Our partners at WLRN put together a special education hour of the Sunshine Economy this week. The conversation ranged from a talk with Broward County’s superintendent about Common Core to a chat with a group of high school students about diversity in the classroom:
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School's out for summer.
In this edition of The Sunshine Economy:
The school year may be over, but the next chapter in public education begins in less than three months: Common Core State Standards.
However, Florida public school kids won’t follow Common Core, at least not in name. The state has dubbed the standards “Florida Standards.” Still, the principles of Common Core remain: more rigorous education standards to better prepare students for college and careers.
The employment stakes of education are huge. In May, the U.S. job market marked a milestone. The number of jobs created since the recession ended is now equal to the number of jobs lost during the economic collapse. But the recovery is lumpy to say the least. The job gains are concentrated among those with at least some college education. The number of people who have solely a high school diploma or less and a job remains well below what it was before the recession. Continue Reading →
A summer job used to cover more of college than it does now.
A summer job for a college student isn’t what it used to be.
Anya Kamenetz from NPR’s education team explored the economics of rising college costs over the years—and the comparatively creeping change in minimum wage. What she found is that a summer job just doesn’t cover what it used to:
“Let’s look at the numbers for today’s public university student. They’ve all changed in the wrong direction. In 2013-2014, the full cost of attendance for in-state students was $18,391. The maximum Pell Grant didn’t keep pace with that. It’s $5,550. That leaves our hypothetical student on the hook for $12,841.”
You canread the full storyhere and listen to the conversation from All Things Considered:
Leslie Augustin, 13, an eighth-grade student in the guitar class, gets individual attention from Jonathan De Leon, founder of the guitar program at the school.
When Jonathan De Leon left his home state of New Jersey to teach at North Miami Middle School in 2007, he immediately saw possibility — both in the school and the students.
A post-graduate teaching job in an affluent neighborhood in Philadelphia quickly convinced De Leon that North Miami Middle — persistently a low-achieving school, according to the Education Transformation Office, an arm of Miami-Dade Schools that supports targeted schools — was the place he could make a significant impact.
When he arrived, De Leon says he remembers a “nonexistent” music program with no instrumental electives and an over-enrolled chorus class, the only option available.
“I started here in 2007 as a social studies teacher and it was both challenging and wonderful,” said De Leon, 28. “Teaching history was great, but my passion has always been music.”
That passion gave impetus to what administrators, teachers and students at the school are calling a culture change: a transformation that started with the music program.
Correction: An earlier version of this story identified Michael Kamen as the director of the the film, Mr. Holland’s Opus. He in fact is the composer who wrote the film score.
Thomas McNabb points out the changes made to an Ocoee High School science classroom, part of a $14 million program at seven schools to test the best ways to upgrade school technology.
Ocoee High School just west of Orlando opened less than a decade ago. But technology-wise, the 2,300-student school is already obsolete.
Ocoee is part of $14 million project to outfit seven Orange County schools with fast, wireless Internet and new classroom technology.
The first step was ripping out and replacing miles of fiber optic cable and adding devices teachers could use with their lessons.
Orange County schools’ infrastructure director Thomas McNabb walked through a science classroom, pointing out the changes.
The district added an interactive board at the front of the classroom and and a speaker system to amplify the teacher.
“It may or may not have had wireless, it just depended,” McNabb said. “There were 50 or 70 wireless access points throughout the building. The classroom amplification system was not in play here. All of that was nonexistent at…the end of last school year.”
Orange County schools are preparing for two technology-related deadlines. Florida lawmakers are requiring half of all classroom instruction is delivered digitally by 2015.
But the first deadline comes early next year when Florida students take a new suite of online exams. Millions of U.S. students will join them.
The tests are tied to the new Common Core standards fully adopted by 44 states.
The exhibit hall at FETC, an annual education technology conference in Orlando.
Marketplace, the daily business news show from American Public Media, is launching a new series on education technology.
The U.S. education market is worth $2 trillion, Adriene Hill reports.
The first story takes a look at where venture capitalists are spending their money. Some are investing in projects like Remind101, which lets teachers send out mass reminders for homework, field trips and any other deadlines.
Florida State University is facing criticism over the influence of donor money in the classroom.
There are questions about whether a nonprofit founded by a prominent conservative activist has too much influence at a public college.
Florida State University rewrote its agreement with the Charles Koch Foundation after some on campus complained that the relationship undermined the school’s academic integrity. But critics say it still gives donors with their own agendas too much influence in the classroom.
NPR’s Greg Allen reports:
Editor’s note: The original version of this post inaccurately described the Charles Koch Foundation. The post has been updated.
This story is part of a series from The Hechinger Report and StateImpact Florida looking at how Florida schools are getting ready for Common Core standards. Read — and listen to — the first two stories here andhere.
It makes sense that Florida’s new K-12 math and language arts standards based on Common Core will mean changes for those classes.
But science, social studies – even gym classes – will also change when every grade starts using the standards this fall.
At Tampa’s Monroe Middle School, near MacDill Air Force base, science coach Janet Steuart said the standards are bringing changes to her classes too.
John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida
Monroe Middle School science teacher Andrea Groves works with a student. Many science classes will add more reading and writing assignments as Florida finishes the switch to new K-12 math and language arts standards this fall.
“There will be more emphasis on how you write in science,” Steuart said. “How you write with clarity. How you take a position; you defend it; you use evidence, pictures, text – whatever you have to defend it.”
Common Core outlines what students should know in math and English classes at the end of each grade. The emphasis on writing is the third, embedded set of standards within Common Core – literacy.
Common Core calls for students to read and write more outside of language arts classes. And they should pull evidence from their assignments to support their work.
That might mean more non-fiction books or reading historical or technical documents in addition to close readings of classic novels or poetry.
Steuart says there’s this writing assignment as an example.
“Defend the classification of the platypus as being a mammal,” she said. “What characteristics does it have that maybe it shouldn’t be? It lays eggs. So is there enough evidence that it should be a mammal or is there enough evidence that, no, we’ve got to revise that?”
For some districts the new emphasis on reading and writing will be a shock. A Common Core recommended reading list includes science texts about earthworms, the moon landing and Euclid’s treatise that is the basis of geometry.
But Hillsborough County schools have been adding reading and writing assignments to courses the past few years.
Seventh grade Civics teacher Tony Corbett says not much will change when Monroe Middle completes the switch to the new standards next school year.
“It just gives us 10 things to focus on that we’ve already been focusing on,” Corbett said. “They’re already supposed to be able to summarize. They’re already supposed to have vocabulary. They’re already supposed to do main idea. They’re already supposed to do primary documents. And that’s pretty much what the focus of Common Core is.”
Common Core will even mean changes for physical education classes. Teachers might need to work in math and writing assignments.
Some districts post vocabulary lists in the gym – or create math games.
It’s something Monroe Middle PE teacher Shane Knipple said he already does.
“We always try to integrate different subject areas as much as we can,” Knipple said. “A lot of science, and definitely a lot of math with scoring, counting and things of that nature.
Students running a mile outside on the track were calculating whether they were still on pace to finish in eight minutes.
Knipple said the changes Common Core will bring to PE classes are just good teaching.
“A lot of times in education they put things under different names when it’s something you’ve been doing all along,” he said. “True P.E. teachers that do what they’re supposed to do, I think we’re probably doing most of what we need to do already.
Monroe Middle gym teachers said they’ve been told more changes will happen over the next few years. But like teachers in other subjects, they’re confident they will be ready.
Florida's education goals in math and reading currently vary by race.
Students and civil rights activists have asked Gov. Rick Scott to hold black and Hispanic students to a higher standard. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Dream Defenders were in Tallahassee this week to deliver a petition—with 5,800 signatures—protesting Florida’s race-based academic goals.
By the 2017/18 school year, the Florida Department of Education expects 92 percent of Asian students will pass their math tests at grade level. For Hispanic students, the goal is 80 percent. For black students, it’s 74 percent.
“We’re sending a message that we expect less of certain kids for no reason other than the color of their skin,” said Tania Galloni, the managing attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Florida office. She went to Tallahassee with students and other activists to bring the petition against the unequal standards.
“We know from decades of research that when you lower expectations for a group of people, people internalize that information,” said Galloni.
Mamie Pinder, holds a photograph of herself as a young teaching student. Pinder, a retired Miami-Dade school teacher, began teaching in 1963, the year the school district began merging black and white students bodies and faculty.
This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education—the Supreme Court decision declaring separate schools were inherently unequal.
A recent ProPublica investigation found at least 300 school districts that are still under court-ordered desegregation. Eleven of those districts are in Florida.
Even though Miami-Dade County had those desegregation orders lifted relatively recently in 2001, it was an early state leader in desegregation, putting black and white children and black and white teachers in the same schools.
StateImpact Florida collected memories from some of those students and teachers.
A note to listeners, this story contains strong language: Continue Reading →
Roland Park K-8 Magnet School science teacher Jaraux Washington.
Jaraux Washington is a science teacher at Tampa’s Roland Park K-8 Magnet School for International Studies. So it’s not surprising she turns to biology for a metaphor to describe teaching.
“Especially in seventh grade you understand that this is a process,” she says, “and sometimes you’re the planter and sometimes you’re the waterer and sometimes you get to see the harvest.”
Today is the start of Teacher Appreciation Week, and Washington is one of many teachers participating in a social media campaign to clear up misconceptions and tell the public what the job is really about. It’s called #TeachingIs.
#TeachingIs 12+ hour days , teaching, coaching, cheering, planning…….no overtime or time and a half. Getting paid in seeds sown
The North Carolina-based Center for Teaching Quality is leading the campaign. The non-profit helps teachers share good practices and encourages and trains teachers to be leaders without leaving the classroom.
We spoke to three Florida teachers participating, asked them to read and discuss their thoughts.
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
