Teaching customized to the developmental needs of each child has been the dream of K-12 educators for over a hundred years. When I was in graduate school in the 1970s, we talked continuously about the need to abandon the one-size-fits-all, assembly-line instruction that permeated public education. But we didn’t know how to translate our ivory-tower… Read more »
State responds in suit: Lawyers for the state are urging the Florida Supreme Court to dismiss a case challenging the constitutionality of the way Florida funds its education system instead of sending it back to a lower court for further review. Last December, an appeals court decided that a trial court correctly ruled that the… Read more »
Teachers losing jobs: More than 900 Florida teachers – many of whom were rated effective on their evaluations – are out of a job because they couldn’t pass the Florida Teacher Certification Exam. The exam, which includes a variety of subject area exams and general knowledge tests, was toughened three years ago and the number of… Read more »
New rules for scholarships: The Florida Board of Education approves rules for two new scholarship programs created by the Legislature. The Hope Scholarship gives students who are victims of bullying, intimidation, sexual offenses or violence the opportunity to ask for a transfer to another public school or to receive a scholarship to a private school…. Read more »
Accountability plan: Florida is now the only state whose plan to meet the federal Every Student Succeeds Act standards has yet to be approved by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Last week DeVos gave the okay to California’s and Utah’s plans, but Florida’s second attempt to comply is still pending. The last action came June… Read more »
Lowest performers: Sixty-four Florida elementary schools are placed on the “persistently low-performing” list, and with 13, Hillsborough County has more than twice as many as any other state school district. Last year the district had 20 schools on the list. State law defines “persistently low performing” schools as those that receive a school grade lower than C from… Read more »
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Like many Catholic schools, Cardinal Newman High School has worked to reinvent itself over the years to draw students. In 2005, it became the first Catholic school in Florida to offer an International Baccalaureate program. It’s added college prep courses and is preparing to add more science, technology, engineering and… Read more »
Teacher of the year: Joy Prescott, a 4th-grade math teacher at Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School in Glades County, is named Florida teacher of the year. She wins $20,000 and will be the state’s Christa McAuliffe Ambassador for Education for the next year. The other finalists were Kyle Dencker, a computer science teacher at Timber Creek… Read more »
Today is my last day editing this blog. After 23 years as a Floridian, six years chronicling the politics and policy of the public education system that educated me, and four and half years writing in this space, I’m moving on to start a new chapter alongside my fiancee, who teaches high school English in New… Read more »
Amendment 8 lawsuit: Amendment 8 is misleading and should be removed from the ballot, the League of Women Voters and the Southern Poverty Law Center argue in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Leon County. The lawsuit focuses on the part of the proposed amendment that would allow allow entities other than school boards to “operate, control,… Read more »
