The sign says academy, but is it a charter school?
There are a lot of Florida schools that look and function like charters, but really aren’t.
And when we embarked on this series, we couldn’t always tell the difference between one public school with a focus on science and another public school with a focus on science. But it turns out there can be quite a bit distinguishing the two.
To help ease confusion, we’ve created a pop quiz for you.
1. A public school with a theme or academic focus is a… (Choose all that apply):
A. Charter school
B. Private school
C. An Academy
D. Magnet school
Vice President Joe Biden argued Congress should approve a jobs bill that includes $35 billion to add or maintain education jobs.
Pitching the effects on Pasco County elementary students, Vice President Joe Biden made a case for President Barack Obama’s jobs bill Tuesday.
Biden pulled plenty of local anecdotes for his stop at Oakstead Elementary School in Land O’ Lakes: The $54 million shortfall the district faced this year; the 513 jobs cut; the eight Oakstead teachers no longer working at the school.
Obama’s jobs bill, Biden said, would mean $35 billion across the country to add or preserve 400,000 education jobs.
The bill would mean 26,000 education jobs in Florida. Pasco County would get $40 million in emergency funding the county could use towards an expected $26 million deficit next year.
“No one can tell whether or not these shortfalls put these beautiful kids a month behind in their overall education?” Biden asked. “Six months? A year? Or two years? But the truth is it does slow down…their capacity to learn.”
Yesterday we looked at some of the misconceptions about how Florida charter schools must operate.
Today we’ll take a look at a couple of charter contracts to see the different requests school districts make of charter applicants. Seminole County asked Galileo School for Gifted Learning to abide by the class size limits for district schools, for instance, instead of the slightly more forgiving standards usually applied to charter schools.
Below is a Hillsborough County charter school contract. We’ve added some notes to point out important sections.
To read the contract of a Duval County charter school run by a for-profit firm, click here.
For Galileo School for Gifted Learning’s charter click here.
And finally, a Duval County charter high school here.
A Polk County high school under construction last year.
Florida schools will have little construction money next year after state economists reduced their estimate by 70 percent Monday.
Schools will have about $113 million available, down from the $380 million initially expected for the budget year beginning July 1, 2012.
Utility taxes provide much of the school construction fund, but economists said fewer people are buying electricity because businesses have closed or larger homes remain vacant. The school bond fund is being hit by a longer-term trend too: More consumers are buying energy-efficient appliances.
If Michele Gill learned anything from helping open a Seminole County charter school this fall it’s this: Charter schools cannot do anything they want.
Despite some public perceptions, Gill said opening Galileo School for Gifted Learning has meant navigating a complicated network of state and federal regulations. Then school leaders have to make sure the local school board is happy with the plan, she said.
Gov. Rick Scott visits an Opa Locka charter school earlier this year. Lawmakers approved a law making it easier for highly rated charter schools to expand.
Charter schools do have some big advantages, said Gill, but not as many as most people believe.
“These are expensive and difficult things to do and they’re very hard for a charter school to take care of,” she said. “What I have found out personally is they are quite restrictive. They are way more restrictive than a private school would be.
That’s a conclusion one could draw from an Indiana University study on the importance of teaching handwriting over keyboard skills, according to a story from our friends at StateImpact Indiana.
IU psychology professor Karin James says research shows letter writing activates portions of the brain critical to reading in children.
Like Indiana, Florida has joined 42 other states adopting a set of national curriculum guidelines that emphasize teaching students how to type. Many schools are purchasing electronic tablets, such as the iPad, to replace traditional textbooks.
What do you think of the conclusions? Have schools abandoned traditional skills such as handwriting? What have been the results?
Children wait to shake hands with Florida Gov. Rick Scott during his January visit to the Florida International Academy charter school in Opa Locka, Florida.
Our ongoing series on charter schools prompted some reader questions this week. Keep the questions coming — we’ll answer them in future posts.
SheilaY wanted to know more about how charter schools select their students:
Do the requirements differ from school to school? When comparing charter schools to public schools, these questions need to be asked. If charter schools are being selective in who they accept into their schools, is it really fair to compare them to public schools?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks are the two most common civil right's figures K-12 students learn about.
When it comes to teaching K-12 students about the nation’s civil rights movement, more than half of U.S. states are failing, according to a new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In the study, “Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011”, SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance arm looked at each state’s required education standards and curriculum, and compared that to what civil rights historians consider core information about the civil rights movement.
Florida is one of three states who scored an “A” letter grade in civil rights education, along with Alabama and New York. But authors say there is still room for improvement in every state.
“For too many students, their civil rights education boils down to two people and four words: Rosa Parks, Dr. King and ‘I have a dream,’” said Maureen Costello, SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance director. Costello said one of the most shocking findings is that educators make the movement “seem easy,” she said, because there is very little attention placed on opposition and racism. Continue Reading →
Charter Schools USA is one of Florida’s largest for-profit management companies, with 25,000 students in three states. The company was just awarded a contract to help turn around three Indiana schools taken over by the state.
Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathon Hage is a one-time adviser to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and helped draft the 1996 Florida law creating charter schools. Hage sat down with StateImpact Florida for a question and answer session.
Here are excerpts:
Q: When you guys opened in 1997, what was the landscape like?
A: I was involved in helping write the original charter school law in Florida. I worked for Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future and worked on the policy and then I fell in love with the concept after helping start one of the first charter schools in the state.
Children wait to shake hands with Florida Gov. Rick Scott during his January visit to the Florida International Academy charter school in Opa Locka, Florida.
Charter schools are an idea dreamed up by an obscure education professor in the 1970s which have grown into a primary alternative to traditional public schools.
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
