This is the second year New York has used a home-grown test to assess its Common Core standards. The protests started last year and seem to be picking up steam in 2014.
Advocates of “opting out” of New York’s tests estimate that parents have chosen to withhold more than 30,000 students from the tests this year. Chalkbeat reported the number of students opting out of state tests in New York City schools has increased to nearly 640, up from 276 last year. And advocates argue that number could exceed more than 1,000 students.
Jon Hage heads the for-profit charter school management company, Charter Schools USA (CSUSA), based in Fort Lauderdale. The company operates 58 schools in seven states across the country, including Florida.
Hage grew up in middle-class Oakland Park near Fort Lauderdale. He served in the United States Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserves as a commissioned officer in the Special Forces (Green Berets). After then doing policy work in Washington D.C. and Tallahassee, he founded CSUSA in 1997.
Q: What was your first job?
A: I was a custodian at Nova High School between 10th and 11th grade. I cleaned toilets, mopped floors and scraped the gum off the bottom of desks. This taught me early on to respect property (I still have a pet peeve of making sure kids don’t stick their gum under a desk!) and to never be too proud to do any task required of me.
Former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Republicans should give former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a chance if he decides to run for president in 2016 — despite his support of Common Core education standards — George Will writes in The Washington Post:
He will not, however, have the nomination handed to him on a silver salver. And the nomination fight would be especially bruising because Bush has been admirably forthright, but certainly impolitic, about two divisive issues — immigration and the Common Core national education standards for grades K through 12.
He wisely favors immigration reform responsive to the needs of the U.S. workforce and the realities of the 12 million who are not here legally but are neither going to “self-deport” or be deported. His enthusiasm for the Common Core is misplaced, but conservatives, in judging it, should judge Bush with a generosity he has earned by his exemplary record as an education reformer favoring school choice.
Unfortunately, there are too many Republicans who, honing their knives and lengthening their lists of unforgivable heresies, seem to derive more satisfaction from burning Republicans at the stake than from defeating Democrats. And there are too many other Republicans who think their task is to save the party from its base of principled activists.
Why? Bush could win more Hispanic votes or those in traditionally Democratic-voting states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Will argues.
Chief Ian Moffett of Miami-Dade County Public Schools supports the state's new standards.
Florida’s Common Core standards have a new group of supporters: law enforcement.
The national anti-crime group Fight Crime: Invest in Kids released a position paper in favor of Florida’s new standards for English language arts and math. The group argues that assessments and higher standards can prevent crime.
Here’s the paper’s summary of the connection:
“Florida’s law enforcement leaders see the Florida Standards as integral to the effort to ensure that all students are college- and career- ready, and essential if we are going to successfully prevent future crime. What works to help all our young people be employable and succeed will also work to bring down crime. That is why we in law enforcement support the Florida Standards and aligned assessments.”
You can hear more from the organization and law enforcement here:
FRIDA'S SURPRISE: Senators learned from Miami resident and FIU grad Frida Ulloa that state resident tuition is already available for some undocumented immigrants.
The Florida Senate Judiciary Committee got a big surprise this week.
Turns out, in-state university tuition rates are already available for some undocumented immigrants. That’s the case at Florida International University.
It may have strengthened the hands of opponents of an in-state tuition bill, but not enough to defeat it.
Rick Stone from member station WLRN has the story:
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