Top 10 again. Education Week ranks Florida No. 6 this year in its annual Quality Counts report. redefinED. Orlando Sentinel. Associated Press.

Teacher evals. StateImpact Florida writes about the new Gates study on the best way to identify the best teachers. SchoolZone notes it. Jay P. Greene rips it. District officials in Palm Beach County don’t feel good about the new, state-mandated system, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Common Core. Reformers have to win the messaging battle, writes Mike Thomas at the EdFly Blog: “Our success in passing school reforms has had more to do with prevailing in legislative bodies than prevailing in the public arena. This has led to a dangerous neglect of the need for marketing. We now are paying the price for that as our opponents vigorously fight back, defining reform as an attack on public schools that is degrading the quality of education. That this isn’t true doesn’t matter. Sound bites often trump data.”

Rezoning retreat. After affluent parents complain, Seminole district officials back away from plans to equalize the number of low-income students at each school. Orlando Sentinel.

Fire them. Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia recommends firing two aides and demoting a principal and assistant principal in the aftermath of the drowning of a special needs student. Tampa Bay Times. Tampa Tribune.

More school safety. Tampa Bay Times. StateImpact Florida. Panama City News Herald. (more…)

For the fifth year in a row, Florida’s public school system ranks among the best in the country, according to the latest annual analysis by Education Week.

Released this morning, the highly anticipated “Quality Counts” report puts Florida at No. 6 among states this year, trailing only Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Arkansas. In the previous four years, Florida came in at No. 11, No. 8, No. 5 and No. 11, respectively.

"For Florida to be a global leader in job creation and economic growth, we have to provide our students with a quality education," Gov. Rick Scott said in a written statement. "Today's news that Florida has moved into the top ten in the nation for overall quality of education reinforces that we're taking the steps needed to ensure our students succeed."

The consistently strong showing is at odds with public perception and with steady criticism from those opposed to a series of far-reaching education changes spurred by former Gov. Jeb Bush. To be sure, it’s tough to determine which factors – including a heady expansion of parental school choice - have had the most impact. But the EdWeek reports are another credible sign that Florida students and teachers are no longer cramping at the back of the pack.

They’re also another sign that nobody should be satisfied. Florida earned a B- overall in the latest report. And in the category that matters the most – student achievement – it managed a C-.

Quality Counts looks at policy and performance in six broad categories with multiple indicators. Each year, the researchers behind the report update three of them. This year, they updated the school finance and “transitions and alignment” categories, and something called the Chance-for-Success Index.

Florida’s rank on the index is unchanged from 2011, coming in at No. 34. On transitions, it climbed from No. 14 to No. 4. On finance, it fell from No. 31 to 39 (and from C- to a D+). The reason for the latter: historic cuts in education spending that had yet to be tempered by 2010, which is the data year EdWeek uses for the new report. (more…)