Corcoran chosen: Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis has officially nominated former House Speaker Richard Corcoran for the job of education commissioner. Corcoran is a staunch supporter of school choice, vouchers and charter schools, and former Senate president Don Gaetz says Corcoran could become the "most disruptive education reformer in our state's history." Politically liberal groups and traditional public schools advocates are reacting negatively. “Richard Corcoran has a terrible track record of putting private interests over the needs of Florida’s children,” says Scott McCoy, senior policy counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The State Board of Education will have to approve the appointment. Associated Press. News Service of Florida. Orlando Sentinel. Tampa Bay Times. Politico Florida. WUSF. Florida Times-Union. Tallahassee Democrat. Florida Politics. WJXT. Florida Phoenix. DeSantis' 41-person education transition committee includes, among others, state Board of Education chairwoman Marva Johnson, Florida State University president John Thrasher, former Brevard superintendent Desmond Blackburn and John Kirtley, founder and chairman of Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog and helps administer several state K-12 scholarship programs. Sunshine State News. Florida Politics. Gradebook.
Spending on schools: Spending on K-12 schools across the United States increased for the third consecutive year, according to a report released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics. Across the country, $678.4 billion was collected and $596.1 billion was spent in the 2016 fiscal year. The average spent per student was $11,841, but the totals varied widely. The District of Columbia, for example, spent $27,067 per student, and New York spent $24,717, while Idaho spent $8,258 and Utah $8,408. Florida spent $9,176, which was almost identical to the two previous years and ranks 43rd among the states and D.C. Education Week.
Florida State University is on a well-known quest to reach the top 25 in national academic rankings of public universities.
That helps explain why its new president, John Thrasher, was listening to students at the Orlando Science School as they talked about spending Saturdays in the robotics lab, and doing experiments with self-heating polymers and RFID transmitters.
Students at the Orlando Science School tell Florida State University professor Paul Cottle about their career plans.
During a visit to the school last week, Thrasher said the university's plan calls for strengthening its STEM programs.
That behooves it to attract students with solid foundations in math and science who might be interested in undergraduate research, or in pursuing careers in well-paying fields like engineering — the kind of students who have gravitated to the Central Florida charter school.
"This is an amazing school," he told a group of upperclassman packed into the school's media center. "You all are getting an opportunity that's pretty exclusive, and I hope you make the best of it."
Thrasher, a former state lawmaker now nearly five months into his presidency, accompanied Paul Cottle, an FSU physics professor who makes the rounds at schools across the state, promoting the high-level math and science courses he says are crucial to success in college.
Each year, as Cottle has shown on his blog, thousands of Florida students graduate high school without taking courses like physics and calculus. Research has found disparities in high school preparation hinder the progress of black and Hispanic students in science, technology, engineering and math. Around the state, he has found are pockets of success where schools have made science a priority.
Yalcin Akin, the Orlando school's founder, said he had seen a need for more STEM-focused public schools since he was working toward his Ph.D. in materials engineering at Florida State.
Since the school was first profiled by redefinED, it has grown to enroll more than 1,000 students at its elementary and secondary campuses. It celebrated its first graduating class, boasting that all its alumni were accepted into college. Next school year, it is set to expand into neighboring Seminole County.
Last year, the school also won its third-straight state title at the Science Olympiad. It typically fields multiple teams in the science competitions, which basically enjoy the status of a varsity sport.
"FSU has a football team," Akin said. "We have Science Olympiad."
