Education bill: The Florida Senate passes a broad education bill that eliminates one test, the Algebra 2 end-of-course exam, pushes standardized testing toward the end of the school year, requires the Department of Education to study whether national tests like the SAT and ACT can be used as alternatives to the Florida Standards Assessments and other statewide tests, and requires 20 minutes of daily recess for all elementary school students. The measure now goes to the House. Today is the last day such a standalone bill can be approved. Miami Herald. Associated Press. Orlando Sentinel. Politico Florida. The bill also gives charter schools a path to quicker replication. redefinED.

Budget complaints: The Florida Association of District School Superintendents says the funding for K-12 public schools next year is "not sufficient to meet the basic funding needs of Florida's 2.8 million public school students." "Considering the overall economic strength of our state, it is alarming that the basic funding needs of Florida public school students could go unaddressed," said Malcolm Thomas, Escambia County superintendent and president of the FADSS. “This is just not acceptable,” added Palm County School Superintendent Robert Avossa. “It’s just disheartening to see the lack of investment.” Miami Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Sun-Sentinel. Palm Beach Post. Politico Florida. Orlando Sentinel. Citrus County Chronicle. Senate and House negotiators finalize an agreement on the $83 million state budget. The vote is Monday. News Service of Florida.

Interim superintendent: The Duval County School Board agrees to conduct a national search for a superintendent to replace the outgoing Nikolai Vitti, who is taking the superintendent's job with the Detrout schools. Until a replacement is found, an interim superintendent will be appointed with the stipulation that she or he will not be a candidate for the permanent job. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

School spending: Florida schools are still struggling to recover from spending cuts made during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, say superintendents and other school officials. The Florida School Finance Council, which advises the commissioner of education, says the state would have to spend an additional $1.86 billion over the next three years to offset those cutbacks. "School revenue is back to where it was in 2007, (but) does anybody believe costs are the same?" asked Escambia County Superintendent Malcolm Thomas. "I think where we're feeling the pinch now is just the operational costs to really support and educate your kids." Naples Daily News. St. Johns County school officials are "cautiously optimistic" after delving into Gov. Rick Scott's proposed education budget, which would give them $17.6 million more. “In this day and age, that’s a pretty healthy increase,” said Mike Degutis, the district’s chief financial officer. “If this stands through the process, that’d be great for us.” St. Augustine Record.

Open enrollment: Orange County school officials say only 29 of the district's 188 schools will be open to transfer students under the state's new open enrollment law that begins in August. The list includes 20 elementary schools, five middle schools, three high schools and a K-8 school. Students who live in Orange County can apply now for one of those seats, while those who live outside the county can apply starting May 15. Orlando Sentinel. The Lake County School District begins accepting applications for transfers under the new law. Only 14 of the district's 43 schools have openings for transfers. Daily Commercial.

Class size suit dismissed: A judge dismisses a lawsuit accusing the Palm Beach County School District of violating the state's school class-size limits. A voter-approved amendment in 2002 capped K-3 "core" class sizes at 18 students. Paul Kunz filed the suit after his son was placed in a kindergarten class of 21 students. The judge ruled that an individual can't sue a local school board over class-size rules since the state is responsible for their implementation. Palm Beach Post.

Charter regulation: Margate city commissioners give tentative approval to a rule that would require new charter schools to adhere to the same property regulations as traditional public schools. City rules require 12 acres for elementary schools, 20 acres for middle schools and 45 acres for high schools. Because there is little vacant land in Margate, Mayor Tommy Ruzzano says the rule would "pretty much" end new charter school applications. Sun-Sentinel. (more…)

Superintendent elections: Rocky Hanna soundly defeats incumbent Leon County School Superintendent Jackie Pons. Tallahassee Democrat. WFSU. Addison Davis is elected superintendent in Clay County. Florida Times-Union. Putnam County voters choose Rick Surrency as superintendent. Florida Times-Union. Kathy Burns is elected superintendent of Nassau County. Florida Times-Union. Malcolm Thomas wins a third term as Escambia County superintendent. Pensacola News Journal. Russell Hughes is elected superintendent for Walton County schools. Northwest Florida Daily News. Bill Husfelt is re-elected superintendent in Bay County. Panama City News Herald.

School board elections: School board results from around the state. Pinellas. Hillsborough. Hillsborough. Hernando. Miami-Dade. Orange. Lake. Lake. Palm Beach. Duval. Brevard. Lee. Polk. Polk. Indian River. Martin. Manatee. Manatee. Manatee. Flagler. Citrus.

School tax elections: Results of state school tax initiatives. Pinellas. Osceola. Palm Beach. Palm Beach. Manatee. Manatee. Alachua.

Retention rules: The Florida School Boards Association is lobbying legislators to clarify the law regarding the retention of third-graders. The group wants clearly defined promotion alternatives for students that consider both testing and achievement, an end to the reliance of a single testing result to determine retention, and local control over promotion decisions. Gradebook.

New superintendent: Tim Forson is picked by the school board to be the new superintendent of the St. Johns County School District. Forson, who retired last spring as deputy superintendent of operations after 36 years in the district, was the unanimous choice over Vickie Cartwright, who is the senior executive director for exceptional student education for the Orange County School District. Forson takes over Jan. 4 for the retiring Joe Joyner. St. Augustine Record. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

Open enrollment rules: Open enrollment for students in Palm Beach County will be an option only when a school is 10 percent under capacity, the school board decides. A state law going into effect next year allows students to move to any public school that has room for them, but allows each district to set its own rules. Sun-Sentinel.

Alternate test option: The Florida Department of Education approves Istation as an option to the Florida Standards Assessments tests for third-grade promotion. There are now seven options for students, including well-known tests such as the SAT-10 and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Gradebook.

Legislative priorities: Incoming state House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, says he wants the Legislature to expand school choice, deregulate the state's highest-performing public schools and provide more money to schools that have extended hours. redefinED.

Danger in Duval: Duval County's schools are the most dangerous in the state, according to Florida Department of Education statistics. In the 2014-2015 school year, Duval recorded 11,537 incidents of crime, violence and disruptive behavior. Miami-Dade County was next with 8,854. WJXT.

Schools and politics: A Boca Raton High School senior wearing a "Hillary for Prison 2016" T-shirt says she was thrown out of class and threatened with suspension because her shirt was causing a classroom disruption. WPTV. (more…)

Charter donations: Charter school companies have donated heavily to statewide candidates over the past 20 years. Now, increasingly, the donations are trickling down to the school board level. That development is causing concern for some in educational circles, while others see the money flow as a counterbalance to donations from teachers unions. Florida Times-Union.

School budgeting: The Hillsborough County School Board approves a tentative $2.8 billion budget that includes a drop in the tax millage rate. Increasing property values will more than offset the drop. Tampa Bay Times. The 3 percent pay raises Pasco school officials wanted to hand out this year are down to 2.6 or 2.7 percent, School Superintendent Kurt Browning says. The $1.2 billion budget could continue to change until its final approval next month. Gradebook. The Leon County School Board approves a tentative $498 million budget that includes money to put an armed resource officer at every elementary school. Tallahassee Democrat. The St. Johns County School Board approves a tentative budget that calls for per-pupil spending of $7,008.93. St. Augustine Record. The Florida Cabinet agrees to borrow $285 million to build and maintain facilities for schools at all levels. It's the first time the state will borrow money for educational infrastructure since the 2010-2011 budget year. News Service of Florida. WFOR.

Bathroom policy: The Sarasota County School Board again declines to set a districtwide policiy that would, among other things, allow transgender students to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identities. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Gifted plan delayed: The Duval County School Board delays a vote on adding gifted programs to more elementary and middle schools. The board wants even more gifted programs spread throughout the county. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti says some schools don't have enough gifted students to justify a fulltime program. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

School budgeting: The Lake County School District's tentative budget for the next year is set at $549 million. The district's tax millage rate will fall slightly, but a 7 percent increase in property values will largely offset the decline. Orlando Sentinel. Daily Commercial. The Clay County School District sets a tentative budget of $376 million that calls for a slightly lower tax millage rate that will be offset by higher property values. The budget is an increase of almost 8 percent over last year's. Florida Times-Union. The Collier County School Board will consider a tentative budget of $972 million. While the budget calls for a lower tax millage rate, increased property values would drive up a typical homeowner's taxes for schools by about 6 percent. Naples Daily News. The Volusia County School Board approves an $847 million operating budget. Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Legal fees fight: The state is requesting almost $379,000 in legal fees from the groups that are suing the state over the adequacy of the public educational system. The group, Citizens for a Strong Florida and others, lost the case and are appealing. They object to the state's request. News Service of Florida. WJXT.

Teacher firings: The Florida Board of Education and teachers unions are at odds over the ability of districts to fire low-performing teachers at failing schools. The board says exceptions to the usual firing process should be made for schools that underachieve year after year. Unions say no teacher should be fired based solely on the performance of their students on state testing. Politico Florida.

Earlier school starts: After the Legislature passed a law allowing schools to open as early as Aug. 10, 40 of the state's 67 districts took advantage. In central Florida, Lake, Seminole and Osceola start Aug. 10 while Orange and Volusia open Aug. 15. Orlando Sentinel. (more…)

Teacher bonuses challenge: A Florida administrative judge hears arguments in a challenge to the state's teacher bonuses program. The case of Cordelia Brown may hinge on the judge's definition of a teacher. Brown is a speech-language pathologist at Brentwood Elementary School. She contends she is a teacher, while the Sarasota school district says she is instructional personnel, not a teacher, and therefore is ineligible for the bonus. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Opt-out threats? Some Hernando County parents say school officials are threatening their third-graders with retention if they opt out of Florida Standards Assessments testing. A district spokeswoman says school officials are not threatening anyone, just following state law. Tampa Bay Times.

Naming contest: Early in the season, the baseball coach at Heritage High School told his players that if they won 14 games, they could name his new child, who is due in September. The team is now 13-6 with six games left. The players have voted and say if they win a 14th game, they want Rob and Julia Querry's new son to be named Benjamin Smalls Querry. It's the combination of two names from the players' favorite baseball movie, The Sandlot. Florida Today.

Turnaround proposal: The Pinellas County school district's plan to boost teacher pay by up to $25,000 a year and extend hours at five failing elementary schools still has to be negotiated, says the president of the teachers union. Mike Gandolfo says the district seems "to be in a rush to do this and I'm not in a rush to agree to it." He worries about the effect of a longer school day on teachers and students. Gradebook.

Superintendent evaluation: The Duval County School Board rates Superintendent Nikolai Vitti as an effective leader in his annual evaluation. Vitti received 41 of a possible 60 points, which puts him on the high end of the effective category and five points from being rated highly effective. Four board members graded Vitti at 44 or higher, and the three board members who have been critical of Vitti graded him in the low end of the effective category. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

K-12 budgets: The Florida House budget bill would provide twice as much construction funding for charter schools as it would for traditional public schools. The Florida Senate's bill provides no construction money for charter schools. It's still early in the process, though, lawmakers from both chambers say. Gradebook. Palm Beach Post. Politico Florida. Senate leaders are looking at ways to roll the property tax hike that Gov. Rick Scott is calling for in his education budget into the $1 billion tax cuts Scott also proposes. Tampa Bay Times. WFSU. What are some of the differences between the budgets? Gradebook. School district administrators are concerned about a possible shift in construction money to charter schools. Gradebook.

Teacher bonuses: Teacher bonuses based partly on ACT or SAT scores remain in the Florida House bill with funding of $45 million, which closely aligns with Gov. Rick Scott's proposal. But the Florida Senate bill has recommended no money for the program. Orlando Sentinel.

High school free agency: If the Legislature passes a bill allowing students and athletes to choose any school, Florida would have the most lenient standards for athletics transfers. Advocates of the bill say it's merely an expansion of the school choice, while critics say it would create a recruiting free-for-all among high schools. Associated Press.

Class sizes: Two South Florida school districts are on track to avoid fines for class-size violations, according to officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Sun-Sentinel.

District reorganization: Brevard School Superintendent Desmond Blackburn is proposing a reorganization of administration titles, job responsibilities and the chain of command. The school board will have to approve. Florida Today. (more…)

There are times when it’s appropriate for a journalist to boil down a story into a he-said, she-said. And there are times when it’s just lackluster reporting.

As Jon East has noted in this blog post and this op-ed, Florida’s Amendment 8 – the “religious freedom amendment” – is not about private school vouchers. It’s clear if you look at the legal history for private education options in Florida. It’s clear if you look to see who is and isn’t bankrolling the campaign.

And yet, one news story after another has allowed the Florida Education Association, the Florida School Boards Association and other school choice critics to posit that it is about vouchers – and to let those assertions go unchallenged. Often it’s in terms so deep into an alternate reality, they beg for a little scrutiny. According to the Gainesville Sun, for example, an Alachua County School Board member described Amendment 8 as “the very death of public schools.”

With six weeks left before the vote, statements like these are surfacing in major newspapers nearly every day. Here are a few examples, along with how the story captures the legislative intent of the amendment, the constitutional underpinnings of school vouchers, the lack of a campaign or financial support by school voucher advocates, the factual history of private options in a state that now provides them to more than 200,000 students, or just some form of a statement from those with an opposing view:

From the South Florida Sun Sentinel (Aug. 21):

“Amendment 8 would remove the long-standing restriction in the Florida Constitution that prohibits the expenditure of public funds to support religious programs," the resolution (from the Broward County School Board) reads. "Passage of Amendment 8 could result in state funds being awarded to non-public schools, instead of allocated to support public and charter schools.”

The resolution stops short of saying whether those would be good or bad outcomes, but it was obvious where board members stood.

"We have a limited amount of resources, and you would continue to strain the resources for public and charter schools," board member Robin Bartleman said.

Response from other side: None

Supporting evidence: None

***

From the Daytona Beach News Journal (Sept. 15):

The title and wording of the amendment were the subject of a lawsuit in which Ormond Beach school principal Susan Persis and Palm Coast rabbi Merrill Shapiro were plaintiffs.

They and other representatives of school-related organizations and clergy tried to get the amendment thrown off the ballot, but a judge allowed it to go before voters after Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rewrote the proposal.

Persis said she fears passage of Amendment 8 would divert money from public schools to religious ones. "This would further reduce funding for public education," said Persis, who's principal of Pine Trail Elementary. "Any further reduction will be devastating to our schools." (more…)