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.
A new report details the cost of missing school. Florida is one of six states which tracks chronic absenteeism.
As many as 15 million students are missing at least one in 10 days of school every year, reducing their chance of graduating from high school or college.
At a weekend education conference in Philadelphia, GetSchooled and other experts cited three main reasons for chronic absenteeism:
Lack of awareness — Many parents don’t realize that missing two days of school a month can add up to a lot of lost time. In addition, some parents of kindergarteners and first graders don’t realize that their kids need to be in school every day.
Florida's board of education is meeting today to debate changing scoring requirements on the state writing test.
The Florida Board of Education is holding an emergency meeting this morning to debate whether to lower the passing score on the writing portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
Scott has appointed a panel, but Goldstein says the recommendations are already written: Sell out state universities and turn them into glorified vocational institutions.
The Florida Department of Education is recommending lowering the passing score on the FCAT writing test to 3.5 from 4.
Florida’s Board of Education has called an emergency meeting tomorrow to talk about state writing test standards.
According to materials the board has posted online, the state Department of Education is recommending lowering the required score needed to pass the test to 3.5 from 4 (out of six).
That might be because the percentage of students passing the test has nose-dived this year after the state board increased grading standards this year.
The change would dramatically increase the percentage of students who would earn a passing grade score this year, according to the report.
Florida students will have to take an extra hour of reading classes next year if they do not score high enough on state tests.
Students will find out in June if they’ll be required to take an extra hour of reading instruction next school year because of low Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
But we didn’t have to wait long to get your reaction to the new law.
Jose likes the idea, citing the benefits of additional class time in Hong Kong and elsewhere:
This is a good policy and we ought to stand behind it. We spend more on education than virtually any country in the world and our results are dismal. We have to buffer the adverse effects of variable household environments by extending the school day and perhaps shortening summer breaks for students that are falling behind.
Seven Florida high school’s ranked among the nation’s top 50.
But we thought it might be interesting to see how U.S. News’ ranking compared to the rankings the Florida Department of Education released last year.
A handful of schools showed a difference in the two rankings, but for the most part the rankings aligned. Florida’s top-ranked high school, Collegiate High School at Northwest Florida State College, does not show up in the U.S. News rankings at all.
Teachers rally against proposed state budget cuts in March 2011.
Contract negotiations between Florida’s school districts and teacher unions is in full swing, but district face very different budget situations.
Here’s a roundup of labor news around the state from the past week:
Palm Beach County is facing a $31.7 million budget shortfall, but the teachers’ union is asking for raises, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Negotiations are expected to begin this month.
Sarasota County teachers can expect their first pay bump after four years of salary cuts and paying more for benefits, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. The district and union have agreed to a 2.2 percent bonus for next year’s contract.
Teacher candidates at the University of Massachusetts are objecting to a video-based evaluation program.
Teachers-in-training at the University of Massachusetts are leading a protest against a pilot national teacher evaluation program being developed by testing giant Pearson and Stanford University, the New York Times reports.
The students and their instructor are worried that turning over two 10-minute videos and a 40-page test to a faceless evaluator will not produce a useful assessment.
Nearly all of the 68 middle and high school teaching candidates have declined to participate.
New York education officials are tossing a math question from the state test.
New York education officials are throwing out a question on a state standardized test — the fourth time in a month the state has had to do so, according to the New York Times‘ Schoolbook blog.
This time it’s a math question above above the heads of fifth graders that’s causing the problem. To solve it, students would need to know the Pythagorean theorem and imperfect square roots — two concepts fifth graders have yet to learn.
New York’s testing contractor, Pearson, also holds Florida’s testing contract.
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