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.
redefinED has compiled the number of students with access to a school choice program.
The folks over at redefinED have compiled the enrollment figures for school choice programs across Florida, including McKay scholarship for students with disabilities, dual enrollment in college courses, home schooling and other options.
Their conclusion: That a growing number of Florida students and parents believe they should be able to choose the school program which works best for them.
The list is a useful reminder of both the breadth of options in Florida and the number of students with access to them.
The numbers are not an absolute ranking of the most- and least-efficient school districts in the state. In general, small, rural districts spend more per student than large, urban districts such as Orange County or Miami-Dade County.
Urban schools likely benefit from economies of scale — the more students you add, the less each additional student costs.
But the list does allow comparisons among similar districts.
USF President Judy Genshaft and Lakeland state Rep. Seth McKeel say there will be no layoffs at USF Poly for at least one year.
The University of South Florida may be closing its Lakeland campus, but those employees will have jobs for at least another year.
That’s according to USF president Judy Genshaft, who says employees will stay on staff until at least July 1, 2013. Some employees left a meeting last week worried they may lose their jobs as early as July 1 of this year.
USF Poly is closing its Lakeland campus as the school is transferring its land and buildings to create Florida Polytechnic University.
The New York education department released the controversial The Hare and the Pineapple reading test section Friday.
Monday’s post about New York’s education department officials throwing out the now-infamous “The Hare and the Pineapple” section of its statewide reading was a lesson in reading comprehension itself.
Readers disagreed on whether the section of the test was fair or not.
The University of Florida is scrapping a plan to trim and restructure its computer science and engineering department, according to the Gainesville Sun.
School president Bernie Machen cited “overwhelming negative response.”
A Forbes story about the proposed cuts made waves on social media sites (though the story misstated some of the facts.)
Krampf found four of 25 practice science questions used inaccurate definitions or had multiple answers that were scientifically correct.
But only one answer was correct in the eyes of the state Department of Education.
Maybe the life lesson learned from the FCAT science exam practice questions is more important to students than the test itself — that sussing out the right answer often depends on who is asking the question.
“They bend over backward to say ‘Yes, your science is correct, but we’re right,'” Krampf said. “‘And that’s the way it is.’
Florida Republican U.S. Senate candidate Connie Mack downplayed the importance of student loan interest rates during an interview with MSNBC this morning.
Mack said he felt other issues were more important to Floridians.
“I want to talk about what’s happening here in the state of Florida,” Mack said, referring to people losing jobs and their homes.
“I’m telling you that people who are watching your program today and if they’re in Florida, what they’re concerned about is jobs and the economy and how we’re going to balance a budget with a $16 trillion debt and a $1.4 trillion deficit. Chuck, this is what people down here are talking about…we will absolutely be able to cast a vote, and when that happens we’ll be happy to do so.”
The New York education department released the controversial The Hare and the Pineapple reading test section Friday.
The New York education department took the unusual step of releasing a state reading test section last week after Internet buzz about the confusing passage and questions built to a roar.
The passage was called the “Hare and the Pineapple,” and was authored by children’s author Daniel Pinkwater.
Typically test questions are not released to the public.
The story strikes the tone of a fable, with a talking pineapple challenging a talking hare to a race. The forest critters spend the rest of the story trying to suss out the pineapple’s intentions in throwing down the gauntlet to the hare.
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