When students started being graded on spelling, grammar and vocabulary this year, most students failed the state’s standardized writing exam. The Florida Board of Education lowered the passing score during an emergency meeting so more students would pass. But a veteran English teacher in Florida says this is a sign students aren’t being taught the […]
Think of it as an online teachers’ lounge. Instead of sitting on a couch talking over coffee, principals can share best practices and lesson plans online. School leaders in Florida are getting an assist from the Florida Department of Education to more effectively communicate with their fellow educators.
Editor’s note: This post was written by WLRN reporter Tasnim Shamma. The Florida Supreme Court accepted a public pension case last week that challenges a law passed in July that requires public employees to contribute 3 percent of their paychecks toward their retirement. The Florida Education Association says this is unconstitutional and has been fighting […]
Florida ranks eighth in the nation for laws which promote innovation, equal funding and ease of expansion of charter schools, according to a ranking from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. That moves Florida up two places from last year’s report as the Sunshine State improved its score slightly. Among the short-comings in the […]
State law allows schools in Florida to punish students by spanking them with a paddle, which is often a wooden or plexiglass board. The administrators at most schools with corporal punishment policies ask parents for permission to paddle their children. Many principals say they will not paddle a kid against the parent’s wishes. But schools […]
The parents of a South Florida seventh-grader forced him to wear a sandwich board to publicize his poor grades and preference for cracking up his classmates, according to WSVN television. Michael Bell Jr. is standing at a Kendall intersection wearing the sign. As other students enjoy their spring break, Michael will be out holding his […]
Florida teachers will soon be judged on how much they improve student scores on a standardized test. Part of their pay is going to be based on a new formula created by the state. But the formula doesn’t take into account what researchers say is one of the strongest indicators of student success: poverty. The […]
Miami Herald reporter Laura Isensee contributed to this report. Read her story on Florida’s merit pay formula here. School has always been about grading students. But now 24 states are starting to grade teachers. Florida is using a mathematical formula to calculate how well teachers are doing their jobs. The grade it spits out will help […]
Miami-Dade schools do not do enough to weed out poor-performing teachers, according to a new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The nation’s fourth-largest school district fired just 10 of more than 20,000 teachers last year for poor performance, according to the report. In comparison, Springfield, Illinois fired 10 of 2,144 teachers while […]
It’s that time between Halloween and Thanksgiving when first-year teachers start losing some of the initial excitement they had at the start of the school year, and when students (who haven’t had a school break in a while) start pushing new teachers to see what they can get away with. Roxanna Elden, calls the month of […]
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