Alexie also appeared at the Miami Book Fair International last year to talk about writing young adult fiction. This year’s Miami Book Fair International opens this weekend, so we thought we’d re-post the interview Alexie did with StateImpact Florida last year.
Sarasota County middle school math teacher Brenda Fuoco, in 2013.
Maybe a charter school in New York City has discovered “The Answer” to Florida’s K-12 education challenges?
If so, the school has done so by setting aside Florida’s focus on keeping class sizes small and by instead adopting a strategy that our state has so far ignored – recruiting star teachers with high salaries and an attractive working environment. In particular, the school’s spectacular results in math achievement should provide the standard by which Florida’s efforts to prepare students for careers in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — fields are judged.
The New York City charter, which teaches grades 5-9, is called The Equity Project (TEP). It pays its teachers a $125,000 salary – with bonuses based on student achievement. The salary seems extravagant in part because the cost of living in New York City is so high. An equivalent salary in Tampa would be $71,000, according to Bankrate.com – still considerably higher than the average Florida teacher salary of about $46,000.
In addition to the high salary, the TEP teachers have time to plan and collaborate, and a six-week professional development program is built into each summer. The teachers take a large role in school-wide decision-making.
State Sen. John Legg is gathering experts from schools, the technology industry, business and universities to talk about helping Florida schools integrate more technology.
Today in Tampa, lawmakers, superintendents, businesspeople and state university staff will gather to talk about using technology in Florida classrooms. The summit was the idea of Senate Education chairman John Legg, R-Trinity. We asked him what he wanted to accomplish:
Q: You are gathering some school and education leaders together…to talk about school technology. Why are you doing this and what do you hope to learn?
A: Why we’re doing this is technology’s becoming a critical part of education. And in the recent years, what we’ve seen is, we’ve seen a real disconnect between the education world, the business world and the students.
What we expect our students to do is basically power down when they walk into a classroom. And what we’re trying to do is — our educators don’t want that to happen.
But to change that culture and to change the schools and to integrate technology into a classroom is not an easy task. It’s very complicated. And it involves people who speak different languages.
Some of the books in Daniel Dickey's classroom library.
Miami Northwestern High School teacher Daniel Dickey says there’s no silver bullet or secret book which will spark a student’s interest in reading.
Instead, he says he asks questions and listens.
“I sit down with that student and really figure out what is it that drives you?” Dickey says. “Why do you come to school? Why are you here every day?”
He asks them about their plans, their dreams.
“If you could envision yourself in five months, five years, fifty years, where would you be?” he says. “Why? What are your goals in life? And from that I usually assess which book would be best.”
Miami Northwestern Senior High writing teacher Daniel Dickey says you have to be a good reader to be a good writer. He’s challenged his student to read one million words this year.
Miami Northwestern High School English teacher Daniel Dickey has found a way to make his tenth graders brag about their reading skills.
Mischael Saint-Sume and Ciji Wright tease each other about who’s going to read one million words first — a contest Dickey created.
“Did you put him in his place?” Dickey asked Wright. “Because Mischael, he’s popping in my classroom every day with a new book.”
“Oh don’t worry about it because I’ve got plenty of books for him,” Wright replied.
“But it ends today, by the way,” Saint-Sume said. “I’m going to hit a million.”
Broward schools superintendent Robert Runcie, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, left, and Broward Teachers Union president Sharon Glickman, right, announced the creation of two task forces to recommend changes to teacher evaluations and high school schedules.
Broward County school and union leaders want to make changes to test-based teacher evaluations and the county’s high school schedule.
Superintendent Robert Runcie announced two task forces will study the issues and recommend changes.
One goal is to come up with a teacher evaluation system that is less about punishing teachers who earn low scores than it is about training, mentoring and helping those teachers improve.
“As educators, administrators, we need data,” Runcie said. “We need information to constantly guide our practice and where we’re going. So, there’s always going to be some types of assessment.
“We want to change the dynamic…We want to change the conversation around how assessments are used, period.”
Runcie was joined by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Sharon Glickman, president of the Broward Teachers Union. AFT and the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, have led the fight against the widespread use of standardized test scores.
In Florida, those scores are tied to decisions about which students graduate or advance to another grade, school and district performance ratings and teacher pay.
Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist have talked about K-12 funding, the cost of college and other education issues.
Polls show Governor Rick Scott and former Governor Charlie Crist are polarizing. Voters are as likely to dislike the candidates as they are to approve of them.
So both candidates are talking about schools, colleges and scholarships — to motivate their supporters.
“Education is an issue that is helping to appeal to the base,” says Sean Foreman, a Barry University political science professor and chairman of the education committee for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.
Foreman says they’ve got a pretty good idea what a second term of either candidate would mean for education.
“I think Rick Scott is going to focus on more spending, but with that will come more strings attached and more testing involved,” Foreman says. “[Crist] will also call for more spending, but more spending in public schools and less focus on vouchers like the Republicans have.”
So far, the big argument has been over funding for public schools. Both candidates can say they’ve supported more money for schools.
The Florida Education Association has amended its challenge of a new school choice law in the Leon County's Second Judicial Circuit.
The legal and public relations battle over Florida’s private school scholarship programs continues, with the statewide teacher’s union revising its lawsuit and a school choice group producing a new television ad supporting the programs.
Wednesday, the Florida Education Association amended its complaint challenging a new school choice law. The new complaint adds South Florida parents after a judge ruled the parties named in the previously filed suit lacked standing to challenge the law.
The new plaintiffs are Miami-Dade and Lee County parents and attorneys argue their kids’ education suffers because the tax credit scholarship program diverts money to private schools instead of public schools.
“With the result that the Miami-Dade County Public Schools lost approximately $75 million in funding, which was redirected from the public fisc to private schools,” the complaint says.
The suit challenges a bill approved this year which creates a new voucher program for students with disabilities. But the bill also expands the state’s existing private school scholarship program funded with state tax credits for businesses that donate to the scholarship fund.
Republican, Democrat and independent candidates were unanimous Tuesday -- Florida schools test too much.
The candidates running for three South Dade state House seats — Republican, Democrat, independent — all agree that Florida students and schools spend too much time testing.
Candidates running for the Florida House of Representatives in the 112th, 114th and 115th districts gathered for an education forum Tuesday night at Palmetto Middle School.
“The biggest problem that the assessment process has right now,” said Rep. Erik Fresen, a Republican who represents the 114th district and is chairman of the House Education Appropriations subcommittee, “we have a completely twisted form of actually executing the assessments. Assessments end up drowning the school.”
His challengers, Democrat Daisy Baez and independent Ross Hancock both agreed: There’s too much testing and teachers must adjust their plans and lessons to prepare students for those exams.
In the 115th district, Republican incumbent Mike Bileca and Democratic opponent Kris Decossard agreed. So did Democratic Rep. Jose Javier Rodriquez, who represents the 112th district. His opponent did not participate.
Tuesday’s forum was the latest sign that the political tide has turned against the testing requirements of Florida education policy and local school school districts.
Althea Valle teaches a class of ELL's. She says of the new federal requirement, "I think it’s going to put a lot of pressure on the schools to get these kids where we think they should be."
A 10th grader born in Haiti struggles to read in his class at Godby High School in Tallahassee. The student is more comfortable with Haitian Creole than English. Teacher Althea Valle has students of various nationalities trying to master the language.
“It’s a challenge,” Valle says. “There’s a lot of gesturing, and you know sometimes I feel like I’m onstage and sometimes I have to be onstage to make myself understood.”
Valle is the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) coordinator for Leon County schools. Her developmental language class is offered as an elective for students who want the extra help, like Anas Al-Humiari from Yemen. His native language is Arabic, and he’s been studying English for 5 years.
“First of all, the words are the main things that get me down and the time, me trying to understand the sentence and what is the article or text actually means,” Al-Humiari says, trying to find the right words.
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