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.
New York released the first round of results for its new test tied to Common Core standards.
Educators say the percentage of students meeting state goals on Florida’s math and reading tests will decline after the state switches to new standards known as Common Core.
How bad will it be? Check out the test results released today in New York.
Just 31 percent of New York students in third through eighth grades were proficient on the new math and reading exam. Last year, 65 percent were proficient in math and 55 percent were proficient in English on different exams.
New York is one of the first states in the country to use tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards. The standards have been fully adopted by 45 states — including Florida — and the District of Columbia.
House Education Committee Chair Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, right, and Senate Education Committee Chair Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn. Behning is a Common Core supporter. Kruse has voted for and helped sponsor legislation opposing the Common Core.
Indiana lawmakers held the first of a series of hearings on the future of Common Core State Standards yesterday.
The first hearing focused on the quality of the standards, while subsequent meetings will look at assessment and cost.
Many of those who spoke at the hearing are leading national voices both in favor and opposing the standards. Those not attending the hearing provided a running commentary on Twitter all afternoon.
Step Up For Students is hosting an online chat Tuesday discussing Florida's tax credit scholarship program.
We wanted to offer a plug to the folks over at Step Up For Students, who are hosting an online Q & A about the state’s tax credit scholarship program Tuesday.
Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, will answer questions about the program at redefinED.org beginning at 10:30 a.m. Step Up For Students is the non-profit which administers the tax credit scholarship program.
The program will serve more than 60,000 low-income students when classes start this fall. Each time lawmakers have expanded the tax credit cap, students have quickly snatched up the new scholarships.
Bennett called the charges “malicious” and “unfounded,” but said he did not want to become a distraction in Florida. The Associated Press first published emails, which showed Bennett and staff discussing how to make Christel House Academy an A-rated school.
“Every minute we spend defending the credibility of your commissioner because of what’s said 800 miles away,” Bennett said, “is a minute we waste that we should have been thinking about educating children in Florida.”
Bennett said the decision was “mine alone” and that Gov. Rick Scott offered his support.
“I end my tenure with my head held high,” Bennett said.
Second graders at Christel House Academy, a charter school in Indianapolis, play fraction games.
Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett is expected to resign today after the Associated Press published emails this week showing he and staff worked to change the state’s grading system in 2012, which boosted a charter school’s grade.
While we’re waiting for a press conference later this morning, here’s a link to a story our colleagues at StateImpact Indiana did on Christel House Academy, a charter school which went to a ‘A’ from a ‘C’ after the grading change.
An excerpt:
In Indianapolis Public Schools, roughly 80 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches, but only 45 percent of students pass state tests. At Indianapolis charter school Christel House Academy, 90 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches and about 70 percent pass state tests. Principal Carey Dahncke also says it costs $4000 less per pupil to educate students at his school than in Indianapolis Public Schools.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett is under criticism for emails revealing he worked to change Indiana's school grading system in 2012.
The Foundation for Florida’s Future and Michael Petrilli, writing at The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, are defending Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett’s decision to change Indiana’s school grading formula while leading Hoosier State schools in 2012.
The change boosted a notable charter school to an A grade from an initial C grade. Emails published by the Associated Press showed Bennett and staff scrambling to find a solution and concerned about the fallout if they didn’t.
Bennett said he was trying to preserve the integrity of the state’s formula. In a statement, foundation director Patricia Levesque said Bennett fixed an error:
“Commissioner Bennett and his department found and corrected a mistake that would have unfairly penalized 13 schools missing data for grades they did not even serve. They fixed a problem to be accurate and fair – any accusation otherwise is false and politically motivated.
“A-F school grading empowers parents to know how well schools are serving their children, in a transparent and easy to understand way. In 2012, Indiana was in its first year of its new school grading calculation, and there is always a learning process when implementing a policy new to a state.
“The best thing to do is to lay out the facts, which is what Commissioner Bennett is doing. Political attacks will come and go. The focus must remain on ensuring every student has access to a high-quality education that prepares them for success.”
Bennett now leads Florida schools and defended the change. The school, Christel House Academy, initially earned a C, but Bennett said Christel House performed as well as other A-rated charter schools.
Florida pioneered the A-through-F grading system for schools as a way to give parents a simple representation of school performance. Former Gov. Jeb Bush has traveled the country pitching the idea to other states.
And the system is constantly being tweaked to add or emphasize components of the formula (more on that later).
But It’s far less likely that Florida’s school grading formula could be adjusted to change the results of select schools. That’s because school districts usually come up with similar grades working independently from the state Department of Education.
That’s because no school grade could drop by more than one letter grade this year. School superintendents asked for the protection because more than 30 factor in the formula have changed the past two years.
So which district benefited the most from the safety net?
Statewide 17.2 percent of schools avoided a larger drop. Most of the state’s large districts — Orange, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Hillsborough — bested that average.
Small rural and midsized districts — Citrus, Charlotte and Lake, for instance — had the highest percentage of safety net schools (though low numbers of schools in some districts mean a large percentage of schools qualified.)
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett stands by a 2012 decision to alter the grade of an Indiana charter school.
Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett stands by his decision to boost the grade of an Indiana charter schools in 2012, when Bennett was the Hoosier State’s elected superintendent.
The Associated Press published emails Monday which showed Bennett and his staff discussed ways to boost the grade of Christel House charter school after learning the school’s initial grade was a C according to the Indiana school grading formula.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is the highest-profile Florida Republican to oppose Common Core State Standards.
Add U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to those opposing shared education standards fully adopted by Florida and 44 other states.
The standards, known as Common Core, have been under fire from those on the political right and left. Conservatives argue the federal government coerced states with money to adopt the standards, undermining local control of education. Those on the left protest increased testing.
“Common Core started out as a well-intentioned effort to develop more rigorous curriculum standards,” Rubio told the Tampa Bay Times. “However, it is increasingly being used by the Obama Administration to turn the Department of Education into what is effectively a national school board. This effort to coerce states into adhering to national curriculum standards is not the best way to help our children attain the best education. Empowering parents, local communities and the individual states is the best approach.”
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