Private schools. What happens to private school records when private schools close? Sometimes, they disappear. Palm Beach Post.

Charter schools. The Broward school district is taking a closer look at how much it charges charter schools for bus transportation after a citizens task force complains the district is losing money on the deal and subsidizing the competition. Miami Herald. (The district is considering other ways to reduce busing costs, too, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel.) A K-8 charter school that teaches boys and girls separately is proposed for Palm Beach Gardens, reports the Palm Beach Post.

School choice. The Palm Beach district gets 17,500 applications for about 9,000 district choice seats. Palm Beach Post.

Digital education. Florida's mandates on digital offerings brings opportunities and challenges, editorializes the Palm Beach Post.

Privatization. The Volusia school district is right to consider outsourcing custodial services to save money, editorializes the Daytona Beach News Journal. The move could save about $5 million a year, the News Journal reports.

Florida's progress. Matt Di Carlo at the Shanker Blog: "Again, Governor Bush and supporters of his reforms have some solid evidence to draw upon when advocating for the Florida reforms, particularly the grade-based accountability system. The modest estimated effects in these high-quality analyses are not as good a talking point as the “we quadrupled the number of A-rated schools in six years” argument, but they are far preferable to claiming credit for what’s on the scoreboard after having changed the rules of the game."

Pace of change. Sweeping changes to teacher evaluations, academic standards and testing have district officials on edge and lawmakers considering changes. Tallahassee Democrat. (more…)

Tutoring oversight. In the first part of a two-part series on a requirement initially mandated by No Child Left Behind, a  Tampa Bay Times investigation finds at least 36 of 456 tutoring companies in Florida are headed by people with criminal records. In part two, the Times traces last year's last-minute legislative push to keep the mandate in place.

Educator oversight. Sarasota Herald Tribune: "As Bradenton police investigate allegations that a Manatee High School assistant football coach groped a female student, they are also trying to determine who knew about the girl's claims and why no one notified law enforcement as required by law."

Teacher bashing? A StateImpact Florida story headlined "Teachers Question Why Proposed Pay Raises Come Before Teacher Evaluations" quotes a single teacher who says, “For a while now we’ve been hearing how bad we are. [That] we need to weed out bad teachers, there’s so many bad teachers.” Ocala Star Banner editorial page editor Brad Rogers writes in this column: "There are so many wildly talented, caring and dedicated teachers in Marion County’s schools that unfairly take abuse and blame and criticism for what is wrong with our schools and our society, when in truth they represent what is most right and bright and promising about our schools and our society."

Teacher pay. Sen. Bill Galvano, chair of the Senate Education Appropriations Committee, suggests Gov. Rick Scott's proposal for across-the-board raises clashes with performance pay, reports the Florida Current. The South Florida Sun Sentinel also writes up the debate over proposals for higher teacher pay.

Strange bedfellows. The Florida Education Association plans to join the Florida Department of Education in fighting the Florida Times-Union's request for teacher evaluation data.

Tony Bennett. He talks to North Florida superintendents about teacher evals and notes he encouraged his daughter to become a teacher: "“I don’t want it written on my headstone: ‘Here lies the man that ruined the career his daughter chose.’ ” Tallahassee Democrat.

Teachers unions. The United Teachers of Dade will elect a new leader this week. Miami Herald. (more…)

Call them Vouchers 2.0. In the age of customization, researcher Matthew Ladner sees education savings accounts as the tool for the times. Unlike vouchers or tax credit scholarships, ESAs would allow parents to use state funds to pay for a blend of K-12 educational options – schools, tutors, online programs, etc., in whatever combo works - and perhaps squirrel away some of those funds for college.

“We we like to say that ESAs are sort of school choice and parental control over education down to the last penny,” Ladner said in a podcast interview with redefinED. “What we really want to do is allow parents to customize the education for their child. Education shouldn’t be necessarily an all or nothing proposition - you’re either attending this school or that school. In fact, the whole definition of what a school is is being fairly rapidly changed by technology.”

Ladner is senior advisor of policy and research at the Foundation for Excellence in Education. He’s one of the creators of the ESA concept and its most diligent Johnny Appleseed. In October, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice published a report he authored about ESAs called, “The Way of the Future.” Ladner also was instrumental in creating the ESA program in Arizona, which to date is the only one in the country but was recently expanded.

A key feature of ESAs, Ladner said, is that it requires parents to make choices based on quality and price. That in turn will spur innovation and, at the same time, reign in costs that have risen steeply for decades with little improvement in academic outcomes. “If you want to reverse that, you have to do something that’s going to seem a little radical at first,” Ladner said. “But by giving parents complete control over the money and requiring them to consider possible alternative uses for that money, it really sets them up to be discriminating consumers.“

Florida lawmakers flirted with ESAs in 2011, with critics panning the idea as “universal vouchers” and “vouchers for all.” But Ladner said even if a state went “whole hog” with the idea, the vast majority of kids would remain in public schools, as the Florida experience has shown with McKay vouchers and tax credit scholarships. In his view, ESAs should also be designed for equity - with greater funding for students with greater needs.

Are people ready for ESAs? Maybe not just yet, Ladner said. But it took a while for people to catch on to Palm Pilots, too. “As a movement we always need to be taking a strong interest in the development of our product. And our product in this case is our methods to increasing the freedom and the effectiveness of parents the parents within the schooling system,” Ladner said. “I think there is work to be done. But I do think that when this work is done we will have a product that is clearly superior to the ones we have today.”

New York: 5,000 charter school parents rally to send a message in the mayor's race. (NY1) More from the New York Times and New York Post. (New York Times photo at left shows students and parents from a KIPP charter school who attended the rally.)

South Carolina: A proposal for tax-credit scholarships got traction in the state legislature this year, but ultimately came up short. (The State)

Louisiana: As expected, the state teachers union files a lawsuit to stop the new statewide voucher program. (New Orleans Times Picayune)

Ohio: The state is ending a once federally mandated program that allowed low-income children to receive free, private tutoring but raised concerns about fraud and effectiveness. (Columbus Dispatch) 

Michigan: State lawmakers get set to debate parent trigger legislation. (MLive.com)

Tennessee: A key state lawmaker says the legislature is likely to pass a voucher bill next year, limited to urban areas. (Memphis Commercial Appeal) The state plans to convert 10 struggling Nashville schools into charter schools. (The Tennessean) The state also okays the expansion of charter schools in Memphis. (Memphis Commercial Appeal) (more…)

North Carolina: The legislative push is on to start a statewide tax credit scholarship program. (Associated Press)

Florida: A former state board of education chair defends the state's decision to offer free tutoring services to low-income families. (Miami Herald)

California: Expanded school choice is at the heart of an increasingly tense feud within the Democratic Party between the teachers unions and supporters of education reform. (Reuters)

Washington: Charter school supporters hope the fourth time is the charm in finally bringing charters to one of the last states left without any. (Seattle Times) (more…)

Louisiana: State House passes voucher bill (New Orleans Times Picayune) with bipartisan support. (redefinED)

Michigan: Charter school started by former basketball star Jalen Rose has more applicants than openings. (MLive)

Florida: Parent trigger bill apparently died for reasons other than pros and cons of parent triggers. (Sunshine State News)

New Hampshire: State senate gives preliminary approval to tax credit scholarships, while House is scheduled to vote later this month. (Boston.com)

Kansas: Catholic institutions and Libertarians form alliance to back tax credit scholarship bill. (Topeka Capital-Journal) (more…)