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 Fortune magazine profile says that Gov. Rick Scott wants to rank every Florida school.
Fortune magazine is out with a new profile of Gov. Rick Scott this week that discusses what he’s learned in his first year in office.
The profile hits all the standards marks — Photo of state seal-emblazoned cowboy boots? Check. — but also includes this intriguing detail:
I’m sitting in the governor’s Tallahassee office as Scott quizzes his education chief on a plan to rank the state’s 3,800 schools, first to last. The concept of imposing new metrics is pure Scott and dates, he is explaining, to his Columbia/HCA days, when he would rank, say, emergency rooms, to distill what separated the best from the worst. “Really, if you think about some of this stuff, it’s pretty simplistic,” he says. It’s also exactly the kind of thing that rankles state employees and constituents (“shareholders,” in Scott parlance).
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is one high-profile critic of a teacher salary study from conservative researchers.
Remember that study from two conservative think tanks that argued teachers were overpaid by 50 percent?
The study concluded that taxpayers were “overcharged” by $120 billion each year. That’s the difference between what teachers are paid in salary and benefits and what they would earn in a comparable private sector job.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan rebuked the study, writing in U.S. News and World Report that it “asks the wrong question,” “ignores facts that conflict with its conclusions” and “insults teachers and demeans the profession.”
The study’s authors, Jason Richwine and Andrew C. Biggs, fired back this week in an op-ed published by Education Week:
Is New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott sending a message to charter schools?
New York City’s decision to close a C-rated charter school has sparked a national conversation about what kind of performance should be expected of charter schools.
The school had been previously warned about its performance.
Some observers say the closure of Peninsula Preparatory Charter School is a signal charters need to do more. Is it enough for charter schools to be average, or should they be better than district schools?
Florida’s falling rank on a nation education survey is evidence lawmakers need to increase school funding, state education officials said Thursday morning.
Florida fell to 11th from 5th on the annual “Quality Counts” rankings released by Education Week this morning. Florida was ranked lower in both academic achievement and financing in the survey.
Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, has asked the GOP-controlled Legislature to add $1 billion to the school budget this year.
“We know that our educational system has been strained by the economic downturn,” education commissioner Gerard Robinson said in a statement. “The additional investment in a high-quality education will not show up immediately, but it will be a factor in our success as we move forward.”
The Academy of Arts and Minds in Coconut Grove used to be a shopping mall. But no one was buying space, so the owner of the property founded a charter school and now rents his property to his school. The campus still looks like a shopping mall. There are wrap-around balconies on every floor and the classrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows very much like a store front.
Real estate investment firms have spied a new market in charter schools and are snatching up properties anticipating growth, according to Bloomberg.
Among the industry leaders is a fund founded by former tennis star and charter school advocate Andre Agassi. Perhaps the most interesting nugget from the piece is this: Leasing charter schools property is more lucrative than commercial property:
For Entertainment Properties, the charter-school investment yield is 9 percent to 10 percent, according to Keith Bokota, an analyst at Principal Global Investors. That compares with November’s 7 percent average capitalization rate for commercial- property deals of more than $5 million, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc., a New York-based property research company.
The Canyon-Agassi Charter School’s Facilities Fund appeals to investors seeking a good return on their money while doing something positive for education, said Glenn Pierce, its chief executive officer. Investors in the Los Angeles-based fund — which lists Citigroup Inc., Intel Corp. (INTC), the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the University of Michigan among its backers — can expect yields in the “low teens after fees,” he said.
Teachers and other union members camped out at the Wisconsin state house last year to protest a law stripping collective bargaining rights.
What a difference an election can make.
Last year Legislatures across the country — buoyed by a Tea Party sweep in 2010 elections — challenged teachers and other public employee unions over their ability to collectively bargain pay and other benefits. Florida Gov. Rick Scott wanted to limit collective bargaining in his initial 20-page education plan.
The battle was nationwide news in Wisconsin and later in the year in Ohio, where voters easily overturned a state law stripping collective bargaining rights for public employees.
That fight doesn’t appear to be coming to Florida this year, according to an education expert who previously advocated the legislation.
Patricia Levesque, director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future, said she’s heard no talk of trying to strip collective bargaining rights in the Legislature this year.
More students and less tax money means Gov. Rick Scott's proposed $1 billion for school won't go quite as far replacing budget cuts.
Gov. Rick Scott insists lawmakers add $1 billion for K-12 education this year, but that money won’t go as far replenishing cuts as first thought according to a Legislative budget update this morning.
Scott Kittel, Scott’s education policy adviser, told a House budget subcommittee this morning that the state now expects more students than initially expected. Property tax revenues are also expected to decline more than first projected, he said.
The net result is an additional $20 million of that proposed $1 billion is needed just to cover current costs and won’t replace any of the money cut from schools since 2008.
As PoltiFact noted after Scott’s speech yesterday, more than 40 percent of that proposed new money will cover rising costs or declining tax revenues. The remaining $590 million in Scott’s proposal would help replenish the $1.35 billion lawmakers cut from K-12 education in the current budget year (much of it was expiring one-time federal money the state did not replace).
House Speaker Dean Cannon said House members have muddied the mission of state universities.
Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon said state lawmakers trying to benefit their own parochial interests have muddied the mission of the state’s higher education system.
Cannon, R-Winter Park, said the House will study how to improve the system because the state’s economy is tied to a “strong and dynamic” higher education system, according to prepared remarks sent to the media.
Cannon did not promise a bill — in fact he said it’s up to the Board of Governors and not the Legislature to set the university system’s priorities. But Cannon said both the House and the Senate would have a conversation about overhauling higher education.
He looks a little stern here, but Gov. Rick Scott made a funny in his State of the State speech Tuesday.
The one truly funny moment during Gov. Rick Scott’s State of the State speech came when he referenced his much-publicized spat with anthropologists earlier this year.
In arguing for the need to better match college graduates with open jobs, Scott cited anthropologists as a degree Florida probably didn’t need any more of.
In Tuesday’s speech Scott had a little fun.
“Our efforts on education cannot end here,” Scott said, according to the prepared version of his speech. “Florida has a rich cultural history surrounding its colleges and universities.
“Don’t take my word for it. Ask any anthropologist.”
Gov. Rick Scott’s speech is scheduled to start at 11:30. We’re keeping an eye on education issues, including the budget, higher education, school choice and legislative issues.
Follow it here:
About StateImpact
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
