Frances S. Tucker Elementary School fifth grade math teacher Yaliesperanza Salazar leads her class through an exercise to group data on a line graph.
At dinner tables across Florida, parents and their elementary school children are trying to solve a math problem: What’s going on with my kid’s homework?
Florida is one of dozens of states that has switched to new math standards based on Common Core. The standards outline what students should know in every grade.
Experts say it means big changes to how math is taught. More focus on understanding concepts and solving problems multiple ways. Less memorization of formulas and grinding out worksheets full of similar problems.
Math is a constant conversation for Jessica Knopf and her fifth-grader, Natasha.
They talk about math at the dinner table. They send questions and answers by phone. They sought tutoring in online videos.
“When this Common Core stuff starting coming home,” Knopf says, “it wasn’t something I could just scribble and go ‘Oh, here it is.’ No. I had to stop. I had to think about it. I had to go online to Khan Academy. I had to bring my husband in. It wasn’t logical.”
Florida lawmakers want to limit the amount of time students spend testing.
A proposal to limit students to 45 hours of testing a year is unlikely to reduce the amount of time spent on exams, according to a survey of Florida’s largest school districts.
Districts say they don’t currently track the time individual students spend on testing.
Calculating the number is complicated. The amount of testing varies by a student’s grade, the classes he or she is taking and other factors, such as whether the student is learning English or receives extra time to accommodate a disability.
Orange and Miami-Dade county schools provided estimates and say even if a student were to take every test available in a single year, the student still would not exceed 45 hours of testing.
For instance, the district says a Miami-Dade eleventh grader has 20.6 hours of required tests. If the student took every eleventh grade test possible that would add 15.2 hours. And two International Baccalaureate courses — an advanced program for motivated students — would add eight more hours.
That’s a total of 43.8 hours of testing — and most students don’t take that course load.
Schools must earn at least 25 points out of 50 on the scoring scale to be eligible for a slice of the new funding. But the three lowest-scoring universities do not receive new money, even if they receive a score of more than 25 points.
President Obama wants to make two years of public community college free for many students. But institutions like Miami Dade College, pictured here, could only participate if they also have a performance funding program.
Performance funding in public higher education is a way for states to hold institutions accountable for certain outcomes. But new research shows it doesn’t do much to keep students enrolled or boost graduation rates.
A study co-authored by Dr. David Tandberg, Florida State University assistant professor of higher education, shows little difference in outcomes between institutions that receive performance funding and those that don’t.
The latest report examined community colleges in Washington State, but the research is part of a series of studies measuring outcomes nationally.
Florida currently has no performance funding model for state colleges. But its program for state universities considers a long list of metrics including how many bachelor’s recipients are employed or furthering their education one year after graduation, their salaries, and the six year graduation rate.
Senator Jeff Brandes’ bill would allow the State Board of Education to give out-of-state charter school chains the high-performing designation. The bill would also allow out-of-state school operators to pay lower administrative fees to school districts for three years.
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho says vaccinations work and the district is tracking whether students get their required shots. Carvalho says 98 percent of Miami-Dade students have been vaccinated or are getting the shots now.
“We’ve seen recently what the outbreak of measles in Arizona can do to a community,” Carvalho says. “That can not be the case in Miami. So we are diligent in ensuring our children are properly immunized prior to beginning their school year.”
That includes 1,200 students new to the district this year, many escaping dangerous communities in Central America.
Miami Beach Senior High college adviser Maria Sahwell helps Anahi Hurtado, left, and her mother fill out the FAFSA.
It’s a midweek school night at Miami Beach Senior High School.
Students, their parents and siblings — roughly 80 people in all — are waiting in the school’s library to get on a computer and answer a lot of questions.
By this time of year many high school seniors have already sent in their first college applications. Now, the question is how to pay for it. And for most that means the FAFSA.
But half of Florida high school graduates don’t complete the form, losing out on at least $100 million dollars for college each year.
Anahi Hurtado wants to study political journalism. She and her mother, Susy Riener, quickly run into their first obstacle.
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart says state law doesn't allow parents to opt their children out of required testing.
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart says students can not skip state-required tests, and teachers and schools can be punished for refusing to administer required exams.
Stewart says state law allows students to skip required tests for one reason: They have been granted an exemption for medical reasons or disabilities. It’s up to districts to decide when and if students can skip locally-required exams, Stewart wrote.
“State law requires students to participate in the state assessment system,” Stewart wrote, “therefore, there is no opt out clause or process for students to opt out or for parents to opt their children out.”
Any changes to opt out rules would required the legislature to pass a law.
It seems STEM is also popular with communist revolutionaries.
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