Rick Scott: Florida's governor is in the middle of a tug-of-war over education that could reshape the state's schools while also turning upside down the 2016 presidential race. Associated Press.

Tony Bennett: Sunshine State News reports that it was Tony Bennett's successor in Indiana, Glenda Ritz, formerly head of the teachers union in Washington Township schools, who turned over Bennett's emails to the Associated Press.

Charter schools: Palm Beach County school district officials recommend the board approve a 90-day termination notice for two iGeneration Empowerment Academy schools after a last-minute location change and a host of fire code problems. Palm Beach Post. McKeel Academy schools in Polk County give up making their own meals in favor of a food service company's healthy offerings. The Ledger. After two Fs, Imagine Middle School in Pinellas County asks the state for a waiver to stay open. Tampa Bay Times.

Teacher raises: About 100 Orange County teachers frustrated by the slow pace of bargaining over raises crowd into a school board meeting to encourage board members to "fund what you value." Orlando Sentinel.

9/11: Four Duval County high school seniors in a Junior ROTC class share memories of the terrorists attacks. Florida Times-Union.

Dropouts: The Orange County school district tries a new dropout prevention program that has officials knocking on parents' doors and re-registers 224 students. Orlando Sentinel. The No. 1 reason students drop out of high school? Classes aren't interesting. Orlando Sentinel.

Contamination: At least four Miami-Dade public schools will have soil samples tested for contamination from an old city incinerator. Miami Herald.

50th anniversary: Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, a private Catholic high school for girls in South Miami-Dade, opened 50 years ago in two rooms and today serves 824 students. Miami Herald.

Teachers: Many new teachers feel overwhelmed because they are often assigned to the most difficult schools. StateImpact Florida's continuing series, Classroom Contemplations, looks at one teacher who left her school to work with death row inmates.

Bullying: A 12-year-old Lakeland girl is found dead in what her family is calling an apparent suicide after she endured more than a year of online bullying. The Ledger. A 13-year-old Polk County student starts a nonprofit organization in reaction to the bullying he endured because of his diagnosis of Tourette's syndrome, and garners national attention. The Ledger.

Budgets: The Polk County School Board approves a $758.3 million general fund budget focused on student achievement, struggling readers, Common Core curriculum standards, and low-performing schools. The Ledger. The Lee County School Board OKs a $1.3 billion budget for the 2013-14 school year. Fort Myers News-Press. The Pinellas County School Board unanimously approves a $1.3 billion budget for 2013-14 that includes pay raises for teachers and a smaller tax rate for property owners. Tampa Bay Times.

Cell towers: Collier County school board members hear from concerned citizens about a cell phone tower planned for a local elementary. Naples Daily News.

Technology: An Escambia County high school is the recipient of 40 new computers donated in honor of a pioneering principal. Pensacola News Journal. For the first time, Hillsborough County public school students can – with permission from their teachers – use personal devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops in the classroom. The Tampa Tribune.

Conduct: A Hillsborough County high school student faces a weapons charge after he shows a gun to a classmate. The Tampa Tribune.

Gov. Scott: The Florida governor isn't the education cheerleader he portrays himself to be, editorializes the Tampa Bay Times.

Virtual ed: Online schools and programs brace for a major enrollment boom now that the state wants every high schooler to take an online class to graduate. Sun Sentinel.

Common Core: This is supposed to be the final year of FCATs, but now Florida's public schools are in limbo. TC Palm. Florida reacts to mounting opposition. The Tampa Tribune. Foundation For Excellence In Education's Patricia Levesque explains why we can’t transform American public education with silver-bullet thinking. Dropout Nation. "The standards, fewer in number, exchange quantity for quality, which means I'll have more time to delve into each standard with my students,'' writes Polk County elementary literacy teacher Beth Smith for The Ledger.

Teacher raises: Educators have long since abandoned the simple notion of an across-the-board $2,500 pay bump Scott once promoted in news conferences across the state. Tampa Bay Times. Pinellas County could raise teachers' starting salaries to $40,000. Tampa Bay Times.

Grad rates: PolitiFact Florida takes aim at interim Education Commissioner Pam Stewart's boasts about the state's graduation improvements. Tampa Bay Times.

Parent tack: The Hillsborough County school district hosts a Saturday workshop for parents to learn more about the school system. Tampa Bay Times. Duval County schools introduces Parent Academy to get mom and dad more involved. Florida Times-Union. "We need parents to trust teachers and believe we’re playing on the same team to enhance student behavior and improve achievement,'' writes Terri Friedlander for Florida Today.

Enrollment: Manatee County public schools have 1,000 more students than expected. Bradenton Herald.

Charter schools: Hernando County's two new charter schools gear up for their first school year. Tampa Bay Times. Hillsborough County school officials eye charter schools and their system of fees and donations. Tampa Bay Times. The Manatee County School Board prepares to vote on three charter school applications. Bradenton Herald.

Private schools: Sarasota County sees the opening of a new high school for students with disabilities. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

More choice: Pinellas County's East Lake High offers students new academic programs in cyber security, accounting, biomedicine and performing arts. Tampa Bay Times.

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Common Core: Rep. Debbie Mayfield of St. Lucie County files a bill that would put the Common Core standards on hold. StateImpact Florida. More from TC Palm.

Meet up: Gov. Rick Scott meets privately in Miami with former Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. John Thrasher and Board of Education Chairman Gary Chartrand to talk about the future of Florida's schools. Times/Herald. Why Scott's meeting with the two men has the potential to cause headaches for the current governor. The Buzz.

Cheating probe: A Miami Norland Senior High School program through which hundreds of students have earned state industry certifications has been tainted by cheating, according to the Miami-Dade Office of the Inspector General. Miami Herald.

Academic targets: Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti feels closer to persuading the school board to accept his goal to bring next year’s student achievement data to the state average. Florida Times-Union.

Rowlett Magnet: Manatee County schools Superintendent Rick Mills plans to recommend approval of the district's Rowlett Magnet Elementary application to become a charter school. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

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School safety: Across Florida and the nation, schools open with more armed security following the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Associated Press.

Common Core: StateImpact Florida listens to what readers have to say about the new education standards. The Badass Teachers Association represents a new wave of liberal opposition to the standards with teachers joining forces with tea party groups and libertarians, who want states to slow down efforts to adopt the new benchmarks and corresponding tests. Times-Herald.

Lunch line: Every elementary student in Lake Wales gets a free lunch thanks to a new federal program. The Ledger. New federal lunch rules result in healthier meals for children, more costs for schools. Florida Today.

Summer Slide: Treasure Coast teachers assess students during the first days of school to see if they kept up with learning and reading during the summer. TC Palm.

Reading tests: Most Duval County public school students will take new reading tests this week to pinpoint deficiencies. Florida Times-Union.

Online requirement: Few high school juniors have completed the online course they need to graduate. Fort Myers News-Press.

Charter schools: Nine charter groups have applied to open schools in Sarasota and Manatee counties next fall. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Visible Men Academy finishes its first week in Manatee County with 74 kindergarten through second-grade students enrolled. Bradenton Herald.

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The latest Florida Department of Education report on the tax credit scholarship program, and my summer discussions with scholarship parents, students and teachers, have led me to some conclusions. These thoughts are not new, but sometimes it’s important to remind ourselves of things we know but occasionally forget.

• On average, scholarship students are achieving a year’s worth of learning gains in a year’s time, but this is not enough. We are attracting the state’s most disadvantaged students, and many of them are several years behind when they enter the program. These students need to be making 1.5-to-2 years of learning gains annually if they’re to catch up with their more advantaged peers.

• We will not achieve these accelerated learning gains if we don’t provide scholarship students with more time to learn. Six-to-seven hours per day and 180 days per year are not enough for these students to achieve parity. Programs that are successfully reducing the achievement gap, such as many of the KIPP charter schools, are providing more learning time for disadvantaged students via longer school days and school years.

• More time in school is still insufficient. Much of the achievement gap is created by large disparities in out-of-school learning opportunities. Many scholarship families can’t afford private music lessons, summer camps, equipment fees for Pop Warner football, or gymnastic lessons. While most of these experiences are not academic, the development they nurture contributes to success in a variety of settings, including school.

• The new Common Core State Standards, because they are more rigorous, will exacerbate the achievement gap in the short-term. This greater disparity will become permanent if we don’t provide disadvantaged students with more access to in-school and out-of-school learning opportunities, and provide private school teachers with the training, technology and other support they need to successfully teach these new academic standards.

• The concentration of high-poverty students in Florida private schools is growing as the number of tax credit scholarship students increases and more middle class families transfer from private schools to magnet and charter schools. This fall, more than 30 percent of Florida’s private school students will be paying tuition using McKay scholarships for disabled students or tax credit scholarships for low-income students. These changing student demographics will put greater stress on already meager private school resources. (more…)

Twenty years ago, Dennis DiNoia taught middle school math in typical classrooms, in typical Florida public schools. Now his classroom is a local church, or bookstore, or online. Students come from public schools, private schools, and homeschooling co-ops. Lessons are based on a curriculum he designed and put on video.

DiNoia even has a toehold in the growing market of charter school consulting, explaining math and test-taking skills to students and teachers at a conversion charter school in Hawaii.

School choice has opened up a whole new career track for DiNoia, allowing the business school graduate to earn enough money to remain in a profession he loves while giving him the satisfaction of helping students master his favorite subject.

“A lot of people don’t go into teaching because they don’t think they can make a living at it,’’ said DiNoia, a father of three who lives in Sarasota, Fla. “If you go into it with that mindset, you’ll be right.’’

DiNoia went into the field thinking that one day he would have a successful business. Apparently, he was right, eventually figuring out how to grow his tutoring company from a sideline that supplemented his district paycheck to a full-time endeavor to support his family.

It serves as yet another example of how having more education options not only meets the different needs of children, but can benefit educators, as well.

“Everybody has different vehicles to educate students,’’ said Clayton Snare, a former principal who worked with DiNoia in the Pinellas County, Fla., school district. “Some people are good in a classroom. Some people are better online. Others are better one on one.’’

DiNoia “defined what I thought a successful teacher was all about and it truly starts with developing a rapport with your students,’’ Snare said. (more…)

Tutoring: A Tampa Bay Times investigation finds that one in four public educators made money from a taxpayer-funded program by tutoring children from their own schools.

Education crisis: Nothing less than a community-wide commitment and expectation of excellence can turn the tide for children in St.Petersburg, writes the Tampa Bay Times editorial board.

Single-gendered: Hillsborough County's two single-gendered middle schools find success, see state grades rise. The Tampa Tribune.

Tony Bennett: Before resigning as Florida's Education Commissioner, Bennett emails former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, and describes his last few days on the job as a "living hell.'' The Buzz.

GEDs: South Florida is seeing a spike in applicants rushing to earn their GEDs before tougher new standards kick in. Sun Sentinel.

Overcrowding: West Boynton Beach is growing - too much and too fast for some parents in the Palm Beach County school district. Palm Beach Post.

Back to school: Palm Beach County hands out backpacks and other school supplies at six free community events. Palm Beach Post. Seminole County's nearly 64,000 public school students head back to classes this morning. Orlando Sentinel. Churches and community agencies help outfit students with new supplies. Florida Today. Lincoln Park Elementary, the turnaround school in Escambia County, starts the new year with new teachers. Pensacola News-Journal.

Special needs: A teacher's emails to Hillsborough County district administrators reveal problems months before a special needs student dies. Tampa Bay Times.

Jeb Bush: Bush backs Common Core State Standards while speaking at the ALEC conference in Chicago. Associated Press.Educational scandals cast a cloud over the former Florida governor's presidential prospects, writes the Miami Herald.

School grades: A Miami Herald analysis of A-F grades shows the wealthiest schools never get Fs, and schools with high populations of poor students face an uphill battle to get even a C. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho lauds student achievement while criticizing the state’s A-to-F school grading system as “dysfunctional.” Miami Herald. Clay County kindergarteners through second-graders no longer get A-F grades. Florida Times-Union.

Student conduct: St. Lucie County public schools have more than 100 arrests a year, reports the TCPalm.

New super: The St. Lucie County School Board continues its search for the district's next superintendent. TCPalm.

Principal conduct: Four years after Journeys Academy shut down in Lee County due to its principal embezzling more than $360,000, the school’s owner is waging a legal battle for reimbursement from two banks. Naples Daily News.

Common Core: Pasco County schools move ahead with preparing for the new education standards. The Tampa Tribune.

Florida's Urban Leagues and education advocates are teaming up for a series of town halls later this month that will include discussions on the growing number of learning options available to minorities.

The attention to education is nothing new and has always been a cornerstone of the Urban League’s mission to help minorities achieve social and economic equality. But the turn toward school choice is.

“We’re just looking at other ways, new options and new solutions for students to be successful in school,’’ said Allie Braswell, president of the Central Florida Urban League that serves a seven-county region. “And as you look at school choice, it’s just become an option to explore.’’

The Florida Consortium of Urban Leagues Affiliates is hosting the town hall meetings in partnership with Black Floridians C.A.R.E., Democrats for Education Reform, Derrick Brooks Charities, StudentsFirst and Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers the Florida Tax Credit Scholarships. (And co-hosts this blog.)

One key part of the effort will be looking at charter schools and tax credit scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools. Florida Department of Education figures show that about 43 percent of the state’s 3.4 million students in PreK-12 attend a school of their choosing. And that is what’s driving this conversation.

“It’s the simple market, the proliferation of charter schools and private schools,’’ said Germaine Smith-Baugh, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Broward County. “Choice has become a market-driven issue.’’ (more…)

Common Core: Protesters gather at a Broward County School Board meeting to show they don't support the new Common Core education standards. Miami Herald. State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, organizes a panel to talk about education reform and Common Core. Florida Times-Union. Step Up For Students' vice president of student learning talks about why private schools are signing on for the measures. Education Week.

Bennett and school grades: Former Florida Sen. Paula Dockery shares her thoughts about Tony Bennett and school grades, asking "Isn't it time for an honest conversation on doing away with a school-grading system that is costly, divisive and unreliable?'' The Ledger.

Conduct: A Rodgers Middle School assistant principal fights for his job after the Hillsborough County school district fired him following the death of a special-needs student at his school. Tampa Bay Times. More from The Tampa Tribune.

Debit cards: Leon County joins other school districts that won't be offering teacher debit cards issued by Gov. Scott. Tallahassee Democrat.

Extended day: Broward County joins the list of districts where low-performing schools will offer students an additional hour of class time. Sun Sentinel. Palm Beach County will spend $7 million to add an hour to the school day at four low-performing schools. Palm Beach Post.

School funding: The half-cent sales tax is the only funding source the district has for capital projects, writes Shannon Nickinson for the Pensacola News Journal.

Charter schools: Pasco County gets its first virtual charter school, Florida Virtual Academy of Pasco. Tampa Bay Times. (more…)

In today's chat, we talked with Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students in Florida.

Readers asked him about everything from Common Core and private schools, to whether the value of tax credit scholarships should be increased, to the right balance between school choice and government regs when it comes to accountability.

Step Up is the largest private school choice program in the country. It’s expected to serve 60,000 students this fall. And as recent news stories have pointed out, it continues to experience strong growth. (Step Up also co-hosts this blog with the American Center for School Choice. As we noted in the advance post, we strive not to be self-promotional but in this case thought it was appropriate to feature Doug.)

Before joining Step Up in 2008, Doug had been a college professor, a classroom teacher, the president of two teachers unions and a driving force behind the creation of Florida's first International Baccalaureate high school.

You can replay the chat here: