These ideas include assigning A through F grades to schools and school districts based in part on standardized test results, retaining low-performing third graders, expanding school choice, teacher evaluations and others.
But there’s a split in the way states will measure what students have learned. Two different testing systems are on the table.
One test will average a series of test results to determine a student’s score. The other is a single, adaptive test which tailors questions based on a student’s past answers.
The tests are being designed now for use by 2014-15.
The biggest reason Florida scored well? The 2011 Students Success Act, which requires teacher evaluations partially based on test scores, eliminates long-term contracts for new teachers and requires districts to set up pay systems based on teacher performance.
“Florida mandates that performance drive all district personnel decisions, including placement, layoff, and tenure decisions,” the StudentsFirst analysis says. “The state has already made progress in its implementation as well.”
Florida scored lower on the “empowering parents” and “spend wisely” categories.
Mrs. Kenton and her kindergarten students discuss a story about a gingerbread man. Under Common Core, the students must be able to show they comprehend what they're reading.
Editor’s note: Reporter Martha Dalton with NPR affiliate WABE-FM in Atlanta contributed to this report.
“The story was about a gingerbread man getting loose in the school.”
Kindergarteners in Katherine Kenton’s class at Tallahassee’s Gilchrist Elementary School are learning to read using the new Common Core standards.
The students have to show they understand what they’re reading.
“The gingerbread man got stuck on the ball.”
“This is where he broke his toe.”
Their teacher says comprehension is the primary focus.
“I added in a gingerbread theme to make it fun for this week and just looked at the standards in designing my lessons and seeing what I needed to focus on,” Kenton said.“I just find that the kids are learning a lot more because I think I’m paying a lot more attention to the details when I look at the standards.”
Almost all of the states have adopted Common Core standards for public schools in English, Language Arts and Math.
“It took me more than a semester to figure out my GI Bill benefits,” said Ryan Galluci, deputy legislative director with the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Galluci said only 58 percent of veterans knew they were eligible for college benefits, according to a survey.
Student Veterans of America hosted a conference in Orlando this week to discuss the issues and how to solve them.
Like last time, he looked at the effect of poverty and minority status on a school’s grade.
Smith examined 491 high schools. 46 of them are charter schools.
He says that at first glance, the average scores suggest charters are the stronger performers.
“Without any adjustments for poverty or minority status, it appears that the charter high schools perform better by a statistically significant difference of 4.37 percent,” Smith said.
But he says this is misleading because charter schools serve a higher percentage of minority students and a lower percentage of students in poverty.
Smith says that if you look at minorities alone without any income adjustment, they have a negative effect on scores. But he argues that most or all of that negative effect by minorities is really an income effect and when you control for income levels in schools, minorities actually improve school scores.
Congress avoided diving off the so-called 'fiscal cliff,' but they only put off the deadline on spending decisions until March.
Lawmakers extended college tax breaks in the federal fiscal deal struck late Tuesday, but punted on long-term spending decisions such as federal education funding and financial aid programs, such as Pell Grants for low-income students.
The American Opportunity Tax Credit has been extended until 2017 — This allows students to take a $2,500 credit up to four years for qualified college expenses. The credit was set to expire this year. Extending it has a cost of $67.3 billion over 10 years.
Student Loan Interest Deduction — Can deduct up to $2,500 in student loan interest annually. The deduction is now permanent. The income limit for the deduction was scheduled to be reduced, and a 60-month time limit would be imposed. The estimated cost is $9.7 billion over 10 years.
Coverdell Savings Accounts — Allows for up to $2,000 annual contribution to pay for higher education and K-12 costs. The deal makes the program permanent.
The Florida Board of Governors is touting the list, saying “access to an affordable higher education leads to brighter futures for hundreds of thousands of students. As they graduate and get jobs, the state benefits, too.”
Here are Kiplinger’s 2013 rankings for Florida schools:
Here’s the most interesting section to us, where reporter Jeff Solochek asks Bennett about the volume of school policy changes:
There’s been talk that Florida and other states might have taken on too many reform initiatives at the same time. Do you see that as a problem?
The short answer is no. I think what we have to be mindful of is alignment. … I think the answer to your question isn’t more or less. The most important thing we have to do is make sure when we pursue these reforms, that we are very careful and very intentional about aligning the reforms to each other so we don’t create disconnects.
Are there ideas that you want to bring to Florida?
First of all, remember, be it criticized, be it noted, however you want to define it, I was the person who was described as bringing the Florida reforms to Indiana. So there hasn’t been a whole lot other than a pure voucher system that we implemented in Indiana that wasn’t previously implemented in Florida.
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