School boards representing 1 in 4 Florida public school students have asked for less emphasis on FCAT results..
Schools boards representing more than one out of every four Florida students have approved a resolution asking state education leaders put less emphasis on standardized tests.
A dozen Florida districts have approved a national anti-testing resolution. Those districts include large counties such as Broward and Palm Beach — the nation’s 6th and 11th largest. Pinellas County joined the list earlier this week.
Those districts educate more than 750,000 Florida public school students in total.
He used a lot of jargon – “devolution,” “delivery systems,” “performance funding” – to explain what the Board of Governors and others are trying to change within the State University System.
StateImpact Florida sorted through the buzzwords and the bureaucratese to find the three things Brogan wants to accomplish:
But the system breaks down because of ‘FCAT frenzy’ and the anxiety school districts create with extra drills, pep rallies and other events which ratchet up the pressure on students.
Nearly a dozen Florida school districts have approved resolutions asking Gov. Rick Scott and other state leaders put less emphasis on FCAT results. The resolution asks that students are evaluated in a number or ways, not just through standardized test.
The Florida School Boards Association is meeting in Tampa Thursday to debate a statewide resolution.
Florida’s economy isn’t back to pre-recession peak levels, but it’s growing. That’s what the Blue Ribbon Task Force on State Higher Education Reform heard Monday as the panel looks for ways to reform the State University System.
Panel members want to know what the job market will look like in the coming years and which industries may have worker shortages soon.
Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legislative Office of Economic and Demographic Research, looked at trends for the state through 2030. For now, she said Florida is among a handful of states that hasn’t recovered from the recession.
Bush recently spoke with StateImpact Florida about his role in the national education debate, why Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on education and what he’s learned .
Q: Governor, how do you see yourself? How do you see your role as a national education figure?
A: I don’t know if I’m a national education figure. I do know that the Florida experience is one that we like to share because a lot of people are very interested in the academic results that have been achieved over the last decade and few years.
So we have created a strategy of going state by state, where invited, trying to create coalitions of people interested in reform. Telling the Florida story and building on that with exciting new elements of reform that I think states are embracing at record levels.
It’s a really exciting time to be engaged in education reform. The ultimate objective is not just to reform the system. The ultimate objective is to improve student learning.
First Lady Ann Scott reads to kids at the Tallahassee Museum.
Florida first lady Ann Scott likes to read. She’s trying to get more kids reading, too.
Friday morning at the Tallahassee Museum, she helped kick off the 2012 Summer Literacy Adventure. The program is designed to get kids interested in reading and keep them motivated to read all year.
Scott told an audience of museum campers that she loved school growing up, but couldn’t wait for summer break.
“One of the first things that I did was head to the local library near my home,” said Scott, “and I would peruse the aisles looking at books that I thought I might enjoy reading, checking out a stack of books and seeing how many I could get through in a week.”
Shamika Jeff, posing with her younger brother, graduated from Miami Central High School on June 5, 2012. The 18-year-old says she did not go to the entire last week of school.
Florida students have already taken all the big tests. They’ve finished their homework. But some students are still in school.
So what do teachers and students do during the final days of class?
Educators throughout Florida say teaching should be going on every day students are in school.
But students say that isn’t usually what happens.
“In class I just hang out with friends and just remember all the memories that we had,” says Sophonie Pierre, a 7th grader at Plantation Middle School in Broward County.
“Our teachers they just let us enjoy it and talk.”
Several districts — Alachua, Broward, Osceola and Palm Beach schools, among others — have approved the resolution (read a version here) and many others may follow.
But even as school boards vent their spleen about the test, more is riding on FCAT results than ever.
Here’s five reasons why the FCAT protests are not likely to accomplish much.
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