Charter schools. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigates charter school operator Mavericks in Education.
Tax credit scholarships. In a Fox News guest column, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio says school choice programs increase options for disadvantaged children.
Career education. More students are being told they have options aside from a traditional four-year college. Northwest Florida Daily News.
Project-based learning. A Florida Times-Union exploration of recent curricular changes focuses on a Jacksonville private school.
Digital learning. Students who do not have home Internet access must rely on public libraries. Miami Herald.
Testing. The Polk County school board is poised to take up anti-testing resolutions approved by its counterparts elsewhere. Lakeland Ledger. The Florida Department of Education is preparing to take legal action over required testing for English language learners. Gradebook. An outgoing administrator criticizes the state's testing system. Gradebook. Tampa Tribune. Lake County schools plan to scale back some local assessments. Orlando Sentinel.
Charter schools. High-performing Plato Academy plans to expand in Pinellas. Tampa Bay Times. The district is moving to take over a foundering charter for at-risk students. Tampa Tribune. The Palm Beach Post rips Mavericks High School in an editorial.
Private schools. A new Christian school in Ocala hopes to grow in the upcoming year. Ocala Star-Banner.
Civil rights. A federal investigation questions whether Hillsborough minority students have less access to experienced teachers and face tougher discipline. Tampa Bay Times. Tampa Tribune.
Books. A parent's complaint gets a novel pulled from a summer reading list. Tampa Bay Times.
Campaigns. Miami-Dade school board members rake in contributions despite facing little opposition. Miami Herald.
Finance. The Hernando district is spending more than it takes in. Tampa Bay Times. Manatee's budget situation is improving. Bradenton Herald.
Superintendents. Pinellas' chief gets his contract extended to 2020. Tampa Tribune.
Boundaries. Orange County approves a plan to redraw attendance boundaries for Jones High School. Orlando Sentinel.
Administration. The Okaloosa school district moves to standardize staff at all its schools. Northwest Florida Daily News. The Lee County school board approves a reorganization plan. Fort Myers News-Press. The Orange County school system is wasting money hiring class-size officers, an Orlando Sentinel columnist argues. Hillsborough schools get new principals. Tampa Tribune.
Vals and Sals. Broward schools keep their honorary titles. Sun-Sentinel.
Test results. New end of course exam results largely show improvement over last year. StateImpact. Tampa Bay Times. Orlando Sentinel. Florida Times-Union. Florida Today. Fort Myers News-Press. Bradenton Herald. Thousands of students still struggle in algebra. Miami Herald. Tampa Bay students improve in history, the Tampa Tribune reports here and here. South Florida students improve in algebra. Sun-Sentinel. More from the Palm Beach Post.
Charter schools. The Palm Beach school district withholds hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Mavericks school after and audit raises questions. Palm Beach Post.
Special needs. An embattled school for children with autism in Polk County is creating a new option in Pasco County. Lakeland Ledger.
Vouchers. The next political fights over school choice will be over regulation, The Federalist writes. The analysis incorrectly posits that the state's "Blaine Amendment" is what bars traditional school vouchers in Florida.
Performance pay. Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist takes aim at Florida's teacher evaluation laws. Gradebook. More on education and gubernatorial politics from the Halifax capital bureau. Manatee administrators begin learning a new evaluation model. Bradenton Herald.
Common Core. Jeb Bush takes heat from conservatives over his support for the standards. Wall Street Journal.
STEM. Is Florida's science sequence "out of order?" Bridge to Tomorrow.
School safety. Hillsborough students do not always know to report sexual harassment. Tampa Bay Times.
Arza
If the chatter among Florida charter school supporters is any indication, expect to see proposed legislation next spring that calls for equitable funding for charter schools and the return of charter authorizers who are independent from public school districts.
“This is a forced marriage that needs counseling,’’ joked Ralph Arza, a former Florida legislator who now serves as the governmental affairs director for the Florida Consortium on Public Charter Schools.
More than 100 charter school operators and advocates, who met Wednesday during the 16th Annual Florida Charter School Conference in Orlando, also want more streamlined applications and sanctions against districts that drag out the appeals process.
The way it works now, some applications call for thousands of pages of documentation, said Collette Papa of Academica, a charter school management company with about 100 schools in Florida. If a district denies the application, the appeals process can take anywhere from three to six months, Papa said. If the charter school wins approval, often it’s too late to hire teachers, secure a site and recruit students in time to open the same year, she said.
Papa was part of a 7-member panel that included Mike Kooi from the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice, Pamela Owens of Charter Schools of Boynton Beach, Marvin Pitts of Mavericks in Education in south Florida, Gene Waddell of Indian River Charter High School in Vero Beach and Tim Kitts, who operates five Bay Haven Charter Academy schools in Panama City.
The panel discussion anchored a town hall meeting that kicked off the two-day conference. It was sponsored by the consortium and led by Arza, who served in the Legislature between 2000 and 2006 and helped pass education laws including former Gov. Jeb Bush’s A++ plan.
Since that time, Arza said, the state has slowly chipped away at the heart of school choice reforms. (more…)
