the Associated Press published emails showing Bennett and his staff discussing how to change the school grading formula. The emails showed Bennett was concerned about the formula after a prominent charter school, Christel House Academy, initially earned a ‘C’ grade. The school earned an ‘A’ grade after the changes.
The Indiana report backs his claims, though does note the Indiana Department of Education needed to be more transparent and work more closely with lawmakers and the governor. In addition, the report found the departure of key staff members were a factor in a lack of quality control prior to releasing the school grades.
“The two adjustments administered to determine Christel House’s final grade were plausible,” John Grew and William Sheldrake, the report’s authors, wrote, “and the treatment afforded to the school was consistently applied to other schools with similar circumstances.”
Omatayo Richmond started an online petition to change the name of Jacksonville's Nathan Bedford Forrest High School.
More than 72,000 people have signed an online petition to change the name of a Jacksonville high school named after a Civil War general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Florida Times-Union.
Jacksonville resident Omotayo Richmond told the paper that he’s not an activist, but wants people to be proud of the school they attend. He turned to Change.org for help with his petition:
One of the big questions as Florida and 44 other states transition to new education standards and new tests over the next few years is how much time will teachers have to spend teaching to the test?
Teachers complain that they can only spend classroom time on items which will appear on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. In addition, another complaint is that class time is used to teach kids how to take a test rather than imparting more important knowledge.
Common Core is a set of shared education standards which outlines what students should know in math and English language arts at the end of each grade. Advocates say the standards emphasize critical thinking skills over memorization.
Here’s how Hillsborough County’s elementary math supervisor Lia Crawford explained how “teaching to the test” will change with Common Core during a summer training session:
“If you guys continue to have your students (be) really deep thinkers and problem-solvers, the test won’t be an issue. The problem comes in when our assessment doesn’t match and line up to our instruction. And so that’s what we need to start thinking about.
“Once we know that they’re assessing students on ‘X,’ we as teachers have always known how do we better prepare our students for that. So that’s really critical that we are modeling those types of strategy on selecting effective responses based on the question and not just a number.
“Think about when we teach testing strategies to kids – and Cynthia brought up the multiple-choice. We always teach kids to eliminate wrong answers, correct? I did it.
Florida is one of 45 states and the District of Columbia which have fully adopted the standards. But Common Core opponents are becoming more organized and vocal in Florida, and a lawmaker introduced a bill last week that would put implementation of the new standards on hold.
The department tweeted out the first standards Tuesday. From sixth grade English language arts:
#CCSS of the Day: 6th Grade – Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly… http://t.co/XPd647uE8V
They were asked to review four things: New Common Core standards which take full effect next year; Florida’s next standardized test; the state school grading formula; and teacher evaluations.
The group came up with suggested changes which were sent to Scott and others. Scott said he plans to act, but many of the suggested changes would require a vote by the legislature or the State Board of Education.
But many who attended the summit were frustrated by the scope of the task — trying to tackle more than a decade of Florida education policy in less than 72 hours.
StateImpact Florida reporter John O’Connor attended the summit. He spoke with WUSF’s Craig Kopp about what he learned.
One reason teachers say they leave the field? Not enough training or feedback.
Editor’s note: Names of teachers and students have been changed.
How often do budding investment bankers leave the field in their mid-20s to try their hand at teaching?
Not often. And that’s only one of the things that makes Henry Rodriguez special. We met him earlier in this series as he helped a disengaged student find her voice as a consumer educator. Rodriguez fits the mold of what many say the profession is looking for. He’s young, well-educated, vibrant and personable — and great with kids.
Rodriguez told me he was attracted by the promise of the field of education and its significance.
“I wanted to make an impact on a personal level instead of just on the bottom line,” he said.
He did just that for four years. I heard very positive things about Rodriguez from both his colleagues and a former student.
But now he’s gone back into the private sector, this time in technology instead of finance, and in our conversation he mentioned a few reasons he left, reasons that help begin to explain why the teaching profession loses half of its recruits within the first five years.
A Florida lawmaker has filed a bill which would put a hold on Common Core standards.
A Florida lawmaker has filed a bill that would put the implementation of Common Core education standards on hold until the the State Board of Education conducts an independent review of how much the new standards will cost and holds a public hearing in each of the state’s congressional districts.
Florida is in the midst of rolling out the new standards over several years. The standards are already in use in Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Other grades are using a blended model which incorporates some of the new standards and some of Florida’s outgoing standards. Next year, Common Core will be in use in every grade at the start of the school year.
The standards are designed to emphasize critical thinking skills, the designers say, requiring students to show what they know and prove how they know it with evidence. Critics say the standards will reduce local control over education, are not an improvement and will be expensive to implement.
Nan Rich is a former state Senator who was the first Democrat to announce she’s challenging Gov. Rick Scott in 2014.
Rich stopped by the WUSF studios Wednesday for a Florida Matters interview with Carson Cooper.
Here’s what she said about education. You can hear the full interview Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on WUSF.
Q: When it comes to education, you were opposed to the so-called parent trigger bill, which would have given parents more of a say about what should be done with a failing public school. Critics called it a thinly-veiled attempt to turn things over to for-profit charter schools. If a public school is failing, why not give parents the option to do something about it?
A: We already do in this state. We already do.
We have five turnaround options in the state of Florida. And one of them includes allowing parents to go to their school board and ask for a school to become a charter school. The difference is that bill was talking about for-profit management companies coming in and taking over a failing school.
Florida's relationship with PARCC is still up in the air.
What’s the status of Florida’s relationship with the multi-state test being designed to test new Common Core State Standards? It’s complicated.
The Partnership for Assessment of College and Careers was originally thought to replace most of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test beginning in 2015. Florida is one of 20 states working on the test, paid for by a federal grant. Florida manages the money for the project.
But a couple of problems have put Florida’s continued participation in PARCC in doubt.
Florida School Boards Association director Wayne Blanton, Miami-Dade Superintendet Alberto Carvalho, and state Sen. Bill Montford debate why they are debating Common Core State Standards.
Table 1 was not going to play along.
The organizers of Gov. Rick Scott’s education summit had broken the three-dozen attendees into groups and asked them to write “vision statements” about the Common Core State Standards. The groups would pick and choose their favorite statements
But Table 1 – where two superintendents, the president of the PTA, the head of the Florida School Boards Association, a union leader and state Sen. Bill Montford were seated – thought the exercise was busy work.
It had been three years since Florida adopted Common Core State Standards, which outline what students should know in math and English language arts at the end of each grade. Florida is one of 45 states that have fully adopted the new standards.
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