The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a plan to emphasize wireless Internet connections.
Tomorrow the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a plan that would add $2 billion over two years to help schools and libraries purchase high-speed wireless Internet access.
The plan’s full details are not public, but the agency has published a short summary of the proposed changes.
The plan has three broad goals:
Expand the amount of grants available to help school purchase and maintain wireless Internet networks.
Change eligibility to broaden the number of schools and libraries that can receive grants.
Make the program simpler and faster for participating schools and libraries.
A Republican FCC commissioner and two Democratic senators have questioned the proposal this week. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said the plan numbers “don’t add up” and that the changes would mean higher charges on phone bills. U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller, of West Virginia, and Edwrd Markey, of Massachusetts, were concerned emphasizing wireless would come at the expense of funding for other, wired broadband Internet connections.
Bennett admits using state resources for his 2012 reelection campaign. But Bennett was also cleared of any ethics violations related to changes he sought to Indiana’s school grading formula in 2012.
Emails showed Bennett, A Republican, asked staff to adjust the state formula after learning an Indiana charter school would receive a lower than expected grade. The school was founded by a prominent political donor who favored Republicans in statewide races.
Even if the Federal Communications Commission adds $2 billion to a program to help purchase high-speed Internet, urban school districts said they'll probably receive less money.
City school districts say a plan to expand a federal program that helps schools and libraries purchase high-speed Internet access will actually reduce the amount of money those districts receive.
Miami-Dade school officials and the Council of Great City Schools said proposed changes to the E-Rate program will force city school districts to pay more to match federal grants and reduce the overall value of those grants.
The goal is to put a higher priority on wireless networking. Wireless grants were only funded if any of the $2.3 billion E-Rate money was left over after wired grants were awarded. Few wireless grants were funded the past few years.
The proposal would also add $2 billion over the next two years.
StudentsFirst, the education advocacy group founded by former D.C. schools' chancellor Michelle Rhee, is powering down its Florida efforts.
Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee’s education advocacy group is scaling back its Florida efforts, Travis Pillow scoops for redefinED.
StudentsFirst spokesman Lane Wright said Florida has already adopted many policies the group promotes, so they are focusing efforts elsewhere.
That’s true. But, the group can’t exactly claim victory and walk off the field. StudentsFirst has failed to win approval for their top legislative priority each of the past three years.
StudentsFirst has been a major proponent for the “parent trigger,” which allow parents at schools earning failing grades to vote how to restructure the school — including converting to a charter school. The bills died in the Senate on a tie vote in both 2012 and 2013.
Curtis Lanoue teaches music in a trailer behind Oliver Hoover Elementary School in Miami. His colleagues have interactive smart boards in their classrooms.
Those are like 21st-Century chalk boards that can can plug into the school’s network — and the Internet.
Elle Moxley / StateImpact Indiana
Schools are switching to mobile carts like this, loaded with iPads, and Wi-Fi hot spots for new online tests and high-tech lessons.
But Lanoue doesn’t have a smartboard — or the Internet — in his portable classroom.
“YouTube might not be the greatest thing to let a kid use unattended,” he said, “but for the teacher to use it there’s a ton of resources on there.
“It would help a lot to show performances; to show historic stuff would be great.”
Miami-Dade schools are finishing a $1.2 billion overhaul of schools across the district. Most now have fast wireless networks — as of the end this school year. Others will soon – like Oliver Hoover Elementary.
The Florida Department of Education has released practice questions for the new assessments that will replace the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test next year.
The tests, which are aligned to the new Common Core-based Florida Standards, are available at the Florida Standards Assessments website. Some questions are similar to what students might have seen on the FCAT—asking test-takers to identify main ideas in a text or figure out a percentage in a word problem.
And as promised, there are some new tasks in the design of the test, too. Like a prompt that asks students to drag and drop images as an answer to a question about a reading passage: Continue Reading →
Former Gov. Jeb Bush visited a Hialeah charter school for National School Choice Week.
The national Republican fight over Common Core math and language arts standards is over, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others supporting the standards have lost.
Pew Research Center data shows “business conservatives” and “steadfast conservatives” — two designations Pew assigns in its poll — both oppose the standards equally. More than 60 percent of both groups said they oppose the standards.
This is very bad news for the standards’ supporters. Right-leaning supporters of Common Core say the standards are a state issue, created for states and by states (and that they wish Education Secretary Arne Duncan would stop talking about them). Opponents argue that the US Education Department’s efforts to get states to adopt the standards are an example of federal overreach.
Pew makes it clear: The opponents won. No matter how much supporters talk about state-led initiatives, the standards have been defined…
But now Bush’s support for the Common Core can’t be waved away as picking a side in an active intraparty controversy. Bush is backing an initiative that his party broadly opposes. Jindal didn’t turn on the Common Core to burnish his credentials with the most conservative Republicans. He did it to win over the mainstream.
Shawn Cerra, principal of J.P. Taravela High School in Coral Springs, with the school's guidance director, Jody Gaver in 2012.
A national foundation thinks school principals have more to learn.
The Wallace Foundation believes that the people who supervise principals spend too much time making sure they follow rules and procedures — and not enough time mentoring them.
Broward County is one of the districts training more “principal supervisors” — and giving them fewer job duties.
Desmond Blackburn leads Broward County schools’ performance and accountability efforts. He said the county started reorganizing principal supervision a few years ago. It’s why the district applied for the Wallace Foundation grant.
“The job was budget, parent, community concerns, social services, field trips, leases, reassignments — a great deal of operational points,” he said. “And teaching and learning became what we got involved in when everything else was accomplished.”
Veterans living in Florida can get in-state tuition at state colleges and universities starting Tuesday.
Veterans will pay less to attend Florida colleges and universities starting Tuesday, one of a handful of laws taking effect at the start of a new budget year.
The Florida GI bill means any veteran living in the Sunshine State only has to pay in-state tuition. That tuition is typically one-third the cost of out-of-state rates.
Our colleague at WUSF and Off The Base, Bobbie O’Brien, wrote about what else is in the bill — including scholarships for Florida National Guard members — when Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill in April:
$1.5 million in scholarships for Florida National Guard members
$12.5 million to renovate and upgrade National Guard facilities
$7.5 million to buy land surrounding MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, and Naval Support Activity in Panama City.
It waives state professional licensing fees for veterans up to five years after discharge.
It grants a waiver to active-duty military family members, spouses and dependents, so they don’t have to obtain a Florida drivers license to get a job or attend public schools in the state.
It establishes Florida Is For Veterans, a new nonprofit corporation, to promote the hiring of veterans and to get veterans to move to the state.
It also requires the state’s tourism arm, Visit Florida, to spend $1 million a year marketing to veterans.
It establishes the Florida Veterans’ Walk of Honor and Florida Veterans’ Memorial Garden in Tallahassee.
Broward County schools have won a Wallace Foundation grant to study the best ways to supervise principals.
Broward County schools have won a multimillion dollar, five-year grant to help improve supervision of district principals.
The grant is part of a $30 million nationwide effort from the Wallace Foundation to focus on a little-noticed slice of school administration in 14 urban districts. The foundation hopes districts spend more time developing principals’ school leadership skills.
“In many large school districts, principal supervisors oversee too many principals – 24 on average – and focus too much on bureaucratic compliance,” Jody Spiro, the Wallace Foundation’s director of education leadership, said in a statement. “This new initiative aims to help districts move principal supervisors’ focus to one of support, freeing them to better coach and develop principals to help them improve instruction.”
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