Florida is one of 11 states that asked the U.S. Department of Education to waive federal No Child Left Behind provisions.
A couple of months ago, President Obama agreed to offer states more flexibility from the federal mandates if states submitted a request showing their commitment to boost student achievement.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, “We set a high bar and an aggressive deadline, but these states rose to the challenge.”
Each state designed a plan to do the following:
Develop rigorous accountability systems that include a focus on low-performing schools and schools with persistent achievement gaps. Continue Reading →
“I was informed during the EET (Evaluating Effective Teachers) orientation session last year that I would only be observed by a peer teacher that had experience in my level and field,” Thomas wrote in an email to evaluator Justin Youmans on October 7. “I thus refuse to be evaluated by any teacher who has no experience teaching Social Studies in a Hillsborough County High School.”
Gov. Rick Scott is pointing towards U.S. Census data to support his argument that state universities should focus on STEM degrees.
Gov. Rick Scott is stoking his feud with social scientists, adding some data to his argument that state universities should push more students toward degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields.
Scott’s press office sent around a link to a Wall Street Journal collection of unemployment rates by college major. The database was compiled by the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce from 2010 U.S. Census data.
“This effective tool shows which majors have the highest employment and unemployment rates along with their associated earnings,” spokesman Brian Burgess noted in an email sent Friday.
Scott drew the ire of anthropologists last month after the governor singled them out as one field where future job prospects are lacking. State resources should not be spent educating students who are less likely to find work, he argued.
Charles Reed is the former chancellor of Florida's university system, and now leads the nation's largest system in California.
Charles Reed says Florida’s colleges and universities have lost their way.
He paints a picture of a disjointed, parochial higher education system where every university and college is out for itself, and “It’s turned into what the local chamber wants, not what the state needs.”
“That’s no place for a polytechnic university,” he said. “That’s no Silicon Valley. California has only two polytechnics for 38 million people — and we have Silicon Valley.”
Why should you care? Reed has a unique perspective, as chancellor of the State University System of Florida from 1986 to 1998, and chancellor of the California State University system since 1998. Continue Reading →
Florida C.A.N. promotes college-readiness, access, and success for limited-income, first generation, and underrepresented students.
Now that the drama over USF Polytechnic is behind us (at least for now,) higher education officials are back to focusing on less showy things…like helping more Florida students to graduate successfully and get good-paying jobs.
That last part is the mission of Florida College Access Network (Florida C.A.N.) They’ve issued “A Call for Leadership” that urges state leaders not to focus on bright shiny objects (like proposed Texas reforms that don’t seem likely to take place even there).
(Full disclosure: Florida C.A.N. is a financial supporter of StateImpact Florida. As part of our agreement, they exercise no influence over what we report or how we report it.)
When is a hug innocent or inappropriate? Administrators at Southwest Middle School in Palm Bay adopted a zero tolerance, no-hugging policy so school officials would not have to differentiate. But, that policy resulted in the in-school suspension of two Florida middle school students for hugging even though the principal said it appeared innocent.
Zero tolerance is typically applied to school policies like “no firearms”, but supporters said zero tolerance takes the guesswork and favoritism out of the “no-hug policy.”
It prompted Mr.Doon to pose the question:
How many people do they have to suspend before the community recognizes that this is completely ridiculous? If I was a student in that school, I’d organize a mass hug-in just to speed up the process.
An interesting proposal, yet Ufdionysus does not believe that a call for “civil disobedience” has any chance of success:
Unfortunately, very few students I’ve encountered in primary education are willing to commit civil disobedience. I tried such things and couldn’t get any solidarity. I found a lot of students scared to even put their names on a petition they agreed with. The school system is very good at making you scared to challenge authority.
His book points to racial biases against minorities in the SAT verbal section and gender biases against females in the math section. Continue Reading →
In time for Veterans Day, the Florida Department of Education is reminding older veterans about a program to obtain their high school diplomas. It applies to Florida veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War who joined the military before completing high school.
“Our veterans have sacrificed so much for our freedoms, and this is but a small token of appreciation for their courage and sacrifice at a time when our country needed them,” said Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson.
Supporters of independence for USF Polytechnic in Florida have won a crucial vote by the university system Board of Governors. But they didn’t get everything they wanted.
University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft unsuccessfully argued to keep USF Polytechnic in the fold.
Board members voted 12 – 3 in favor of splitting Polytechnic from the University of South Florida…but not right away. USF Polytechnic has to jump over some hurdles before it becomes Florida’s 12th university.
It was as much drama as you can get at a Board of Governors meeting. In one corner was USF President Judy Genshaft. Up until then, she’d been pretty quiet about the proposed loss of one of USF’s branch campuses.
But Thursday in front of the Board of Governors, she came out swinging.
“This is not the right time, either economically, educationally, or practically for a drastic change to the USF system,” Genshaft said.
We’re live-blogging the university system’s Board of Governors Meeting, starting at 3:30. Top on the agenda: whether to allow USF Polytechnic to split from the University of South Florida and become the state’s 12th university.
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Florida is one of 11 states that asked the U.S. Department of Education to waive federal No Child Left Behind provisions.
