Charter school attendance. The Palm Beach County school district plans to bring in a computer program to better track charter school attendance after one school overstated its numbers. Extra Credit blog.

“Magnet mania.” Duval puts on its first School Choice Expo. First Coast News.

ESA debate resurfacing? Gradebook.

Please raise our taxes. Some Brevard parents, upset about proposed school closures, are lobbying the school board to hold a special election to raise taxes. Florida Today. (Image from kceducationenterprise.org)

More school security. School districts will ask lawmakers for more money this year to beef up security in the wake of Newtown, the News Service of Florida reports. Its video interview with FSBA executive director Wayne Blanton here. Reactions range to a Lake County school board member’s proposal to arm teachers with guns, reports the Orlando Sentinel. More school safety coverage from the Fort Myers News Press, Naples Daily News, Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Pattern of behavior. Tampa Bay Times: “A Pinellas teacher accused of downloading child pornography on his home computer has a peculiar history of complaints against him, including allegations that he exchanged inappropriate emails with a young girl, according to records from the Pinellas County School District.”

Falling apart. A citizens group chronicles deteriorating building conditions in two Broward high schools that serve predominantly minority students. Miami Herald.

Cell phone waste. An audit finds $117,000 worth over two years in the Palm Beach district. Palm Beach Post.

Rick Scott. Visits an elementary school in Volusia. Daytona Beach News Journal.

Tony Bennett. Starts work Monday. SchoolZone.

StudentsFirst report card. Jacksonville Business Journal.

School funding. Gov. Rick Scott wants to spend additional revenue on public schools, reports the Florida Current. Funding and other education issues are woven through a mid-term progress report on Scott from the Tampa Bay Times.

Rezoning. The Seminole school district is swamped with proposals, reports Orlando Sentinel. Affluent parents respond with “snobbery,” writes Sentinel columnist Beth Kassab. (Image from coolsprings.com)

Florida gets a B- for ed reform policies, according to a StudentsFirst report out today, the New York Times reports. That ties it with Louisiana for the top grade. A dozen states get F’s.

Best year ever. 2012 was a year of unprecedented accomplishments for the Miami-Dade school district, writes Superintendent Alberto Carvalho in the Miami Herald.

Career and technical. The Manatee school districts spends $44 million on a new main campus for Manatee Technical Institute. Bradenton Herald.

School grading. Poor grades for Polk high schools should be taken seriously. Lakeland Ledger.

School security. Editorials from Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Tribune, Palm Beach Post. More coverage from the Tribune and South Florida Sun Sentinel.

School enrollment. It's up in public schools by 30,000 statewide, in part because of declines in private schools. Palm Beach Post. A district audit finds a Palm Springs charter school overstated its enrollment, resulting in a $160,000 overpayment, the Palm Beach Post also reports.

Home schooling. Enough with the stereotypes, writes Mike Thomas at the EdFly Blog. (more…)

School choice will have its own legislative committee. From the News Service of Florida (subscription required): “Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, is revamping the House's committee structure, including making changes that will affect education and regulatory issues. The changes, outlined in a memo sent to House members Wednesday, include creating an education Choice & Innovation Subcommittee, which will deal with a wide range of issues such as charter schools, virtual instruction and voucher-type programs.”

A plea on teacher evals. The Florida Education Association asks Gov. Rick Scott to use his authority to postpone the linking of standardized test scores to teacher evaluations, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

More school funding votes. Voters in Seminole said yes to a tax hike, voters in Volusia said no, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Brevard voters also said no, Florida Today reports.

Charter school closing. The Lee County School Board prepares to close a charter school with financial problems, the Fort Myers News Press reports.

About that $155 million verdict for the former charter principal. Nevermind, the Miami Herald reports.

Mounting criticism over student deaths. Hillsborough County parents start facebook pages and have scheduled a protest in response to the deaths of two special needs students, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

From Idaho and Indiana, a message for Jeb Bush? StateImpact Florida.

Amendment 8 goes down. Coverage from Tampa Bay Times, Orlando Sentinel, Education Week, Associated Press.

More money for schools. In Miami-Dade, voters approve a $1.2 billion bond referendum for public schools, the Miami Herald reports. In Pinellas, they again approve a property tax increase aimed mostly at boosting teacher pay, reports the Tampa Bay Times.

Legislative races. In Central Florida, pro-school-choice Democrat Darren Soto wins a state Senate seat, while Democrat Karen Castor Dentel – a teacher targeted by that Jerry Sandusky ad – wins a House seat, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Florida style reformer loses. Indiana state superintendent Tony Bennett, who championed Florida-like ed reforms and was a member of the Jeb Bush-backed Chiefs for Change, lost re-election in a stunner to Glenda Ritz, an elementary school media specialist. Stories here and here.

F-rated charter schools get another chance. Per unanimous votes Tuesday by the state Board of Education. Coverage from Orlando Sentinel, Gainesville Sun, Pensacola News Journal.

Jury awards charter principal $155 million. From the Miami Herald: “The ousted principal of an Aventura charter school has won a $155 million award in a lawsuit claiming her firing was not only without cause, but ruined her health and career prospects.” More from Education Week.

Criticism of tax credit scholarships. A mother complains about education quality at an Orange City private school that accepts tax credit scholarships, reports wftv.com.

Capping his week-long education "listening tour," Florida Gov. Rick Scott had dinner last night with Florida Education Association President Andy Ford and other teachers union officials. Tucked into this Palm Beach Post blog post about the first-ever get-together was this quote from Scott:

“I believe parents ought to have choice, I believe that’s good for them,” Scott said. “I believe in the public school system. I grew up in the public school system. It was good for me. The teachers had a dramatic, positive impact on the my life….Is choice good? Yeah. But let’s make sure we do it the right way. Is competition good? Sure, but let’s make sure we do it the right way.”

Without further details, it's hard to know what Scott was suggesting, if anything (but who could disagree with being thoughtful about school choice?). For what it's worth, it joins other interesting word choices from Scott in recent weeks, including one about "teaching to the test" and another about working with teachers.

After the dinner, Scott issued a statement saying he wanted to maintain if not increase state funding for education: (more…)

As you know, we keep tabs on what’s written and said about school choice and ed reform, particularly in Florida. This week has been a doozy when it comes to head-scratching statements. Today we highlight a few and offer a quick response …

In just a few years, Orlando-based Fund Education Now has become the leading parent group in Florida. Aggressive. Media savvy. Super effective. I respect its members for their passion. I sometimes agree with them. But there are times when the rhetoric is at odds with reality.

After this week’s FCAT fiasco, the group wrote in an action alert to members: “These abysmal FCAT Writes scores are proof that Tallahassee’s ‘education reforms’ are an unmitigated disaster.” I agree the state raised the bar too fast and too fast on some of our standardized tests. But have the state’s policies as a whole flat-out bombed?

In the past four years, Florida has ranked No. 11, No. 8, No. 5 and No. 11 among all 50 states in Education Week’s annual Quality Counts report. And contrary to some critics’ claims, that’s not just because of policies on paper that sound good; it’s also because the state has moved the needle on student achievement, particularly for low-income kids. On the K-12 achievement portion of EdWeek’s rating – which considers performance and progress on NAEP, AP and graduation rates – Florida finished at No. 7, No. 7, No. 6 and No. 12 over the past four years. In 2011, it finished in the Top 10 in eight of nine progress categories. It finished in the Top 3 in six of them.

The reason Florida tumbled out of the overall top 10 this year is because of budget cuts, and because its NAEP scores have stalled in reading and math. That’s troubling when the state is still nowhere near where it needs to be. I think that’s what led the state Board of Education to be too bold in raising the bar.

But Florida’s policy makers, like them or not, have been more right than wrong in the past decade when it comes to standards and accountability and school choice. To deny there’s been progress is good for stoking fury and mobilizing troops. But it’s unfair to the teachers who made it happen. And it could undermine changes that really did make things better for kids.

In an op-ed Sunday, syndicated columnist Bill Maxwell describes what he sees as another round of teacher bashing in Florida and blames “conservative lawmakers who dominate Tallahassee” and are gunning to privatize public schools. The prompt for his outrage: A cost-cutting decision by the Pinellas County School District to curb the use of individual printers by teachers. (more…)

Everybody loves the underdog except when it comes to education reform. More than a week after the Florida Senate rejected the parent trigger bill, the story line is now David v. Goliath, with David (played by established parent groups like the Florida PTA and Fund Education Now) squeaking out a victory over Goliath (starring Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, and the Republican-dominated Legislature.)

The truth is, titans clashed while David was en route to his second job.

The underdogs who are lost in this narrative are low-income and working-class parents. They have virtually no one in their corner as they deal with conditions in their schools that would spark outrage – and quick remedies – if they happened in more affluent schools.

To take teacher quality and equity as an example: High-poverty schools have the highest teacher turnover rates, the most rookie teachers, the most out-of-field teachers, the most teachers who failed certification exams, the fewest board certified, etc.  We all know how destructive that is, year after year, kid after kid, generation after generation. And yet, it’s just kind of accepted. (more…)