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.
Florida is starting the transition to the new Common Core standards and PARCC assessments this year, beginning with kindergarteners and first graders. The transition will take three years.
Common Core and PARCC are part of a national effort among states to standardized U.S. curriculum and assessments in order to make more accurate comparisons of state school performance. The new assessments will also allow the comparison of U.S. students to international students.
The new tests are intended to eliminate the concept of “teaching to the test” because the curriculum emphasizes problem solving and analytical thinking and not memorization of facts or lists.
Florida’s policy of retaining third graders based on state standardized test scores has a positive long-term impact on those students, according to a new study from the Brookings Institute.
Retention only works when the students who are held back are provided with extra instruction and the money to fund those programs, according to Harvard University researcher Martin R. West.
Hillsborough County schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia says she's "committed" to the district.
Hillsborough County schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia says she’s committed to staying in the county.
Elia has been suggested as a replacement for state Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson, who has resigned his post and will leave at the end of the month.
Elia didn’t rule out the job, but says she has other priorities.
“I have a lot to do in Hillsborough and I’m very committed to Hillsborough,” she says.
Just 5 percent of new Hillsborough County teachers did not return this year. That's down from 28 percent two years ago. The district credits a mentoring program funded by the Gates Foundation.
Hillsborough County schools are retaining more than nine of every ten new teachers they hire with the help of a mentoring program funded by a $100 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
That turnover doesn’t help students and the training costs are a drag on tight school district budgets.
Two years ago 28 percent of Hillsborough schools’ new teachers left after the first year. That’s when the district started using Gates grant money to pair up rookies with veteran mentors who had been pulled out of the classroom.
Hillsborough superintendent MaryEllen Elia says the rookies get tips on classroom management, lesson plans and how to make those plans connect with students.
Leon County schools were most likely to seclude students last year, while Orange and Hillsborough county schools restrained students most often.
Leon County schools led the state in the number of students put into seclusion for behavior or safety reason in 2012, according to Florida Department of Education data.
Leon County schools used seclusion almost twice as often as the next district on the list, Pinellas County schools.
Orange and Hillsborough county schools were most likely to physically restrain students — more than 900 times each during the past school year.
Seclusion and restraint are most often used on students with disabilities. School officials say the techniques are often necessary to protect students and staff.
But education will get the spotlight at a handful of events held at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
Hillsborough County schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia, University of South Florida student body president Brian Goff and George P. Bush, eldest son of Florida’s former governor, will join a panel on issues facing young Americans.
Independents can't vote in Republican or Democratic primaries, but they have a reason to head to the polls today: School board.
Hillsborough County Republican Party chairman Art Wood reminds political independents why they still have a reason to head to the polls today — it may be the only chance to vote for school board.
Non-partisan races such as school board and judges are being held across Florida. If you want a say, Wood recommends visiting your polling site before it closes at 7 p.m.
“Even though they’re a non-partisan race you really need to go vote,” Wood says, “because your selection of the judge and your selection of the school board is going to be determined today — unless there’s a runoff forced by the vote count.”
Brady Spencer sits with her son Brendon. Brendon has Asperger's, ADHD, and mood disorders. A few years ago she decided to take him out of his Mantua, Ohio public school, where he would often be sent to the hallway or a spare office during class.
Readers chimed in saying they’ve seen different data. And we’ve figured out why.
The Florida Department of Education keeps two sets of student seclusion and restraint data.
Every incident is supposed to be recorded in both reports. But the FLDOE says school districts may not know that.
One set of FLDOE data shows more than four times as many students were isolated in seclusion rooms than a second set of data we used, the School Environmental Safety Incident Report (SESIR).
Neither of those figures probably reflects the total instances of seclusion and restraint, though state officials say school districts should be recording incidents of seclusion and restraint in both reports.
So it’s worth revisiting a piece we wrote in April, looking at how Democrats were working to politicize cuts to federal college aid included in the proposed House budget:
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