Sen. John Legg, R-Port Richey, says he does not like the idea of a pencil and paper option when Florida is scheduled to switch to new state tests in 2015.
Florida shouldn’t have one group of students taking the next generation standardized test online while other students use pencil and paper versions, according to the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
Sen. John Legg, R-Port Richey, said students should all be taking the same kind of test.
“I have some great reservations about having two types of tests,” Legg said. “We need to phase out the paper and pencil and we need to phase in the digital. I’m in the camp of we need to do all digital and we need to do it all at once.”
The projects are part of the Florida Department of Children and Families Camps for Champions.
“Many foster children don’t have the same opportunities to travel and learn new activities like their peers do,” said football star Derrick Brooks, who helped launch the camps in St. Petersburg this week. “These camps give them those opportunities.”
At the kick-off camp, 30 kids learned STEM skills in St. Pete. Campers in Jacksonville are teaming up to build robots this week.
Editor’s note: This post was written by WLRN reporter Karelia Arauz.
The school year has ended and the summer job hunt for many teenagers is on, but with unemployment rates at about 16 percent for people ages 16-24 how can you make your resume stand out?
imagerymajestic / freedigitalphotos.net
Don't freak out. Finding a summer job is tough in this market, but it's not hopeless.
The job market might be tough, but it’s not hopeless.
We spoke with five employment experts who have advice for students in search of summer jobs.
Highlight classroom experience, especially STEM skills
“The problem is that with many people being out of work, a lot of experienced workers—people with degrees—are working in the jobs that the youth might have qualified for,” says Jacinta Straus, a youth coordinator with the Workforce Florida system.
In this case, the speakers were talking about Common Core State Standards – a new way of teaching that dives deeply into fewer subjects. The goal is to get more students college and career ready.
The Florida Department of Education is smarting from “unacceptable” FCAT results — they were flat — and they’re looking ahead to what Common Core will mean for student learning.
The analysis tracked fourth and eighth grade math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the model test for comparing student performance across state lines. The purpose was to check differences in student gains now that states have been released from some federal No Child Left Behind law requirements — as Florida has been.
Overall, the improvement in Florida student scores was the equivalent of more than half a year’s worth of learning averaged over the four subjects tested during the eight-year period. Twelve states and the District of Columbia showed more improvement than Florida.
But Florida’s improvement ranked eighth nationally for students who qualify for the federal free and reduced price lunch program, an often-used proxy for poverty. Those students’ scores improved by the equivalent of a full year’s worth of learning for each of the four subjects tested over the period studied.
Those results place Florida among what Education Sector authors John Chubb and Constance Clark call “high-performing states.” And the authors say those high-performing states share some common policies: They set high expectations, have developed their own systems to measure school performance and assist low-performing schools and are trying to measure and support effective teaching and leadership.
It’s finals week at Park Vista Community High School and a small group of students buzzes over an assembly line of used Dell computers that lie cracked open with all their electronic guts exposed.
Sammy Mack / StateImpact
Students at Park Vista Community High School refurbish computers for donation.
“Right now it’s kind of messy,” says Park Vista junior Jonathan Stabio. “But essentially what we do is take a computer out of the pile that has all the components, we open it up, make sure it has everything necessary to make it run… and get them ready to be shipped off.”
Many of the donated computers that Stabio refurbishes in class will be given to families who don’t have computers at home. It’s part of a Palm Beach County program aimed at closing the digital divide.
The state already requires high schoolers to take at least one online course. By fall 2015 half of all classroom instruction will need to be digital, and students will take the standardized test that replaces the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test on a computer.
Kids like Stabio—kids fluent in technology, with access to the Internet at home and school—are well positioned to make the transition to a more digital learning environment.
But many students don’t have that advantage. By one estimate from a survey of school administrators and technology specialists, a third of Florida students don’t have a computer at home. And even if they did, it wouldn’t guarantee they would land on the right side of the digital divide. Continue Reading →
Florida students showed greater improvement on end-of-course exams than FCAT 2.0 in results released today.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett is responding like a disappointed dad to news that Florida students did a little bit better on their standardized tests this year, but not as well as he would have liked.
They show across-the-board improvement on EOC assessments, particularly in Biology 1 and Geometry.
In a press release, DOE said FCAT 2.0 Reading scores increased in grades 6, 8, 9 and 10. For FCAT 2.0 Mathematics, grade 4 showed improvement. In FCAT 2.0 Science, grade 5 showed improvement and grade 8 remained the same.
But the scores didn’t move enough to appease Bennett.
“The FCAT results are flat, and I find that personally unacceptable,” Bennett said. “I think we have to refocus our efforts on reading and making sure our students have the foundational skills necessary in mathematics.”
Bennett said the FCAT scores weren’t disastrous; they simply looked unimpressive compared to EOC assessment results that were very good.
“The biggest lesson that I personally have learned is what accountability means. And what transparency means. And having the correct information.
“We just came out of a season where we had a superintendent that did not keep us informed and we didn’t have correct information, even when we asked for it.
“I started my term in 2010. The numbers that I had, that I was reviewing, didn’t add up. And when I would ask questions or for documentation I was considered a bad board member because I wasn’t going along and I wasn’t being a good team member.
(Florida Polytechnic University – the 12th in the system – doesn’t begin classes until August 2014.)
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) and The James Madison Institute are the groups behind the assessment.
“Overall, Florida public universities are on a prudent and successful course during these difficult economic times,” researchers wrote. “Significant challenges and difficult decisions over priorities remain. It is clear, however, that Florida has high potential to be a model for other states.”
While state funding for the system fell from $2.6 billion to $1.7 billion between 2007 and 2012, the report finds a six-year graduation rate of 66 percent – putting Florida in the top ten nationally.
Advocates for new science standards are asking Florida supporters to speak up.
Advocates for new science standards are urging Florida residents to voice their support.
The concept for the science standards is separate, but similar to that of the math and English language arts standards which comprise the Common Core. Florida, 44 other states and the District of Columbia have fully adopted the Common Core standards.
The California-based National Center for Science Education is urging Florida members to voice their support for the standards, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, during a comment period this month. Supporters are worried the Florida Department of Education might back away from the science standards the public response is negative.
The standards include teaching students about evolution and human-caused climate change. State education leaders are reviewing the standards across the country and deciding whether they want to adopt them.
“We understand that the NGSS isn’t perfect and some folks have legitimate concerns about them,” three members of Florida Citizens for Science wrote in an email to members. “But overall, the NGSS are a significant improvement over our current state standards. Quite frankly, it’s unlikely that any future state-level effort could match the effort and resources that went into the NGSS.”
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