{"id":20126,"date":"2013-09-16T12:05:06","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T16:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=20126"},"modified":"2013-09-16T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T16:05:06","slug":"whats-in-the-florida-department-of-educations-budget-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/09\/16\/whats-in-the-florida-department-of-educations-budget-request\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s In The Florida Department of Education’s Budget Request"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

401(K) 2013<\/p>

The Florida Department of Education's requested budget would increase per-student funding and money for technology.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Florida Department of Education wants to spend an additional $126.77 per student and $40 million on school technology<\/a>, according to the agency’s preliminary budget request.<\/p>\n

The draft budget is one item on a busy State Board of Education agenda tomorrow<\/a>. The board will also discuss what’s next in hiring a new education commissioner and a new rule for determining residency for in-state tuition.<\/p>\n

In total, the agency’s $15.1 billion request for the budget year beginning July 1 is $65.3 million less than the current spending plan.<\/p>\n

The plan calls for every school district to receive at least $75,000 for technology projects (pg. 139)<\/a>, with the remainder of the $40 million distributed according to student enrollment. The first priority for the money is improving computer networks, but districts which meet state benchmarks could use the money for devices.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lawmakers have said funding technology will be a priority this year<\/a> as Florida decides how to (mostly) replace the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test with a new online exam tied to Common Core State Standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The budget request also includes an additional $18 million to cover the cost of dual enrollment courses (pg. 239)<\/a>. Those are classes where high school students can take courses from local colleges and earn credit toward a degree.<\/p>\n

The agency has also included $15 million in performance-based funding to reward colleges (pg. 243)<\/a> which meet state expectations for average cost per graduate, the percentage of employed graduates and the average pay of graduates.<\/p>\n

Another new program would create math camps for students entering high school who have not enrolled or completed Algebra 1 at a cost of $8.9 million (pg. 139)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The budget would also continue the recent trend of cutting funding for the Bright Futures scholarship program<\/a> (pg. 109)<\/a>. Since the 2010-2011 budget year, funding has decreased to $309.4 million from $425.3 million.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers recently raised the ACT and SAT scores needed to earn a scholarship, and a result fewer students are eligible. The spending plan would cut Bright Futures by $37 million — 12.3 percent — and nearly 18,700 students.<\/p>\n

The average award next year would be $2,033.42.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida Department of Education wants to spend an additional $126.77 per student and $40 million on school technology, according to the agency’s preliminary budget request. The draft budget is one item on a busy State Board of Education agenda tomorrow. The board will also discuss what’s next in hiring a new education commissioner and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":20127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[865,1014,1036,1157,1050],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126"}],"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=20126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20129,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126\/revisions\/20129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}