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.
Miami-Dade teacher Jeremy Glazer will be writing about life in the classroom.
We are introducing a series taking a closer look at teaching and schools through the eyes of Jeremy Glazer, a Miami-Dade County Public Schools teacher.
Glazer will be writing about the issues he sees in the classroom, such as the unintentional message about priorities state requirements send to teachers and students. He’ll also tap the Public Insight Network to find out what other Florida teachers, parents and students are thinking.
Glazer just completed his eighth year teaching and not only has worked in a range of schools, but has also had experience in the policy-making world, serving as a legislative analyst and speechwriter for Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson. He will be using this combination of views—a policy lens and his classroom eyes—to examine some of the complex issues confronting teachers in Florida’s classrooms.
Sen. John Legg, R-Port Richey, says he does not like the idea of a pencil and paper option when Florida is scheduled to switch to new state tests in 2015.
Florida shouldn’t have one group of students taking the next generation standardized test online while other students use pencil and paper versions, according to the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
Sen. John Legg, R-Port Richey, said students should all be taking the same kind of test.
“I have some great reservations about having two types of tests,” Legg said. “We need to phase out the paper and pencil and we need to phase in the digital. I’m in the camp of we need to do all digital and we need to do it all at once.”
The analysis tracked fourth and eighth grade math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the model test for comparing student performance across state lines. The purpose was to check differences in student gains now that states have been released from some federal No Child Left Behind law requirements — as Florida has been.
Overall, the improvement in Florida student scores was the equivalent of more than half a year’s worth of learning averaged over the four subjects tested during the eight-year period. Twelve states and the District of Columbia showed more improvement than Florida.
But Florida’s improvement ranked eighth nationally for students who qualify for the federal free and reduced price lunch program, an often-used proxy for poverty. Those students’ scores improved by the equivalent of a full year’s worth of learning for each of the four subjects tested over the period studied.
Those results place Florida among what Education Sector authors John Chubb and Constance Clark call “high-performing states.” And the authors say those high-performing states share some common policies: They set high expectations, have developed their own systems to measure school performance and assist low-performing schools and are trying to measure and support effective teaching and leadership.
“The biggest lesson that I personally have learned is what accountability means. And what transparency means. And having the correct information.
“We just came out of a season where we had a superintendent that did not keep us informed and we didn’t have correct information, even when we asked for it.
“I started my term in 2010. The numbers that I had, that I was reviewing, didn’t add up. And when I would ask questions or for documentation I was considered a bad board member because I wasn’t going along and I wasn’t being a good team member.
Advocates for new science standards are asking Florida supporters to speak up.
Advocates for new science standards are urging Florida residents to voice their support.
The concept for the science standards is separate, but similar to that of the math and English language arts standards which comprise the Common Core. Florida, 44 other states and the District of Columbia have fully adopted the Common Core standards.
The California-based National Center for Science Education is urging Florida members to voice their support for the standards, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, during a comment period this month. Supporters are worried the Florida Department of Education might back away from the science standards the public response is negative.
The standards include teaching students about evolution and human-caused climate change. State education leaders are reviewing the standards across the country and deciding whether they want to adopt them.
“We understand that the NGSS isn’t perfect and some folks have legitimate concerns about them,” three members of Florida Citizens for Science wrote in an email to members. “But overall, the NGSS are a significant improvement over our current state standards. Quite frankly, it’s unlikely that any future state-level effort could match the effort and resources that went into the NGSS.”
The foundation saw a need to improve science, technology, math and engineering education, or STEM, in Sarasota and Charlotte counties, says Chris Pfahler, who manages the foundation’s STEMsmart program. So the Gulf Coast Community Foundation came up with a plan which will eventually renovate and equip 142 middle school classrooms.
The non-profit helped raise money for the $2.2 million project, which included securing pledges for equipment from Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard. They also guided the project through its conception, seeking out design tips from teachers and students.
School districts around the state may need to consider a similar transformation to their classrooms. That’s because lawmakers have required Florida school districts to deliver have of all instruction digitally by the fall of 2015.
“We had a guy from the state who talked about the technology issues,” Pfahler says of a recent meeting. “He said: ‘A third of the money is going to come from the state. A third of the money is going to come from the school district. And a third of the money is going to come from…wherever.’”
Actress Mayim Bialik works on math problems with Sarasota County middle school students (from left) Amanda Folsom, Daphne Waggener and Gracie Brasacchio.
The algebra problem asked the Sarasota County middle school students to figure out how much Sheldon, Amy and Howard – characters on the television show “The Big Bang Theory” – spent on tickets and popcorn while seeing “The Lord of The Rings.”
The students talked through their work in small groups around the room. A tutor helped them set up the equations.
The tutor? Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy on “The Big Bang Theory.”
“We would usually set one equal to the other and then substitute it in,” Bialik said to Brookside Middle School math teacher Brenda Fuoco. “It’s the same concept, right?”
“Absolutely, I teach them three different methods,” Fuoco said. “That’s their least favorite method.”
“Why is that their least favorite?” Bialik asked. “That’s the most logical to me?”
Bialik, 37, is known her television roles, such as the title character on the 90s sitcom “Blossom.”
Bialik has also earned a Ph.D. as a neurobiologist, taught and now works with Texas Instruments to promote science, technology, math and engineering education. But the real star of her visit Tuesday to Sarasota Middle School were new high-tech science and math classrooms.
A new Florida law targets bullying, particularly online.
Last week Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill targeting bullying, HB 609, into law.
The law makes three big changes: Students can be bullied publicly or privately; defines cyberbullying as harassment using electronic means, such as email or impersonating someone online; and allows schools to get involved if off-campus bullying affects the targeted student’s on-campus education.
The law does not require school districts to monitor off-campus activity. The law also requires schools to teach staff and students about how to identify bullying and what to do if they see it.
We’ve posted the new law and noted some of the key changes, after the jump.
In part, it’s because math lessons are more discrete. A quiz can tell you which math concepts a student is having problems with, as a teacher notes in the story.
But reading builds on many skills — vocabulary, grammar, contextual knowledge — and it is difficult to pinpoint just which one is the trouble spot. Reading deficiency may be more of a problem than math deficiency long term, educators say.
Tea Party members, Lois Miller, right, and Charlie Batchelder, left, hold signs to protest Common Core across the street from Marion Technical Institute where school administrators were meeting on Southeast Fort King Street in Ocala, Fla. on Wednesday, April 3, 2013.
Tea party groups see opposition to Common Core standards as the issue to revitalize a political movement which failed to defeat Democratic President Barack Obama in last year’s election and lost a court challenge to Obama’s health care law.
“This is the issue that could change things for the tea party movement,” said Lee Ann Burkholder, founder of the 9/12 Patriots in York, Pa., which drew 400 people — more than twice the usual turnout — to a recent meeting to discuss agitating against Common Core.
The standards have been fully adopted by Florida, 44 other states and the District of Columbia. Common Core lays out what students are expected to know in math and English language arts by the end of each grade.
The standards streamline the number of topics schools teach children in each subject. Common Core also requires teachers ask students what they know and to prove how they know it.
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