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.
But opponents of the standards, known as Common Core, have turned up the heat throughout the spring and summer. The opposition hails from the political right and the political left, and their concerns range from whether local school districts and the state are ceding control over education, the quality of the standards and the amount of testing associated with Common Core.
That’s what lawmakers face as the return to Tallahassee next week for the first week of committee meetings to prepare for the 2014 legislative session.
Florida is in the midst of transitioning to the new standards, which outline what students should know at the end of each grade. The standards are scheduled to be used in every grade by the time classes start next fall.
The draft budget is one item on a busy State Board of Education agenda tomorrow. The board will also discuss what’s next in hiring a new education commissioner and a new rule for determining residency for in-state tuition.
In total, the agency’s $15.1 billion request for the budget year beginning July 1 is $65.3 million less than the current spending plan.
The plan calls for every school district to receive at least $75,000 for technology projects (pg. 139), with the remainder of the $40 million distributed according to student enrollment. The first priority for the money is improving computer networks, but districts which meet state benchmarks could use the money for devices.
But Florida still spends 3.9 percent less — $157 per student — on education now than it did in 2008 prior to the Great Recession. At least 34 states still spend less on education now than in 2008, with 13 states cutting spending by 10 percent or more over the period.
House Speaker Will Weatherford, a Republican, takes questions from the Suncoast Tiger Bay civic club.
We caught up with House Speaker Will Weatherford at yesterday’s meeting of the Suncoast Tiger Bay civic club.
Weatherford, a Wesley Chapel Republican, took questions about Obamacare, Stand Your Ground and requiring power customers to pay the cost of new nuclear plants up front.
Weatherford said he expects Common Core to be a big topic as lawmakers return to Tallahassee for committee meetings next week. Weatherford said he supports high academic standards, but admitted critics raised some legitimate concerns about Common Core.
Q: We’ve got the first bill introduced that would put a hold to [Common Core]…What kind of debate do you expect next year and what’s the plan up until next year to educate people about it and get the discussion going?
A: I think having a debate about standards is always a good thing to have.
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.
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.
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