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.
Education should play a lesser role this year, but there's still plenty of bills before lawmakers.
The biggest issues affecting education debate in Tallahassee this year may have nothing to do with classrooms.
The once-every-ten-years redistricting, South Florida casinos and overhauling state insurance rules should provoke contentious debate, lawmakers and education advocates said. Those bills could squeeze out education as the session’s marquee issue.
Last year the Legislature approved a sweeping bill requiring teacher evaluations and performance-based pay. The law also eliminated long-term teacher contracts.
But that doesn’t mean education will be forgotten when the legislature resumes today. Lawmakers are considering bills that would expand access to online courses, allow students to graduate high school early and give parents more control over restructuring low-performing schools.
Rep. Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, is chairman of the House education committee.
Last year’s big legislative education debate could also be this year’s big issue, according to the chairman of the Florida House education committee.
Rep. Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, told the Florida Times-Union that a top priority was to make sure districts were making progress on a law that requires teacher evaluations, implements performance-based pay and eliminates long-term contracts, among other changes.
A controversial bill that, among other things, tethered teacher pay to student performance and put an end to tenure passed last session after former Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a similar bill in 2010.
In an interview this week, St. Augustine Republican Bill Proctor, chairman of the House Education Committee, wants to make sure the 43-page law is implemented correctly. That and tackling higher education reforms will be his committee’s top two priorities.
“We just want to make sure things go smoothly,” Proctor said of the law. “There is just so much there that I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure things go well.”
Florida teachers at A-rated schools still have a few more weeks before they see their bonus.
Florida educators at high-performing schools will have to wait until at least early February for their state bonuses, according to the Department of Education.
But Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said the agency still must wait for any appeals to be heard.
Etters expected the bonuses would be sent out in early February.
The bonuses will pay about $70 per student enrolled at the school, and staff decide how to split the bonuses.The state will pay a total of $129.9 million in bonuses.
Because the anniversary is looming, I am getting lots of statements on the law and its impact, most offering a mixed review of its effectiveness. I listened Tuesday to a panel by RAND Corporation education experts. I will write about the panel later this week, but the consensus was that the law was effective in directing attention to previously ignored students, but that it was too proscriptive and overly reliant on multiple choice testing that narrowed instruction.
But one group that sees little benefit from No Child is FairTest, which has issued a report maintaining the controversial law “failed badly both in terms of its own goals and more broadly” and led to a decade of “educational stagnation.”
What do you think? Did the benefits of NCLB — such as the focus on subgroup performance — outweigh the negatives of the law? How will NCLB be remembered? Should it be renewed?
“Five of seven Manatee District High Schools scored enough points to qualify for an A grade from the state,” a press release read.
What the carefully worded release did not say is that five of seven Manatee high school actually earned an A — and it’s worth asking why.
The Florida Department of Education includes a lot of factors when calculating school grades: Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores; high-level college prep courses such as Advanced Placement; graduation rates and performance on SAT or other college entrance exams.
This was a good year for us at StateImpact Florida.
We launched six months ago with the mission of becoming Florida’s source for education news and analysis brought to you by NPR and WUSF in Tampa, WLRN in Miami, and WJCT in Jacksonville.
We had a few successes and learned a few lessons along the way. Here’s a look back at our biggest, best and favorite stories from 2011.
Rep. Will Weatherford is the next Florida House Speaker. The Pasco County Republican also was involved in trying to open a rejectd Pasco County charter school.
When the Legislative session opens next month, expect these folks to make the most news — or maybe just the most noise.
Gov. Rick Scott — Scott got much of what he wanted last year. The first bill he signed into law — with a press event at a charter school — required statewide teacher evaluations.
This year Scott has thrown out two markers: He’d like $1 billion added to K-12 budgets and he wants state universities to graduate students in fields which expect job growth, such as math, science and engineering.
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