John O'Connor is the Miami-based education reporter for StateImpact Florida. John previously covered politics, the budget and taxes for The (Columbia, S.C) State. He is a graduate of Allegheny College and the University of Maryland.
Monroe Middle School teacher Dawn Norris hears a difference in her language arts classes since she starting using Common Core standards two years ago. It’s how the 13-year teacher knows the new standards are working.
Middle schools across Florida will begin using the new math and language arts standards when classes start this fall. But most middle schools in the Tampa area, where Monroe is located, are already using Common Core.
John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida
Monroe Middle School teacher Dawn Norris talks to her students about how to write an essay about fairy tales. Norris has been teaching based on the Common Core standards for two years. Since making the switch, she says her students have taken more control of the lessons.
Common Core has been fully adopted by 45 states. But the standards have been criticized for their quality, for reducing local control over classroom content and for continuing emphasis on student test results to determine whether teachers and schools are successful.
“What I’ve noticed in my classes now is they’re loud. And that’s OK,” Norris said. “Where in the old days it was, no, you want that silent classroom, but the more they talk, they’re all on task. They’re all working on that same common goal.”
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart's suggested school grading formula changes were approved by a Senate committee Tuesday.
A Senate panel has approved changes to the state school grading formula which echo those proposed by Florida schools chief Pam Stewart, the Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau reports.
The bill looks similar to recommendations made last month by state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart. It eliminates the bonus points schools can earn, as well as the so-called triggers that automatically cause a school grade to drop. It also removes several factors from the complex formula used to evaluate high schools, including five-year graduation rates and some college readiness measures.
Schools would continue to receive A-F grades during the transition to a new formula. But there would be no consequences for poor performance in the first year.
The education committee made two tweaks to Stewart’s original recommendations. They added a provision that would give middle schools credit for participation and performance in high-school classes. They also added language that would exempt children with complex disabilities from state testing, in response to recent discussions about the plight of profoundly disabled children.
As Florida prepares to move to new K-12 math and language arts standards this fall, state Democrats have joined school superintendents and the Florida PTA in asking for a three-year delay before school performance is judged using Common Core.
School grades are partly based on student test results. Tests tied to the new Common Core standards are expected to be more difficult, and perhaps half as many Florida students will meet state goals.
Gov. Rick Scott is asking lawmakers to revoke a law which allows state universities to request up to an additional 15 percent tuition increase.
Gov. Rick Scott is asking lawmakers to eliminate the state’s tuition differential law, which allows universities to request as much as a 15 percent tuition increase each year.
Scott has fought higher education tuition hikes since he took office in 2011.
“We are changing how we fund higher education,” Scott said, according to the prepared version of his State of the State speech, “but if we want to make higher education more accessible to low and middle-income families we have to make it more affordable.
“We will hold the line on tuition,” he added moments later.
Former Washington Post owner Donald Graham has raised $25 million to provide financial aid for undocumented students who want to go to college.
Former Washington Post owner Donald Graham and Miami education activist Gaby Pacheco sat down with NPR to talk about a new scholarship program for undocumented immigrants.
Common Core protestors at February's State Board of Education Meeting in Orlando. They aren't giving up, but lawmakers say the conversation about Common Core is moving on.
Sondra Hulette and her granddaughter joined dozens of anti-Common Core protestors as they circled a fountain outside the Orange County school district offices last month.
Inside the building, the State Board of Education was about to rename Common Core as “The Florida Standards.” But outside, Hulette and others chanted “Stop Common Core!” “Keep education local!” and “Follow the money!”
Common Core are math and language arts standards adopted by Florida and 44 other states. They outline what students should know at the end of each grade.
But Hulette and many others oppose the standards because they are concerned about losing local control over classroom decisions, cost and other factors.
Hulette’s granddaughter is homeschooled, but she worries college placement exams are being written to the standards. And that would force parents of homeschooled students to address the standards or possibly leave their kids unprepared for the exams.
“I don’t want what’s happening in the public school to infiltrate what I have the authority over as homeschoolers,” Hulette said. “It’s going to impose some things on her that are illogical.”
Opposition to the standards has dominated Florida’s education conversation the past year, but Christina Phillips’ sixth grade language arts students at Monroe Middle School in Tampa wouldn’t know that from their school work. Phillips’ lessons have been Common Core-based for the past two years.
As school districts purchase textbooks and other materials for new standards, two studies find much of what is on the market is a poor match for Common Core.
Brevard County schools are considering 30 new middle and high school textbooks for the nationally crafted math and language arts standards known as Common Core,Florida Today reports.
The standards are currently used in kindergarten through second grade, and are scheduled to be used in every Florida grade when classes start this fall.
Like Brevard County, school districts across the state that have yet to do so will soon need to make big curriculum decisions. But there’s a problem — researchers are finding many textbooks and classroom materials aren’t a perfect match for Common Core.
The final recommendation is up to Education Commissioner Pam Stewart. She has said she plans to announce her choice next month.
AIR beat out bids from testing heavyweights such as Pearson — who currently has the state FCAT contract — CTB/McGraw-Hill and the ACT Aspire. From the story:
House Committee on Education and the Workforce Dem / Flickr
National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel.
The head of the nation’s largest teacher’s union says school districts are botching the implementation of shared math and language arts standards known as Common Core.
“Seven of ten teachers believe that implementation of the standards is going poorly in their schools. Worse yet, teachers report that there has been little to no attempt to allow educators to share what’s needed to get CCSS implementation right. In fact, two-thirds of all teachers report that they have not even been asked how to implement these new standards in their classrooms,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel writes in the Feb. 19 letter. “Consequently, NEA members have a right to feel frustrated, upset, and angry about the poor commitment to implementing the standards correctly.”
In all, the letter is more evidence of a phenomenon my colleague Andrew Ujifusa of State EdWatch fame and I wrote about in this week’s edition of Education Week: Unions are in a tricky situation on the common core. They’ve been among its greatest champions, and are now faced with rank-and-file members’ gripes as it’s implemented, especially in New York.
The NEA won’t oppose the standards, Van Roekel writes in the letter. “[S]cuttling these standards will simply return us to the failed days of No Child Left Behind, where rote memorization and bubble tests drove teaching and learning,” he says.
Florida is one of 45 states which have fully adopted the standards. Common Core outlines what students should know at the end of each grade. The standards are expected to be more difficult in order to better prepare students for college or a job.
Parents and students protest outside then-Gov. Jeb Bush's Miami office in this 2003 photo.
At yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting, Orlando mom Andrea Rediske scolded members for state and federal rules requiring standardized testing.
Tuesday, she sought support for the Ethan Rediske Act, or HB 895, which would exempt students from state standardized tests if parents, special educators and school superintendents could prove a medical need to skip the test.
“This incident caused anguish to my family,” Rediske told the board, “and shows a stunning lack of compassion and even common sense on the part of the Department of Education.
“You may ask yourselves: ‘If this is such a problem why isn’t there more public outcry from the parents of disabled children?’ I am here to tell you why. Parents of severely disabled children are exhausted. We spend our lives keeping these children alive.”
Protestors object to Common Core math and language arts standards outside a State Board of Education meeting in Orlando.
The State Board of Education approved changes to the state’s K-12 standards that keeps calculus and cursive writing, and clarifies and adjusts when some standards are taught.
The board approved the changes despite dozens of parents and activists asking the board to rescind the standards. The vote marks another –possibly final — transformation for Florida’s K-12 math, English and language arts standards known as Common Core. Florida is one of 45 states which have fully adopted Common Core.
The standards outline what students should know at the end of each grade.
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said debate over the content of the standards is over.
“I think that the vote that the board took today certainly does lay to rest where we’re headed,” she said, “the direction we’re going with our standards. This is the right move.”
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