Sarah Gonzalez was the Miami-based reporter for StateImpact Florida until March 2013. Previously, she worked at NPR in D.C. where she was a national desk reporter, web and show producer as an NPR Kroc Fellow. The San Diego native has worked as a reporter and producer for KPBS in San Diego and KALW in San Francisco, covering under-reported issues like youth violence, food insecurity and immigration. Her work has been awarded an SPJ Sigma Delta Chi and regional Edward R. Murrows. She graduated from Mills College in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and journalism.
That list was released last week — to criticism that it relied mostly on FCAT scores and did not take poverty into account.
So, my colleague John O’Connor and I wondered how U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan felt about the rankings. He made a stop in South Florida last week to talk about boosting college completion rates and making college more affordable.
During a town-hall style meeting at Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Broward County, Duncan told the crowd of high school seniors and their parents something that stuck with us.
Duncan said, “The problem with No Child Left Behind is that it measured [student] success by not being called a failure.”
Duncan also talked about the stigma of being called a failure. So I asked Duncan what he thought of Florida’s new school ranking system that labels schools first to last. I thought he’d feel the same about the rankings as he does about NCLB. Continue Reading →
Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Gainesville, objected to a bill granting the Florida-born children of undocumented immigrants access to in-state tuition rates.
A bill that would allow Florida-born U.S. citizens to pay in-state college tuition fees regardless of the immigration status of their parents, died yesterday in the Florida Senate committee on Higher Education.
Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Gainesville Republican who chairs the committee, interrupted a 20-year-old Miami Dade College student, Carla Montes, during her emotional testimony.
Montes was born in Miami and graduated from Ronald Reagan High School in Doral. But her parents are undocumented, so she has to pay the out-of-state college tuition rate which is three times higher. Montes told the committee the policy is unfair because she is a lawful Florida resident.
“No, no, no, we’re talking about your parents,” Oelrich interrupted, according to the Associated Press. “That’s how we establish residency in the state of Florida, by the status of your parents.”
Former New College of Florida student, Nan Freeman was killed at age 18 while picketing for better farm worker conditions in Florida.
Students have been leading the way in the Occupy Movement—just part of a long tradition of young people leading protest movements in America.
Forty years ago this week, a freshmen at New College of Florida became the first of five martyrs of Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers.
Four are men. All farm workers.
One is Nan Freeman, an 18-year-old who was killed while picketing at a sugar mill in Palm Beach County.
At school, people called her “Morning Glory,” because they liked to say she made their mornings glorious.
Freeman was born premature and almost didn’t make it home from the hospital. She was always fragile, and from a very young age, dedicated to fighting injustice.
“She wasn’t a dope taker, a setter of fires, a bomb planter, or a screamer of epithets. But she believed in people, in causes, and in its purest and most ennobling sense, love of her fellow man.”
Florida International Academy charter school students in Opa Locka, Florida.
The Sunshine State ranks 3rd in the country for having some of the best charter school laws, according to a study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS).
Each of the 42 states with charter school laws are scored on how well their laws support charter school growth, accountability and quality.
Actual school performance isn’t a factor in the NAPCS study. The study only looks at the charter school laws on the books. And they compare Florida laws to a model charter school application and contract that NAPCS created in 2009.
“It’s challenging for school boards to do a great job of authorizing essentially what some view as their competition.”
-Todd Ziebarth, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Florida came in 2nd place last year, even though the state’s charter schools were disproportionately more likely to be graded an “F” school than traditional public schools.
Of the 31 “F” grades handed out by the state, 15 were handed to charter schools.
Governor Rick Scott keeps saying he will veto any budget bill that does not significantly increase funding  for Florida public schools. And he’s proposing an extra billion dollars.
But it turns out not all of that money would actually be new money for schools, according to the Governor’s top education policy chief, Scott Kittel.
Here’s the breakdown of the proposed $1.02 billion:
The Supreme Court ruled today that religious employees of a church, including private, religious schools cannot sue for employee discrimination, according to the AP.
In the Michigan case, the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., was sued by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Cheryl Perich, a teacher at the school who sometimes also led chapel service. Perich taught one religious class and four secular classes four days a week.
Perich tried to return to work from disability leave after being diagnosed with narcolepsy in 2004. The school had hired a substitute for that year, and Perich was fired after she threatened to sue for her job back. Perich sought anti-discrimination protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The state has fewer “F” schools and more “A” and “B” schools, according to new high school grades released by the state.
The Florida Department of Education said, “Based on the results… school recognition funds will be determined and will reward schools that have sustained high student performance or demonstrated substantial improvement in student performance.”
The “A” Through “F” Schools For The 2010-2011 School Year:Â These figures include all public high schools and combination schools that serve high school grade levels.
F = 6 schools earned an “F” compared to 11 schools the year before.
D = 25 schools earned a “D” compared to 57 schools the year before.
C = 72 schools earned a “C” compared to 69 schools the year before.
B = 224 schools earned a “B” compared to 188 schools the year before
A = 147 schools earned an “A” compared to 145 schools the year before.
Isabella, 8, was forced to leave Miami Children's Museum Charter School after her mom, Miami School board member Raquel Regalado, learned Isabella has autism. Now, Isabella is at a traditional public school in Miami with a program for kids with hearing impairments.
Earlier this month, an investigation by StateImpact Florida and the Miami Herald revealed that most Florida charter schools are not enrolling students with severe disabilities, like autism or cerebral palsy.
The findings caused Miami-Dade School Board member Raquel Regalado to share her own story of how her daughter with autism was forced to leave a Miami charter school.
“People think that parents choose not to apply to charter schools, and that’s not true,” said Regalado.
“And within the special needs community, parents know, why even apply? Because legally they have the ability to deny you access. That’s why I wanted to tell people that it happened to me.”
Tonya Whitlock and her son Tres, 17, say they have not been able to get Tres into Pivot Charter School near Tampa. Tres has cerebral palsy, and the family said the charter school is concerned they cannot provide all the services Tres needs.
This month, an investigation by StateImpact Florida revealed that more than 86% of Florida charter schools don’t serve a single student with a severe disability, compared to half of traditional public schools.
State education officials say no school is required to take every student with every disability. But lawyers are divided on whether charter schools can legally turn kids away.
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