{"id":15966,"date":"2013-01-14T08:11:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T13:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=15966"},"modified":"2013-01-14T08:11:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T13:11:17","slug":"florida-legislature-puts-tuition-for-children-of-immigrants-at-top-of-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/01\/14\/florida-legislature-puts-tuition-for-children-of-immigrants-at-top-of-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Legislature Puts Tuition For Children of Immigrants At Top Of Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Gonzalez \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Immigrant activists say their next step is fighting for status for their parents and passing the DREAM Act.<\/p><\/div>\n

Florida lawmakers are holding committee meetings in the state capital this week, preparing for the start of the legislative session on March 5th.<\/p>\n

So far, just a handful of education-related bills have been filed in the Florida House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

The big issue is complying with a federal court ruling that says Florida can not charge out-of-state tuition to the U.S.-born — or U.S. citizen — children of undocumented immigrants<\/a>. Typically, out-of-state tuition is at least three times more expensive than in-state tuition.<\/p>\n

HB 29 would grant any U.S. citizen<\/a> who graduates from a Florida high school after attending for one year in-state tuition at Florida colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

HB 17 would set stricter rules<\/a> to qualify for in-state tuition. Students would have to attend a Florida high school for four consecutive years to qualify for the lower tuition. HB 11 also mandates dependents of undocumented immigrants<\/a> who are U.S. citizens also qualify for in-state tuition, but would leave it to the State Board of Education to set the rules.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Schools with more low-income students would receive more funding if lawmakers approve HB 31. The bill was filed by three Republicans and a Democrat and creates a poverty-based school funding category.<\/p>\n

Schools with a higher percentage of students enrolled in the federal free and reduced lunch program would receive a supplement in the state budget<\/a>. The money is to be used for reading programs, to reduce class sizes or intervene with at-risk elementary school students.<\/p>\n

School districts would have to approve a schedule of district-required standardized testing<\/a> if lawmakers approve HB 53, introduced by Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah. School districts would have to publish the testing schedule to their websites.<\/p>\n

Florida has seen a growing backlash<\/a> to the amount of class time spent on standardized testing. State officials have taken the brunt of the criticism<\/a>, but they argue that school district add other testing on top of what is required by the state.<\/p>\n

HB 65 requires school districts<\/a> have at least a year to plan and budget for any changes to Florida education code. HB 1 would outline the rules for selling advertisements on school buses.<\/p>\n

Yet to be filed — but expected — are bills overhauling the state’s higher education system, providing charter schools a larger share of local school property taxes<\/a> and creating a statewide board to authorize and oversee charter schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the bills Senators have introduced so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida lawmakers are holding committee meetings in the state capital this week, preparing for the start of the legislative session on March 5th. So far, just a handful of education-related bills have been filed in the Florida House of Representatives. The big issue is complying with a federal court ruling that says Florida can not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":11631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[785,1075,1028,274,1006,1046],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}