Parent trigger. Rep. Joe Saunders, D-Orlando, writes in this Orlando Sentinel op-ed that parents should have the choice to keep their child with a teacher with a bad eval. In this Tampa Bay Times letter to the editor, Carlos Alfonso with the Foundation for Florida's Future dispels parent trigger myths furthered by Times columnist John Romano.

Online learning. Both the House and Senate agree on a new way of calculating per-student spending that will result in an $8 million cut to virtual education, reports The Buzz. Study funding for virtual courses rather than cut it for Florida Virtual School, editorializes the Orlando Sentinel. St. Petersburg College creates a MOOC for remedial math, reports the Tampa Bay Times. Nine Hillsborough schools are experimenting with BYOD, the Times also reports. The Helios Foundation and SRI International are working to create a Center for Digital Learning in St. Petersburg, the Times also reports.

Charter schools. Parents fight the closing of the struggling Bradenton Charter School. Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Dual enrollment. Community college leaders say they may have to restrict the increasingly popular program if lawmakers don't better fund it. Orlando Sentinel.

Common Core. The Glenn Beck-fueled notion that Common Core is a leftist plot shows "we have officially arrived at Crazytown." Beth Kassab.

School spending. After convincing voters that the Seminole school district was in a financial bind, district leaders now aren't sure whether they need to collect the extra tax money. Orlando Sentinel. (more…)

Parent trigger. Parent trigger is not worth the fuss, writes Orlando Sentinel columnist Beth Kassab: "We're wasting time with political gamesmanship over a bill that both sides are making a bigger stink over than it's worth."

Tony Bennett. New Indiana Superintendent Glenda Ritz accuses former super Tony Bennett, of wasteful spending on technology. Indianapolis Star.

English language learners. The growing challenge of growing numbers of ELLs. Associated Press.

Teacher retention. Pinellas is looking at ways to better recruit and retain teachers at high-needs schools. Finally. Gradebook.

Teacher evaluations. The Florida Education Association is planning to file suit over the new eval system, with details coming today. Gradebook and Orlando Sentinel.

Teacher pay. Miami-Dade teachers get performance-based bonuses - and cheer. Miami Herald. (more…)

Virtual schools. In an Orlando Sentinel op-ed, U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden, politely suggests to the Florida Legislature that cutting funding for Florida Virtual School is a bad idea.

Charter schools. Many charter schools struggle under the state's funding system to spend enough in the classroom, reports the Daytona Beach News Journal. Parents of struggling Bradenton Charter School plea with Manatee board members to keep the school open, reports the Bradenton Herald.

Magnet schools. The possibility of new ones is under consideration in Pinellas as the district looks at potential remedies for 11 struggling schools. Tampa Bay Times.

Parent trigger. Education Commissioner Tony Bennett suggested changing the bill to give school boards final say reports StateImpact Florida. The bill is a "simplistic sham," writes the Palm Beach Post.

Diplomas. The House unanimously passes a bill to provide alternative pathways to graduation, including more emphasis on career education, and sends it to Gov. Rick Scott. Coverage from Tampa Bay Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Associated Press, Tallahassee Democrat.

Board of Education. The Tampa Bay Times documents the downfall of former board member Akshay Desai's health care business.

Educator conduct. Four Orange County staffers are disciplined after making disparaging comments on facebook about students with disabilities. SchoolZone.

Testing. FCAT time again, notes the Daytona Beach News Journal. Preparing for the FCAT and other tests online has been a challenge, writes the Tampa Bay Times. Testing time is eating into computer use, reports the Palm Beach Post. A prime example of testing going too far, writes Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell. (more…)

California: Parents of a persistently low-performing public school in Los Angeles took advantage of the state's parent-trigger law and overwhelmingly voted for the district and a charter operator to take over operations (Los Angeles Times).

Florida: An amendment to the Senate version of the parent trigger bill gives school boards - not the state - final say on a turnaround plan for a failing school (redefinED). The House passes one of the most far-reaching education bills in history, changing high school graduation requirements and bolstering career education (Tallahassee Democrat). Superintendent Alberto Carvalho shows off an innovative district magnet school that uses interactive technology and new teaching methods in what he says isn't the classroom of the future, but of today (Miami Herald).

Texas: Lawmakers in the Senate passed a charter school bill that calls for dramatic changes to the state's two-decades-old system, including allowing charters reasonable growth and the shut down of poor performers (Austin American-Statesman). Despite House representatives' ban on a school choice bill that creates school vouchers, Senate Education Chairman Dan Patrick pleaded with fellow lawmakers to help families send their children to private schools (The Texas Tribune).

North Carolina: Flawed charter school applications could prevent at least 27 out of 69 schools from opening independent public schools in 2014, the Public Charter School Advisory Council found (Charlotte Observer). More from the Raleigh News & Observer. A new bill would allow districts to create their own charter schools (Winston-Salem Journal).

Illinois: As push for more charter schools increases, Chicago's public schools could close 54 schools to offset a $1 billion deficit (The Guardian). The Illinois House is moving to put a three-year moratorium on Internet charter schools just days after a handful of suburban districts rejected the online proposals (Daily Herald). More from the Daily Herald. (more…)

Parent trigger. The parent trigger bill is amended in the Senate so school boards have the final say. Coverage from redefinED, Associated Press, SchoolZone, The Buzz. StateImpact Florida talks to Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, about why he's opposed to parent trigger. The Orlando Sentinel highlights the amendment sponsor, Sen. David Simmons. Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sees the specter of mass privatization: "The parental trigger bill is designed to lead to the widespread conversion of traditional public schools in Florida to charter schools."

Online education. The bills being considered by this year's Legislature, including Sen. Jeff Brandes' course choice bill, are about profits and privatization, not choice and competition, editorializes the Tampa Bay Times.

Data. Lawmakers are dealing with data issues related to teacher evaluations and access to researchers, the latter being complicated by critics raising fears of privatization, reports the Tampa Bay Times. A group called Liberty in Action protests the access bill outside the office of bill sponsor Sen. Bill Galvano, reports the Bradenton Herald.

Remediation. The Senate approves a bill that would end a requirement that college students take remedial courses for no credit. StateImpact Florida.

School spending. The Seminole school is scrambling to explain why it decided to spend $100,000 to send 176 teachers and school administrators to a teacher training program when a cheaper alternative was available. Orlando Sentinel.

Employee conduct. Three staffers at a Collier County school are under investigation for some kind of impropriety with FCAT testing. Naples Daily News.

Florida lawmakers made a big change to the parent trigger bill Thursday, passing it on another party-line vote but only after diluting the initial proposal to give parents more power to improve struggling schools.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education approved an amendment that gives school boards – not the state - the final say on a school turnaround plan.

The original wording in Senate Bill 862 made the state Board of Education the final arbiter if parents and school boards didn’t agree on the best way to improve a school.

Among a list of options is converting the district school into a charter school, a plan that might have more support from parents and the state board than district leaders.

The amendment comes at the request of Education Commissioner Tony Bennett, who asked sponsors of the House and Senate parent empowerment bills to hold elected school board members accountable.

“School boards should not have the ability to push the decision to the state,’’ Bennett wrote in a recent letter. “They owe it to parents to consider what they have to say without being able to avoid the tough decisions.’’

Bennett also suggested the turnaround process was “overly burdensome’’ with formal notices, votes and petitions required to kick-start a plan. He said the school board should have to explain at a public hearing why it didn’t think the parents’ approach was best.

Sen. Simmons

The amendment, introduced by Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, made that a requirement.The final outcome should be determined locally, not in Tallahassee, Simmons said. He also said parents are as culpable as school boards when it comes to so-called failing schools.

Sen. Bill Montford, a Tallahassee Democrat and head of the state superintendents association, said he supported the amendment and might be able to support the bill if “we continue to move the way we are now.’’ For now, he joined three other Democrats on the subcommittee in voting against it.

The eight Republican senators present at the meeting voted in favor. The next stop for SB 862 is the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is expected to consider the bill on April 18.

The House version of the parent trigger bill, which passed earlier this month, still gives the Board of Education the final word.

What, exactly, does "public" mean in "public education" and who decides?

by Gloria Romero

The school-choice movement has just surmounted one of its most pervasive challenges. A unanimous Indiana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that state's voucher program, which makes some 500,000 low- and middle-income kids (or, about 62 percent of its families) eligible for state aid to help pay for a private or religious school. The decision cuts to the core of the most profound education debate: What, exactly, does "public" mean in "public education" and who decides?

The court ruled that Indiana is serving valid educational purposes, both by maintaining a traditional public school system and by providing options to it. In other words, that government's role is to ensure that essential services are available to the people – but the government itself does not always need to be the actual provider.

Thus, with voucher laws such as Indiana's, "public" money follows the "public," which is the family directly – not the "publicly" operated schoolhouse. Hence, families get to choose where to spend the public money: on a schooling choice made by them, or on a schooling choice made by a government official.

Historically, the fight over funding in K-12 public education has been interpreted as the strict allocation of public, taxpayer dollars to publicly operated institutions only. Essentially, this has resulted in the protection of monopoly rights of government-run schools. Students are assigned by government officials to a "local" public school, based on ZIP code. This ZIP code-restricted system has largely given rise to today's parent empowerment movement, where more and more parents – especially in inner cities – have fought back against a system that not only assigns them to a particular school, but restricts them from leaving – even if that school chronically underperforms.

Indeed, few incentives exist to transform these schools, which sometimes seem to operate more as massive public-works programs for adults. Charter schools, open-enrollment policies and parent trigger laws have all been based on the fight for greater parent rights in public education. (more…)

Charter schools. Both sides postpone the sale of a former Pinellas middle school to a charter school operator that plans to serve black students in south St. Petersburg, reports Gradebook. A Miami charter school is looking for a new home because its landlord, the Archdiocese of Miami, abruptly ended its lease, reports the Miami Herald. South Tech Academy, the biggest charter school in Palm Beach County, is adding a middle school this fall, which will essentially make it a school district unto itself and eligible for more federal funding, reports the Palm Beach Post.

Parent trigger. The Tampa Tribune editorializes against it.

Course choice. The Tallahassee Democrat writes up Sen. Jeff Brandes' course choice bill, now headed to the Senate floor.

Rick Scott. Education excerpts from his interview with the Palm Beach Post editorial board. He doesn't say much beyond talking points on teacher pay, the Post editorializes.

Common Core. Tony Bennett says he will have more information next week about implementation plans. StateImpact Florida.

Employee conduct. A Broward bus driver who said she was only using cell phone while driving because her son, a U.S. Marine, was calling from Iraq now says she made it all up, reports the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun Sentinel. From the Sarasota Herald Tribune: "The Manatee County School District has hired a private investigator to look into whether Palmetto High Principal Willie Clark knew of an alleged sexual assault of a student last year and did not report it to law enforcement, as required by law."  More from the Bradenton Herald. Tampa Bay Times columnist Dan Dewitt says of a guidance counselor who was suspended for not diligently reporting a case of suspected child abuse: "If they can't make protecting children their top job, they shouldn't have a job at all." (more…)

Charter schools. Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano uses the specter of for-profit charter schools to slam state lawmakers who support parent trigger: "They say tomato, I say morons." Times columnist Bill Maxwell, meanwhile, highlights the success of Urban Prep Academies, a high-performing, all-male, all-black charter school in Chicago where, for four years in a row, every graduate was accepted into a four-year college.

The Palm Beach Post looks at lawmakers with charter school ties. The Lake Wales Charter School system is considering adding a second middle school, with the waiting list for the existing one at 360 and growing, reports the Winter Haven News Chief. The Athenian Academy charter in New Port Richey and the Pasco school district are clashing over whether the school has the right to expand, reports the Tampa Bay Times. A charter school in Miami Shores is getting better at private fundraising, reports the Miami Herald. The state's charter school appeals commission recommends approval of a proposed Orange Park charter school twice rejected by the Clay County School Board, reports the Florida Times Union. Lawmakers should limit charter school to districts with failing schools, editorializes the St. Augustine Record.

School choice lotteries. A lot of parents in Palm Beach County are about to get bad news:  They did not get their children into the district school  choice they wanted. According to the Palm Beach Post, "At more than half of the choice programs, less than 1 in 3 students that applied got a seat. At four of the 185 choice programs, fewer than 1 in 10 students won a seat."

Vouchers. The League of Women Voters asks if McKay vouchers and tax credit scholarships are constitutional in a Gainesville Sun op-ed.

Parent trigger. Former Board of Education member Julia Johnson responds to critics in this op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat: "I don’t understand what a critic of parent empowerment meant when she recently wrote that it would use parents like “cheap napkins.’’ But I do know that low-income kids were used as a cheap paycheck and their schools were oftentimes used as a training ground for novice teachers and a depository for ineffective ones." The Tampa Tribune writes up the debate. Pensascola News Journal columnist Shannon Nickinson doesn't like it: "How about the state fulfilling its obligation to the public education system, rather than working to pass off that responsibility under the guise of “parental choice.”

Virtual schools. The Miami Herald writes up the bills that will expand digital education. (more…)

Tennessee: Gov. Bill Haslam, not pleased with Republican plans to create a broader voucher program, pulls the plug on his voucher proposal, limited to low-income children from low-performing schools (Associated Press). More from Nashville Public Radio and The Tennessean. The finger pointing begins (Chattanooga Times Free Press). New York Times takes a look at the Achievement School District, which has turned to charters as part of the solution to raise student achievement. A bill to create a statewide charter school authorizer clears a House committee (The Tennessean).

Texas: The House shoots down any attempts to create a voucher or tax credit scholarship program, with dozens of  Republicans joining Democrats in saying no (Dallas Morning News). More from the Houston Chronicle and Texas Tribune. School supporters plan to press ahead with a proposal for tax credit scholarships (Dallas Morning News).

Alabama: Critics say the state's new tax credit scholarship program will subsidize private schools built to resist desegregation (Birmingham News). Democratic legislative leaders say they'll push for a repeal (Birmingham News).

Mississippi: Senate leaders agree to a watered-down charter schools bill to keep it alive (Jackson Clarion Ledger). House members pass a charter bill with no debate (Jackson Clarion Ledger). More from the Associated Press. Both sides later pass the same bill and send it to Gov. Phil Bryant (Education Week).

Florida: More than 1,000 rally for school choice at the Florida Capitol in the first event that brings together parents from magnet, charter, voucher, virtual and home-school sectors (redefinED). Catholic schools buck national trends, seeing the first enrollment growth in five years (redefinED). A parent trigger bill clears its first committee in the state Senate (Orlando Sentinel) and passes the House (Tampa Bay Times). A bill that would allow school districts to create charter-like "innovation schools" also gets okay from the Senate Education Committee (Associated Press). A bill to tighten accountability on charters but allow high-performing ones to grow faster passes the House (Orlando Sentinel). (more…)