In many schools, zero tolerance discipline policies dictate harsh punishment—expulsion, suspension and arrest—for breaking rules.
But, as StateImpact Florida has been reporting, some districts are reconsidering zero tolerance over concerns about a rise in the number of children arrested on campus.
One of those districts walking away from zero tolerance is in Broward County, where the schools formed a unique coalition with law enforcement, local and state courts, and the NAACP to re-write the school codes.
StateImpact Florida spoke with one of the members of that partnership—Gordon Weekes, chief assistant public defender with Broward County’s juvenile justice division—who has been a critic of zero tolerance in the past.
The standards outline what students should know at the end each grade.
“I wanted to share what I do in my classroom with other teachers around the United States,” said Buddoo, who has six years experience. “Many teachers may not necessarily know what the differences need to be within their current lessons.
“If other teachers have access to those methods I think it will improve lessons across the board.”
Felecia Hatcher is on a mission. She wants to bridge the tech education gap in Florida’s schools and give underserved students the chance to become web-based entrepreneurs.
Hillary Lindwall / WLRN
Felecia Hatcher helps a student write HTML code.
She started the program Code Fever last year to reach that goal.
“Technology will allow [the students] to build their businesses and catapult their ideas much faster and definitely much cheaper,” Hatcher says.
An entrepreneur herself — she founded the ice-pop store Feverish Pops — Hatcher says the kids she works with benefit from seeing someone from a similar background succeed in business.
“What they see is what they’ll be,” Hatcher said. “I want to show kids that no matter where you come from … there is huge potential for you. You can  literally do anything that you want to do right now in this world.”
The Florida Association of District School Superintendents want state leaders to replace the A-through-F grades with a new system by 2017. The new reports would add other factors, such as attendance, discipline, parent involvement and more.
But Stewart told a State Board of Education meeting Tuesday she does not support going without grades, even temporarily, as Florida makes the switch to Common Core. Florida is one of 45 states to fully adopt Common Core. The new tests are expected to be harder and fewer students are expected to hit state target scores.
“I don’t think that suspending school grading is the right thing to do for students,” she said.
Stewart said she is working on changes to the school grading system and will propose them at the board’s next meeting in February. Stewart told lawmakers earlier this month that the formula would focus on three factors: student proficiency on state tests; whether student scores are improving; and graduation rates. She expects to recommend a new statewide test in March.
Florida’s A through F system for school grades has been fraught with controversy.
Supporters say it’s a way of holding schools and districts accountable. Critics worry that the formula to calculate the grades doesn’t reflect how well schools really prepare children.
Now, in Miami-Dade County, one school has been told it probably won’t get the A it says it earned. Continue Reading →
The Education Fund in Miami is hosting an online chat about getting ready for college.
The Education Fund in Miami is hosting an online chat today about the best ways for first generation and low-income students to earn a college degree.
Lisa Ciacci, the Education Fund’s Smart Path to College program manager, will be on Twitter ready to answer questions. Advisers from similar programs in San Francisco and Philadelphia will also be online.
Tweet your questions to @educationfund and #assetmap. You can also follow along at TweetChat. The conversation begins at 2 p.m.
Ferrell Preparatory Academy students Ariana Jerome, Shawna Kent, Elena Postlewait and Destiny Jackson all say they prefer their all-girls school to the co-ed schools they previously attended.
We asked Karen French the principal of all-girls Ferrell Preparatory Academy, a public middle school in Tampa, about the differences in single-gender and traditional schools.
Q: I assume you’ve taught at both co-ed schools and now a single-gender school? Is that right?
A: That is correct.
Q: Tell me a little bit about what the differences are?
A: The main difference – and this is, like, year 21 for me and this is the third with doing single-gender. I’ve taught all within middle. The main difference that I see is the area of focus that the students have…how much more focused they are in class, how much more they’re willing to volunteer, how much more risk-taking that they will take within that.
Part of that is the environment of what we are setting here, but being that it’s a single-gender environment that helps to support that preparatory environment that we’re building.
With state schools making the full transition to Common Core language arts, literacy and math standards, the group says Florida should modernize the nation’s oldest school grading formula.
“Now’s the perfect time to improve the system based on what we’ve learned from the last decade of school grading,” said president Trey Csar.
Among their recommendations:
Measure student test score growth over multiple years — Right now the state measure one year of growth. Multiple years would reduce the amount the year-to-year swings that sometimes effect student test results and grades.
Broaden the score ranges for each letter grade — This would prevent small increases or decreases in school scores from resulting in a change of several letter grades.
Florida is one of 45 states to adopt the Common Core State Standards, which outline what students should know at the end of each grade. The common standards mean states using the same standardized test will be able to compare results.
Many of the conference call questions focused on copyright issues and the so-called “15 percent” rule for adding changes to the standards.
Why does that matter? Because it speaks to whether the state actually controls the education standards. Critics worry adopting Common Core will mean Florida has less control over classroom material.
Our friends at StateImpact Indiana looked at this issue last year. Here’s the short answer, according to Achieve, a non-profit which helped develop the standards.
“Here’s what we’re going to ensure: These are Florida standards,” Scott said. “They’re not some national standards; they’re going to be Florida standards. This is our state. We’re not going to have the federal government telling us how to do our education system.”
Gage Skidmore / Flickr
Gov. Rick Scott used to support Common Core. Now he's concerned about federal government control over Florida education policies.
The proposed revisions to the standards would add calculus (using Florida’s current calculus standards), teach elementary students decimals using money, require elementary students learn cursive writing and allow kindergarten teachers to provide more guidance as students try to identify authors or answer questions about unknown words.
But mostly, the changes do some copy editing to clarify objectives.
So is Florida abandoning Common Core?
Education experts said no. So did Common Core critics.
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
