No topics matched your search request.
Search results for 'STEM'
Topics
Stories
Could Florida Benefit From Federal School Discipline Study?
Federal officials are concerned too many disruptive students are winding up in the juvenile justice system — and therefore not completing their education, according to Education Week‘s Politics K-12 blog. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan describes what he saw leading Chicago schools: “A small group of principals were calling the police too often to […]
Teachers Worry “Lack of Confidence” Threatens Pinellas Tax
Pinellas County teachers are worried about next year’s vote to renew a $30 million tax increase for salaries, arts, music and technology. “I’m very concerned,” union president Kim Black told the St. Petersburg Times editorial board. Black noted the anti-tax mood, then added: “When all of this turmoil is happening — whether it’s the budget, […]
Making An Impact Through “People Reporting”
I first realized the power I have as a journalist while covering education in Oakland. I was part of a team that created a radio documentary on the public school system. Our work compelled listeners to donate toward filling the food cabinet of a teacher struggling to feed her hungry students. And one listener offered […]
Why Orange County’s Teacher Pay Experiment Failed
Reading Monday’s RAND Corporation study of New York City’s scrapped teacher merit pay system sounded an awful lot like an interview we had last week with Orange County Superintendent Ronald Blocker and his district’s experience with pay-for-performance last decade. Like all Florida school districts, Orange County is designing a state-mandated merit pay system that bases […]
Second Study Says Merit Pay Fails to Motivate, Improve Scores
States may be wasting time and money attempting to pay teachers based on student performance, undermining a new Florida law requiring merit pay in schools statewide. Performance-based bonuses neither improve student test scores, nor are the most effective way to motivate educators concluded a RAND Corporation study of a New York City merit pay program. […]
Grading Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Education
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has aggressively pushed to change Florida schools since taking office in January 2011. The first bill Scott signed into law required all state school districts to design a system to evaluate teachers and then pay teachers based on their rating. The bill also stripped long-term teacher contracts, riling teachers and their […]
Your Guide To Florida’s Ever-Changing FCAT
The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is the foundation upon which the “Florida model” of education reform was built, serving as the basis for school and district report cards. FCAT result will also comprise half of teacher evaluations once districts design their legislatively required merit pay systems. Florida rolled out the standardized test in 1998, and […]
Stimulating Innovation With A ‘Race To The Top’
Florida has won a $700 million chunk of $4.35 billion set aside in the 2009 federal stimulus to spark new ideas in education. Known as Race To The Top, the competitive grant program asked states to pitch their best ideas for improving public education for a shot at hundreds of millions in one-time money. Florida […]
What Role Will Unions Play in Reform?
Florida’s teacher unions have played a central role in the debate about how best to improve schools. The Florida Education Association has organized political opposition to Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget cuts in the spring of 2011. The group also fought bills, which later became law, stripping teacher tenure and requiring public employees take a […]
Does Performance-Based Pay Have Any Merit?
Florida is a pioneer in the effort to base teacher salaries on student performance and give those teachers with the best results the highest raises, and a bill creating a sweeping new merit pay system was the first legislation Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in March. Merit pay is a reform pillar of former […]