Rick Scott campaigns for governor at The Villages on October 1, 2010.
Gov. Rick Scott has changed his stance on education in a few ways this year:
He met the teachers’ union president for dinner and promised ongoing meetings.
He returned a billion dollars to education funding.
He said education is his new priority, since it will ultimately lead to job growth.
Seth McKee, Associate Professor of Political Science at USF-St. Petersburg, says it’s all about the election.
“He’s not popular,” McKee said. “I’ve never seen him reach over the mid 40’s in a poll. He tends to hang out in the high 30’s in terms of public approval.”
He wiped out $1.3 billion in state education funding, then came out strongly in favor of alternatives to traditional public schooling, like for-profit charter schools.
McKee says Scott had no choice but to make changes.
The plan calls for higher passing scores among Asian and white students, while setting higher expectations for improvement among black and Hispanic students.
In response, Gov. Rick Scott issued a statement saying in part: Continue Reading →
Scott believes that if Florida produces more STEM graduates, companies will be lured to the state and more high paying jobs will be created.
Now, UF’s College of Education has been awarded a $2 million, two-year grant from the state to create research-based, professional development support for new science and math teachers in middle and high schools.
The university has established a program called Florida STEM-Teacher Induction and Professional Support, also known as the Florida STEM-TIPS Center.
Through this project, teachers will be provided with mentoring, training, and other support during their first two years on the job.
AZ: What are the top 10 things you wish people understood about you?
Henry: #1 Please talk to me like everyone else.
#2 Please don’t talk about me in front of me. I can hear you. I can read your lips. I can read your body language. It feels terrible. Sad. But it feels great when you treat me like I am smart.
#3 Please talk directly to me, not to my support person, or my mom, Russ or my sisters.
#4 Please focus on my strengths. I have many. We all do.
#5 Please presume my competence.
#6 Remember, I am a person, just like you.
#7 Don’t make me prove it.
#8 Please never refer to my iPad as a toy. It is not; it is my voice. Imagine if you could not speak with your mouth, how important your iPad voice would be.
Duval County school board members criticized a state plan that sets different achievement goals for different races. But the board approved a local plan in August that also breaks out goals by race.
Duval County school board members are complaining about a state plan which sets differing academic targets by race, despite approving a similar plan in August the Florida Times-Union reports.
Duval County school board member Tommy Hazouri said the local plan targets were informational and not part of the district’s strategic plan.
Other board members said they were complying with federal rules:
W.C. Gentry said the state and federal government require the district to measure the achievement of the racial groups and so he didn’t object to setting goals by subgroup.
“My argument when we were doing this is that we really ought be talking about how were not setting sufficient goals for white kids,” he said. “By setting lower expectations for whites and having greater expectations for blacks are we being fair to white kids?”
White and Asian students are targeted for less percentage-point growth in the district’s document and they often are the two highest achieving subgroups as well. Gentry also said the real focus needs to be poverty.
Burney and Wright said they voted against the plan because of the racial targets, and because they felt those and the overall targets were not aggressive enough. Pratt-Dannals drew a distinction between aspirational targets, and accountable targets that he’ll use to hold principals responsible and even to make personnel decisions. The non-racial or subgroup targets in the August document are those accountable goals, he said.
Is Florida setting the bar lower for black and Hispanic students, or higher?
The State Board of Education is taking criticism for a new five-year plan which local school officials say sets lower goals for blacks, Hispanics and other groups than for white or Asian students.
But the plan also asks for more improvement from those same black and Hispanic students than their higher-performing classmates, something supporters say is being overlooked.
The goal is to close the gap between the percentage of white and Asian students scoring at or above grade level on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and the percentage of black and Hispanic students doing so.
Part of the problem is how the Department of Education presented the numbers.
The percentage of students passing state exams is always the most important number — and the new plan does set higher thresholds for Asian and white students.
But it’s possible to argue the new plan asks more of black, Hispanic and other lower-performing groups.
The entire adult autistic community has been saying in one loud voice that “…with autism” is not acceptable. Myself and Lydia Brown are just two examples of autistic adults who write about why. But one of the reasons is that talking about an essential component of a person as if it is a separate thing is not acceptable. You do not say “person with blackness” or “person with Asianness”. Yet it is okay to use such racist or neuro-ist language against the autistic in your eyes. It is not in ours. Please stop.
Schools around Florida have activities planned to promote new, healthier menus.
Federal requirements were put into place this year as part of the National School Lunch Program. Fruits and vegetables must be offered every day to students eating school lunch.
Jackie Moalli, Outreach Manager with the Florida Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said the schools will partner with professional sports teams next week to get kids making better choices.
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