The Florida Department of Education released 2012 high school grades, part of the state’s school accountability system. The data includes each component of the school’s score and demographic data. Continue reading
The Florida Department of Education released some administrator evaluation data for the 2011-12 school year on Dec. 5. This is the first time the state has released data for the new administrator evaluations. Continue reading
The Florida Department of Education released some teacher evaluation data for the 2011-12 school year on Dec. 5. This is the first time the state has released data for the new mandatory teacher evaluations. Continue reading
The Florida Department of Education released some teacher evaluation data for the 2011-12 school year on Dec. 5. This is the first time the state has released data for the new mandatory teacher evaluations. Continue reading
An example of the information on the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet.
Shopping for college may have gotten easier.
More than 500 colleges and universities in the country have agreed to standardize their award letters to allow students to compare financial aid packages more easily.
The goal of the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet is to help students make more informed decision on where to attend school by providing a clear way to see the actual cost of a particular school.
In Florida, 27 colleges and universities have signed on from Miami-Dade to Jacksonville. Continue Reading
Stanley Smith / University of Central Florida
UCF Professor Stanley Smith says his research shows charter schools perform worse than non-charters when poor and minority students are taken into account.
While charter schools are an increasingly popular option for Florida students, a University of Central Florida researcher says they don’t perform as well as district schools.
Dr. Stanley Smith, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s business school, analyzed school grades of Florida elementary schools last summer, examining the effect of poverty and minority status on those grades.
Smith found that “when the poverty and minority characteristics of the student population are controlled, the average charter school performs significantly lower than the average traditional public school.”
SD Dirk / Flickr
Is Florida setting the bar lower for black and Hispanic students, or higher?
The State Board of Education is taking criticism for a new five-year plan which local school officials say sets lower goals for blacks, Hispanics and other groups than for white or Asian students.
But the plan also asks for more improvement from those same black and Hispanic students than their higher-performing classmates, something supporters say is being overlooked.
The goal is to close the gap between the percentage of white and Asian students scoring at or above grade level on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and the percentage of black and Hispanic students doing so.
Part of the problem is how the Department of Education presented the numbers.
The percentage of students passing state exams is always the most important number — and the new plan does set higher thresholds for Asian and white students.
But it’s possible to argue the new plan asks more of black, Hispanic and other lower-performing groups.
Paris on Ponce & Le Maison Rouge / Flickr
Leon County schools were most likely to seclude students last year, while Orange and Hillsborough county schools restrained students most often.
Leon County schools led the state in the number of students put into seclusion for behavior or safety reason in 2012, according to Florida Department of Education data.
Leon County schools used seclusion almost twice as often as the next district on the list, Pinellas County schools.
Orange and Hillsborough county schools were most likely to physically restrain students — more than 900 times each during the past school year.
Seclusion and restraint are most often used on students with disabilities. School officials say the techniques are often necessary to protect students and staff.
Our colleagues at StateImpact Ohio have reported that many Ohio districts misuse seclusion and that many teachers are not trained in its use.
Brady Spencer sits with her son Brendon. Brendon has Asperger's, ADHD, and mood disorders. A few years ago she decided to take him out of his Mantua, Ohio public school, where he would often be sent to the hallway or a spare office during class. He now goes to a charter school for special needs kids.
Editor’s note: We’ve followed up this post answering some questions about the data raised by readers. Florida keeps two sets of seclusion data. State officials say school districts should record incidents of seclusion in both sets of data, but admit that it does not happen. As a result, Florida Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said, neither set of data may include all incidents of seclusion.
Ohio schools are locking children away in cell-like rooms, closets or old offices, sometimes without their parents knowledge.
The practice, known as seclusion, is often used to discipline or isolate misbehaving students. Often those students have disabilities.
That’s what our colleagues in Ohio — partnering with the Columbus Dispatch — reported this week in a series of stories.
Ohio districts used seclusion more than 4,200 times in the 2009-2010 school year, according to a federal survey, and 60 percent of those cases were students with disabilities.
There’s no evidence that seclusion helps children, but research shows students have hurt themselves and committed suicide in seclusion rooms.
R/DV/RS
The grades for which Florida schools are on the way up? Read on...
Yesterday we told you about a Tampa charter school which improved its grade from an F to an A despite tougher state standards this year.
We thought we’d give credit to the other 294 schools (after the state Department of Education corrected the list) which improved their grades as well.
Here they are, by the numbers, with a searchable database after the jump:
3 — The number of schools which jumped from an F to an A.
7 — The number of schools which improved three grades.
55 — The number of schools which improved two grades.
229 — The number of schools which improved one letter grade.
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