School construction: K-12 schools and colleges and universities will be competing for school construction money during the next legislative session, which begins in March. Florida Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, says higher education is a top priority, but it's unclear how much money will be available and how it will be shared. Orlando Sentinel.

Principal program: The Florida Board of Education expects to detail the rules outlining the autonomy principals will be given in turning around struggling schools. The pilot project could be rolled out in seven districts: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Duval, Jefferson, Madison and Seminole counties. The board meets Jan. 17. Gradebook.

Gifted programs expand: In the past three years, the Seminole County School District has doubled the number of black, Hispanic, English-learning and low-income youngsters in its gifted program. Orlando Sentinel.

Middling grades: Florida is given a C grade, slightly below the U.S. average, in the annual Quality Counts report from Education Week's Research Center. Florida's score was 72.5, while the U.S. average was 74.2. The grades are calculated from a success index, spending on education, spending equity across state districts and an achievement index. Massachusetts is the top state with a score of 86.5 and a grade of B. Education Week. (more…)

As a group, low-income students struggle more than their wealthier peers. But in Florida, poor kids in some districts do a lot better than poor kids in others.

In Seminole County, for example, 56 percent of third graders eligible for free- and reduced-price scored at grade level or above on this year’s FCAT reading test, according to new state Department of Education data. In Duval County, meanwhile, 39 percent did. Among the state’s biggest districts, Seminole has one of the lowest rates of low-income kids. But so does Duval. And the low-income kids in Miami-Dade, which has the highest rate (nearly 20 percentage points higher than Duval), easily outpaced their counterparts in Duval. They did so in every tested grade, by an average of nine percentage points.

So what gives?

I’m not sure. But I think it’s worth a closer look.

We compare schools to each other so we can learn from those that make more progress. Ditto for states. Education Week’s annual Quality Counts report puts states side by side. It’s thoughtful and useful. It’s time for a similar spotlight on Florida school districts, which include some of the nation’s largest urban districts and an average enrollment among the top 10 of 165,000 students. Anybody could take the lead in setting that up – the press, parent groups, researchers, lawmakers, state education officials, maybe even the districts themselves.

Even with state mandates, districts have considerable leeway. Taking a closer look at achievement data district by district would spark more discussion about which ones are employing policies and programs that make the biggest difference for kids. The variation is endless. Some districts put more disability labels on minority students. Some put a premium on career academies. Some focus on principal development. Some have stronger superintendents. Some face more competition from charter schools and tax credit scholarships. How do things like that factor into district-to-district gaps? I’m sure it’s difficult to sort one from another, and impossible to draw definitive conclusions. But we won’t develop better hunches without looking at the data and talking about it.

A deeper dive into FCAT scores is one place to start. Most of the data I’m referring to is posted every year by the DOE, a few months after FCAT scores are released in late spring and early summer. It’s fascinating stuff – a breakdown of scores by district, subject, grade, FCAT level – and by all kinds of subgroups. I’ve talked to enough bona fide researchers about these numbers to know they raise fascinating questions.

Take Duval again. (more…)

It's concerning enough that Florida education reporters are overlooking basic facts about Amendment 8 - the "religious freedom amendment" - and in many cases simply repeating what the teachers unions and school boards say about it (that it's really about vouchers voucher vouchers vouchers ... ). But an Orlando Sentinel reporter took it a step further yesterday, incorporating opposition talking points into a story as if they were true.

This is what the post on the Sentinel's SchoolZone blog said: "The Orange County School Board added their name to the roster of school boards officially opposing Amendment 8, which could lead to the revival of public vouchers to religious and private schools."

As we've respectfully noted, there are debate-worthy reasons why people supporting Amendment 8 want to remove the "no aid" provision in the Florida Constitution. But because of the legal history here, private school choice isn't seriously one of them.

The Sentinel post also mentioned a "recent analysis" by the relatively obscure Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, which was the topic of a separate blog post earlier in the day (and which followed a full story in the Sentinel that morning that, like so many others in recent weeks, did not ask "the other side" if vouchers were really an issue and offered no evidence that it was.) The analysis claims Amendment 8 "would have a huge negative impact on public education" and "would open the way for universal private school vouchers in Florida."

The center - which once issued a report suggesting Education Week's Quality Counts report wasn't about education quality - has direct ties to the Florida Education Association and Florida School Boards Association, but those ties weren't noted in either blog post.

Its claims are way off the mark, but don't take our word for it. Please, take a closer look.