Parent power. Gov. Rick Scott signs into law a bill that gives parents of disabled students more say over their kid's education. Orlando Sentinel, Associated Press.

Virtual schools. Scott also signs the digital learning bill into law. Florida Current.

Charter schools. The Lakeland-based Achievement Academy, a charter for students with disabilities, plans to double enrollment to meet demand. Lakeland Ledger.

Career academies. A new firefighters academy is opening at Wellington High School next fall. Palm Beach Post.

Schools and religion. Atheist materials censored by the Orange County School District contained criticisms of the Bible. Orlando Sentinel.

School grades. The state again considers revision to the system in the face of concerns that the results will be too harsh. Tampa Bay Times. Add Treasure Coast districts to those warning parents about a drop in grades. TCPalm.com. A new task force should retract the most "onerous" changes to the grading system. Miami Herald. Or "trash" the system altogether. Palm Beach Post.

School technology. New technology in the Miami-Dade district is boosting education for students with disabilities. Miami Herald.

School spending. The state approves Manatee's financial recovery plan. Bradenton Herald. Bay plans to remove 22 old portables this summer. Panama City News Herald.

School districts. Pinellas needs to be more transparent with public records. Tampa Bay Times. (more…)

Charter schools. The exorbitant payouts to the principal of a failing Orange County charter school are behind legislative efforts to tighten charter laws. Orlando Sentinel.

Privatization. The Volusia County school district considers outsourcing 500 custodial and grounds maintenance jobs, reports the Daytona Beach News Journal. The Bay County school district considers bids for privatizing the district's transportation services, reports the Panama City News Herald.

School choice. Vouchers and tax credit scholarships can make private school more affordable. Panama City News Herald.

Forget the furloughs. The Pasco school district finds the $3 million it needs to keep from making employees take two unpaid days off, as originally planned. Tampa Bay Times.

Raising the bar. Don't set it too high with graduation requirements, a high school principal tells the House K-12 Subcommittee. WTXL.

Educator conduct. Prosecutors drop fraud charges against a band teacher who was accused of using nearly $15,000 in school funds to pay for relatives who accompanied the band on a trip to Paris, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel. More from the Palm Beach Post. An assistant football coach in Manatee County is accused of improperly touching a student and asking her for naked photographs, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune. More from the Bradenton Herald. A Hernando middle school teacher with a history of off-campus incidents - including three DUI arrests - returns to the classroom after his latest DUI, reports the Tampa Bay Times.

Substitutes. The Marion County teachers union is accusing the district of using "full time" subs to avoid paying benefits. Ocala Star Banner. (more…)

The school choice movement is growing because of real parents with real children, with real needs, who are seeing real benefits. In this video from Louisiana BAEO, parent LeAnn Mason talks about the upside of the voucher program in Louisiana, which is facing a constitutional challenge from the state teachers unions.

Mason said one of her children was in a public school where she endured a string of substitute teachers for two months. To get her to a better school, Mason sent her to live with relatives.

To help another child, Mason used a private school voucher. Now "my baby's reading ... she's blossoming," she said. "And this means a lot to me because this is going to help my children come out of poverty. This is going to help my children do things that I was not able to do."

Mason makes her case far better than I can. Please watch the video.

The mom on stage described how she and other low-income parents rode a bus through the darkness - six hours, L.A. to Sacramento, kids still in pajamas - to plead their case to power. In the halls of the legislature, people opposed to the idea of a parent trigger accused them of being ignorant, of not understanding how schools work or how laws are made. Some called them a “lynch mob.”

Then, Shirley Ford said, there was this sad reality:

“I would have thought that the PTA would have been beside me,” Ford said. But it wasn’t. “I’m not PTA bashing when I say this,” she continued. “To see that the PTAs were on the opposite side of what we were fighting for was another level of awareness of how the system is.”

Ford is a member of Parent Revolution, the left-leaning group that is advocating for parent trigger laws around the country. She spoke last week at the Jeb Bush education summit, sharing the stage with former California state Sen. Gloria Romero and moderator Campbell Brown. Her remarks, plain spoken and passionate and sometimes interrupted by tears, touched on a point that is vital and obvious and yet too often obscured.

Parents are not a monolith.

The divides are as apparent as the different dynamics that play out in schools on either side of town. In the affluent suburbs, a lot is going right. There is stability in the teaching corps. The vast majority of kids don’t have issues with basic literacy. The high schools are stocked with Advanced Placement classes. And there, behind it all, are legions of savvy, wonderfully dogged, politically connected parents who know how to mobilize when their schools are shortchanged.

The view is starker from the other side of the tracks. A parent in a low-income neighborhood is more likely to see far more teacher turnover in her school – along with far more rookies, subs and dancing lemons. She’ll see far more students labeled disabled and far fewer AP offerings. Issues like these plague many high-poverty schools, yet they don’t get much attention from school boards or news media or, frankly, from established parent groups like the PTA. (more…)