{"id":4659,"date":"2012-02-06T13:40:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T18:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=4659"},"modified":"2012-02-06T14:08:30","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T19:08:30","slug":"education-in-the-florida-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/02\/06\/education-in-the-florida-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Next in Education in the Florida Legislature?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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livefreeordiealliance.org<\/p>

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As the legislative session approaches the midway point<\/a>, education will take a prominent place in the Florida Legislature<\/a> this week amid budget talk and proposed tuition increases.<\/p>\n

The Florida House has announced its budget proposal; now it\u2019s the Senate\u2019s turn. Senate President Mike Haridopolos has scheduled a series of budget subcommittee<\/a> meetings as the chamber tries to craft a spending plan.<\/p>\n

The House\u2019s $69.2-billion budget<\/a> boosts public school funding by more than $1-billion. It increases spending per student by about $141. It also hikes college tuition<\/a> by 8 percent.<\/p>\n

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Charter Schools<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond the budget, a number of education bills will be considered this week. Charter schools<\/a> will get more opportunities for expansion under a bill before the Senate Education Pre-K -12 Committee. It authorizes Florida College System institutions that offer an approved teacher preparation program to operate one K-12 charter school.<\/p>\n

Virtual Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same committee considers a bill that would make a series of changes to the state\u2019s virtual education<\/a> offerings. Among other things, the bill authorizes the Florida Virtual School to provide full-time and part-time classes for students in grades K-12. It specifies that the Florida Virtual School has the same authority and responsibilities as a school district relating to its full-time program. It also enables full-time virtual school students to take part in extracurricular activities.<\/p>\n

Ad Space on School Buses<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard about proposed legislation to allow school districts to sell ad space on school buses<\/a>. The proposal will go before the full House and will be considered by a Senate budget subcommittee this week. Now, additional cameras<\/a> are being considered for school buses as a means of catching drivers who ignore the flashing stop sign when children are getting on and off the bus. The measure gets its first hearing before the Senate Transportation Committee.<\/p>\n

Education Funding<\/strong><\/p>\n

College presidents go before the House Education Committee to discuss higher education reforms, and the Florida Legislative Black Caucus<\/a> meets to discuss trends in Florida\u2019s education funding.<\/p>\n

Gov. Rick Scott has requested an additional $1-billion for K-12 education, and it appears both chambers will comply. But the governor opposes a tuition increase for colleges and universities. Scott has said he wants to keep Florida competitive by keeping tuition lower than other states. Lawmakers may ultimately write the budget in such a way that Scott won\u2019t be able to veto<\/a> their tuition hikes. University presidents are asking for the increases, saying the added income is crucial. But community college presidents are asking lawmakers to reject the idea<\/a>, saying many of their non-traditional students are barely making ends meet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the legislative session approaches the midway point, education will take a prominent place in the Florida Legislature this week amid budget talk and proposed tuition increases. The Florida House has announced its budget proposal; now it\u2019s the Senate\u2019s turn. Senate President Mike Haridopolos has scheduled a series of budget subcommittee meetings as the chamber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1104,278,1028],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4659"}],"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\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4681,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4659\/revisions\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}