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…)

AP pass rates. The Tampa Bay Times looks at pass rates by high school in the Pinellas school district and concludes “AP test success remains elusive.” The story includes a lot of stats, but doesn’t note the actual numbers of students and/or tests passed at each school and how that number has risen (or not) over time. For what it’s worth, the numbers of students passing AP statewide has skyrocketed (even though pass rates have dipped) because so many more students have been given the opportunity and support to succeed. Over the last five years, according to this report, the number of passed AP tests in Florida climbed from 87,852 to 136,265 - an increase of 55 percent.

Investigation into overspending. A probe begins into why the Manatee school district ended up $3.4 million in the red, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Interim education commissioner Pam Stewart is widely respect, but hasn’t applied for the permanent job, notes State Impact Florida.