It’s report card day at Miami Carol City Senior High, and sophomore Mack Godbee is reviewing his grades with his mentor, Natasha Santana-Viera. The first quarter on Godbee’s report card is littered with Ds and Fs. This quarter, there are more Cs and Bs. He’s got an A in English. “Congratulations on that,” says Santana-Viera. “When you need help, do you know where […]

The 2014 Florida legislative session reached the halfway point last week, so we thought we’d check in on some of the big education bills. The Budget The House, Senate and Gov. Rick Scott mostly agree on education spending based on their proposed budgets. Both the House and the Senate approved roughly $75 billion budgets last […]

Editor’s note: This post has been updated to clarify claims about Advanced Placement tests. This week, the Foundation for Excellence in Education began running a television ad in the Tampa Bay market touting Florida school progress. The ad serves two purposes: it argues Florida schools are improving, and that improvement is due to annual statewide […]

Florida State University researchers have won a grant to study the effects of a new state law making remedial math, reading and writing courses optional for many students at Florida’s two- and four-year state colleges. Students who entered high school in the past decade and earned Florida’s standard high school diploma no longer have to […]

Florida schools will be giving a new standardized test about a year from now. But which test is still up in the air until Education Commissioner Pam Stewart announces her choice later this month. A new test is needed because Florida schools will complete the transition to new math and language arts standards in every […]

In his State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott promoted his $18.8 billion budget for education. But if it were up to Florida Education Association president Andy Ford, there would be even more money going to Florida’s public schools. The Florida Education Association is the state umbrella group for Florida teachers’ unions. […]

Gov. Rick Scott is asking lawmakers to eliminate the state’s tuition differential law, which allows universities to request as much as a 15 percent tuition increase each year. Scott has fought higher education tuition hikes since he took office in 2011. “We are changing how we fund higher education,” Scott said, according to the prepared […]

Sondra Hulette and her granddaughter joined dozens of anti-Common Core protestors as they circled a fountain outside the Orange County school district offices last month. Inside the building, the State Board of Education was about to rename Common Core as “The Florida Standards.” But outside, Hulette and others chanted “Stop Common Core!” “Keep education local!” […]

A Florida Department of Education panel is recommending the American Institutes for Research produce Florida’s next statewide test. The non-profit American Institutes for Research should produce Florida’s next statewide exam a Florida Department of Education procurement panel said Tuesday, the Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau reports. The final recommendation is up to Education Commissioner Pam Stewart. She […]

The State Board of Education approved changes to the state’s K-12 standards that keeps calculus and cursive writing, and clarifies and adjusts when some standards are taught. The board approved the changes despite dozens of parents and activists asking the board to rescind the standards. The vote marks another –possibly final — transformation for Florida’s […]