We sat down with Senate Education Committee Chairman John Legg to talk about the recently completed legislative session.
Legg said it was a good year for schools, with the budget boosting per student funding and lawmakers adding more options for students who want to earn college credit while still in high school.
On the year’s most controversial proposal — expanding the private school tax credit scholarship program — Legg said the Senate gave up on its idea to require those students take the same statewide standardized test as public school students. But the final bill does require more auditing and should provide more data to assess how well the program is working.
Legg also talked about a proposal to make it easier for charter schools to open and what influence, if any, the governor’s race had on lawmaker decisions. Below are excerpts from the interview.
Q: You guys wrapped up the legislative session last week. You’re chairman of the education committee. I’m going to start — just give me a summary of what happened with education during the session?
A: It was a good year for education this year. We took on some big reforms, but what we did was the reforms that we did were based at the district level. We’ve allowed for some stability to take place, but also made adjustments on reforms that we’ve done over the last decade dealing with school grading, dealing with some acceleration. But all in all, it was a year of stability and a year of increased funding.
Just 19 percent of Florida 12th graders were considered “proficient” on the 2013 math exam, according to test results. NAEP defines proficient as students who show solid academic performance for their grade, including competency over challenging subject matter.
Nationally, 26 percent of students achieved proficient or higher on the exam.
Reading scores were a little better. Thirty-six percent of Florida students scored proficient or above on the 2013 exam. The national rate was 38 percent.
Florida students showed no statistical improvement since the last time the exam was administered in 2009.
Hillsborough County teachers Julie Hiltz and Jaraux Washington cooked up the idea to push back against the idea that teachers are glorified baby-sitters and share what the job is really like.
Teachers are posting photos, testimonials, anecdotes and other insights from the classroom. You can listen to three Florida teachers talk about what teaching is below. And here are some of our favorite #TeachingIs tweets, after the jump:
More troubling for the new standards? The more people surveyed said they know about the standards, the less likely they were to support Common Core or believe Common Core would improve schools or produce high school graduates who were ready for college.
Sixty-one percent of those who said they knew “a great deal” about Common Core thought the standards were not good policy. For those who said they knew “only a little” about Common Core, 43 percent said Common Core was good policy.
Overall, half of Democrats thought Common Core was good policy. Just one-third of independents and 30 percent of Republicans thought the standards were good policy.
Non-whites were more likely to support the standards, as were those living in the Midwest and West. Opposition to Common Core was strongest in the South — 60 percent said Common Core is not good policy — and Northeast.
Roland Park K-8 Magnet School science teacher Jaraux Washington.
Jaraux Washington is a science teacher at Tampa’s Roland Park K-8 Magnet School for International Studies. So it’s not surprising she turns to biology for a metaphor to describe teaching.
“Especially in seventh grade you understand that this is a process,” she says, “and sometimes you’re the planter and sometimes you’re the waterer and sometimes you get to see the harvest.”
Today is the start of Teacher Appreciation Week, and Washington is one of many teachers participating in a social media campaign to clear up misconceptions and tell the public what the job is really about. It’s called #TeachingIs.
#TeachingIs 12+ hour days , teaching, coaching, cheering, planning…….no overtime or time and a half. Getting paid in seeds sown
The North Carolina-based Center for Teaching Quality is leading the campaign. The non-profit helps teachers share good practices and encourages and trains teachers to be leaders without leaving the classroom.
We spoke to three Florida teachers participating, asked them to read and discuss their thoughts.
Sir Patrick Stewart is the chancellor of a university.
The actor Sir Patrick Stewart is best known in the United States for his roles on stage and on screen. But you might be surprised to learn that the man who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard is chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, a 20,000-student university in England.
Stewart was in South Florida this past week for Going Global, an international higher education conference sponsored by the British Council.
Unlike university heads in the U.S., British university chancellors hold more of a representative than an administrative position. It’s a role Stewart takes seriously.
“I made a condition at the time that I was not interested in being a celebrity status symbol for the university, I wanted to be as active as possible,” says Stewart.
Stewart himself finished school at 15 years old. When he later started acting, he found himself surrounded by bright, well-educated artists. He did end up attending drama program, but he was self-conscious about his own schooling—which made the Huddersfield opportunity all the more meaningful.
“This invitation was significant to me because I had no higher education whatsoever,” he says.
Stewart sat down with StateImpact Florida to talk about how one teacher influenced an entire career:
And watch him recite a bit of one of his favorite Shakespearean verses, as well as address what line of the Bard’s Florida is most like: Continue Reading →
Florida lawmakers approved a bill clarify high school graduation requirements based on what year a student entered ninth grade.
Last year the Legislature approved a bill which overhauled Florida’s high school graduation requirements. The bill maintains a standard diploma and created two new diploma tracks; a scholar track for students considering competitive universities; and a career-focused track for students who want to earn industry certifications before graduation.
But the bill created some confusion about what graduation requirements applied to which students.
Students entering grade nine before the 2010 – 2011 school year: Four credits in English/ELA; four credits in mathematics, which must include Algebra I; three credits in science, two of which must have a laboratory component; three credits in social studies of which one credit in World History, one credit in U.S. History, one-half credit in U.S. Government, and one-half credit in economies is required; one credit in fine or performing arts, speech and debate, or practical arts; one credit in physical education; and eight credits in electives.
Mayra Rubio was 3 months old when she moved to Homestead with her brother and parents from Guadalajara, Mexico.
After she graduated from South Dade Senior High, she realized she could not afford the out-of-state tuition for public colleges and universities. Undocumented students do not get the opportunity to pay in-state tuition rates.
Mayra Rubio
Mayra used to work on her father's farm when she couldn't afford to be a college student. Now that she attends Miami-Dade College, she still offers to lend a hand at the fruit stand her father manages.
So instead, Mayra worked with her father in the fields and groves of South Miami-Dade County. She picked and packed avocados and mangos.
“I would see my friends move on [and] pursue their dreams,” she says. “I felt stuck, like I wasn’t moving anywhere.”
Florida lawmakers have been debating allowing students like Mayra to pay in-state college tuition rates for public colleges and universities. The Senate is passed an amended version of the bill Thursday. It goes back to the House–which passed an earlier version–one more time. Continue Reading →
Starting at age 16, students in England take between 15 and 20 big exams each year. If they do well, they’ll get another round of exams the following year. Do poorly, and students aren’t likely to get into the university of their choice.
Finland students face up to 40 hours of tests in order to graduate high school. And universities require their own entrance exams.
Only Tennessee charter school students receive more funding than traditional district students. The gap ranges from $12,736 per student in Washington, D.C. to $365 in New Mexico. The study looked at the budget year ending in 2011 in 30 states and 48 major urban areas.
“These findings tell us conclusively that public charter schools tend to receive far less money, and that inequity from state-controlled funding is most clearly responsible for the gap in funding,” said Larry Maloney, the study’s lead researcher. “The research cannot explain, however, exactly why local governments provide students in public charter schools with so much less money for their education than they provide students in traditional public schools.”
Florida is a different story though because the state per-student funding is equal. One reason for the difference here is local taxes school districts collect for building maintenance and construction. Charter schools don’t receive a share of that money in most Florida school districts. Charter schools also typically receive a smaller share of federal funding.
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