Testing investigation: Six conservative legislators are calling on the Florida Department of Education to investigate whether three school districts deliberately limited the number of low-performing 7th-graders taking the state end-of-course civics exam in order to earn better school grades from the state. Sen. Dennis Baxley and Reps. Jason Fischer, Michael Bileca, James Grant, Bob Rommel and Jennifer Sullivan, all Republicans, and the Florida Coalition of School Board Members suggest that the Duval, Manatee and Polk districts limited the number of struggling students taking the test in order to boost the grades of schools and keep charter schools from moving in under the Schools of Hope law. District officials say they are simply having many of the struggling students take the test as 8th-graders, when they might be better prepared, which state law allows them to do. Gradebook. redefinED.
School security: A school safety agreement is reached between the Sarasota County School Board and Sheriff Tom Knight. The district will pay 80 percent and the sheriff 20 percent of the $1.6 million for 11 deputies to cover 10 schools, plus a lieutenant and two sergeants. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. More than 100 people have applied to become armed guardians to protect Manatee County schools. Most have law enforcement or military backgrounds, officials say. About 40 will be hired. Bradenton Herald. The city of Clermont agrees to provide resource officers for three elementary schools and a K-8 charter school. The Lake County School District will pay the city $279,653 for the officers, and a one-time fee of $211,280 for equipment, including new police cars. Daily Commercial. A coalition of law enforcement groups is looking at ways to make schools safer. The initiative is led by Max Schachter, whose son Alex died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Feb. 14. Schachter's group, Safe Schools for Alex Foundation, organized the meeting of the eight groups after he discovered there is no nationally recognized list of recommendations to improve school security. Sun-Sentinel. As individual districts work to meet the state mandate for an armed guard in every school, the Florida Department of Education is working to finish setting up its Office of Safe Schools to coordinate the security efforts. Damien Kelly, formerly a public corruption inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, is its director. WFSU. (more…)
Editor's note: This is the latest installment of an ongoing dialogue between Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, and John Wilson, a former National Education Association official who writes a blog at Education Week.
Doug Tuthill: John, on your John Wilson Unleashed blog, you recently wrote that “there are really two groups of poor children” - a group that benefits from effective parenting and other sources of social capital, and a second group that does not. You said to pigeonhole these high poverty/low social capital children “into a ‘one size fits all’ school model is malpractice.”
You concluded by saying we need “new policies and new practices that are customized to ensure that this group of children can succeed in our schools.”
I agree with you, and I know you have decades of experience working with these high poverty/low social capital children. Would you elaborate on what you think some of these new policies and customized practices should be?
John Wilson: Thanks, Doug, for giving me the chance to elaborate. First, let me say that equity in our schools gets a lot of rhetoric, but not much action. If there is one thing we should learn from Finland is that they made equity the focus of their transformation and excellence followed. In the United States, we have more challenges to overcome to achieve equity so we have to be bolder and smarter. Here are a few of my thoughts.
1. End segregation by socio-economics. I believe this is the civil rights issue of this century. The few school systems that have done this through creative student assignment plans and choice programs like magnet schools have seen student achievement for all rise, parent engagement increase, and opportunities for their students' future expand.
2. Provide every poor child with little or no social capital an education advocate. If we can provide children/juveniles in the court system with an advocate, would it not be smart to provide this for children in that pipeline as an intervention? I always tell friends don't enter the health care system without an advocate, and I would be remiss not to recognize the same need in education for poor children.
3. Strengthen career and technical education to provide more opportunities for all students. This pathway needs to be as strong as the college pathway so students can switch successfully. We could learn a lot from Finland and other European countries.
4. Provide wraparound services to all schools with the first priority being for the poorest. Health, housing, nutrition, safety and after- school programs affect academic achievement. We have seen the difference that Communities in Schools has made. It is time to replicate them.
I invite you to add to my starter list or challenge my ideas. (more…)
