Former California State Sen. Gloria Romero help write the nation's first parent trigger law.
California was the first state to adopt a ‘parent trigger,’ which allows a majority of parents in a failing school to vote on a method to restructure the school.
The bill is expected to be among the most contentious education issues of the 2012 legislative session. Activists have lined up against the bill, arguing it is not being done in their name. Others argue the bill is bad policy.
For more explanation on how Florida’s proposed law works, click here.
StateImpact Florida spoke with Gloria Romero, a former California state senator who authored the original parent trigger bill. Romero is now state director for the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform.
Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Gainesville, objected to a bill granting the Florida-born children of undocumented immigrants access to in-state tuition rates.
A bill that would allow Florida-born U.S. citizens to pay in-state college tuition fees regardless of the immigration status of their parents, died yesterday in the Florida Senate committee on Higher Education.
Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Gainesville Republican who chairs the committee, interrupted a 20-year-old Miami Dade College student, Carla Montes, during her emotional testimony.
Montes was born in Miami and graduated from Ronald Reagan High School in Doral. But her parents are undocumented, so she has to pay the out-of-state college tuition rate which is three times higher. Montes told the committee the policy is unfair because she is a lawful Florida resident.
“No, no, no, we’re talking about your parents,” Oelrich interrupted, according to the Associated Press. “That’s how we establish residency in the state of Florida, by the status of your parents.”
Last week WUSF Mark Schreiner profiled a University of South Florida researcher trying to figure out what attracts students to STEM fields. This week Schreiner looks at a USF program trying to prepare better middle school STEM teachers for the classroom.
State universities leaders will likely discuss the issue when they meet with lawmakers Thursday morning.
Florida International Academy charter school students in Opa Locka, Florida.
A Hechinger Report story asks an important question: What happens to students when a charter school closes?
The story looks at Akron’s Lighthouse Academy, which is being shut down due to low state standardized test scores. Some parents had vowed to never send their children to district schools, but now make have to do so.
New York City recently decided that average was not good enough when it came to city charter schools. There are arguments for and against closing charter schools:
The Florida Department of Education has ranked more than 3,000 state schools.
Schools in Brevard, Miami-Dade and Okaloosa counties were the top rated elementary, middle and high schools, respectively, according to a school rankings the Florida Department of Education released Monday.
The agency followed up on its evaluation of state school districts by ranking all 3,078 schools from first to worst. Local school officials have criticized the district rankings because they are based solely on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores.
The elementary and middle school rankings are based on FCAT scores. The high school rankings use FCAT scores, but also includes graduation rates, accelerated coursework — such as Advanced Placement — and college or career readiness.
[spreadsheet key=”0Av06TaO9jXYrdDlpVmlPSUZ1TEk3OFNJandSZGNOVlE” source=”Florida Department of Education” filter=1 paginate=1 sortable=1]
Rep. Kelli Stargel's bill would require teachers to evaluate their students' parents.
Florida law requires grades for students, teachers, schools and districts. So why not parents as well?
Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, has introduced a bill — HB 543 — to do just that.
Fort Myers News-Press columnist Sam Cook thinks the proposed grades are a bad idea and unlikely to improve the relationship between teachers, parents and students.
“The bill will incite acrimony,” Cook writes. “Both sides will get defensive. Arguments will erupt. HB 543 won’t bring together parents and teachers. It will tear them apart.”
The four Republican presidential candidates met for a debate in Jacksonville Thursday.
Do the Republican candidates for president support the ‘Florida model’ for education?
On issues of accountability and school choice the answer is yes.
However, many in the field criticize the federal role in education and would reduce or eliminate the agency.
That puts some of the candidates in conflict with former Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican and the architect of much of Florida’s education policy since he first took office in 1999. Bush has argued the federal government should push states to raise standards on curriculum and testing.
U.S. Rep. David Rivera has introduced a new version of the DREAM Act.
U.S. Rep. David Rivera of Miami has taken a cue from the presidential contenders and introduced a new version of the DREAM Act providing a fast-track citizenship path for those who enter the military.
The original DREAM Act would have provided a citizenship track for the children of undocumented immigrants who had lived in the U.S. for years and enrolled in college or signed up for the U.S. military.
The bill passed a Democrat-controlled U.S. House in 2010, but died in the the Senate. Republicans subsequently took control of the House and the bill has languished.
Former New College of Florida student, Nan Freeman was killed at age 18 while picketing for better farm worker conditions in Florida.
Students have been leading the way in the Occupy Movement—just part of a long tradition of young people leading protest movements in America.
Forty years ago this week, a freshmen at New College of Florida became the first of five martyrs of Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers.
Four are men. All farm workers.
One is Nan Freeman, an 18-year-old who was killed while picketing at a sugar mill in Palm Beach County.
At school, people called her “Morning Glory,” because they liked to say she made their mornings glorious.
Freeman was born premature and almost didn’t make it home from the hospital. She was always fragile, and from a very young age, dedicated to fighting injustice.
“She wasn’t a dope taker, a setter of fires, a bomb planter, or a screamer of epithets. But she believed in people, in causes, and in its purest and most ennobling sense, love of her fellow man.”
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