Testing bills: The Florida Senate Education Committee meets Tuesday to consider seven bills that could change Florida's testing-based accounting system. Among the ideas being discussed: moving the testing to the final three weeks of the school year, ending the requirement to fail any third-grader who doesn't pass the reading test and doesn't have an exemption, and changing the rules on reporting test results. Gradebook. Lawmakers are pushing for tougher passing standards on the Florida Standards Assessments exams. Orlando Sentinel.
Bright Futures: Escalating eligibility standards for Bright Futures scholarships, tied to higher SAT and ACT scores, are shutting out an increasing number of students from Miami-Dade schools with large populations of low-income and minority students. At Hialeah High School, for example, almost 20 percent of students qualified for Bright Futures in 2011. By 2015, it was 8 percent. “I think the challenge with Bright Futures is that it doesn’t take into account the students who need us the most, the low-income students, the students who haven’t had the benefit of the best schools, whose parents don’t know the system and what needs to be done to get those high scores on the test,” says Lenore Rodicio, the executive vice president and provost for Miami Dade College. Miami Herald.
Vitti looks to Detroit: Duval County School Superintendent Nikolai Vitti is one of three finalists for the superintendent's job at the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Vitti, a native of Detroit, took the job in Duval in 2012 with a mandate to change the culture and direction of the 128,000-student district. His tenure has been marked with progress in some areas, such as graduation rates, cutting into the achievement gap and creating more school choice, but also with rocky relationships with some school board members. Detroit, which once had 224,000 students, is down to 47,000, and there are more students in charter schools than in district schools. Florida Times-Union. Florida Politics. WJAX.
Budget improves slightly: State economists think Florida will have about $300 million more revenue than expected for next year's budget, but legislators don't think it will have much of an impact. The proposed budget is more than $82 billion. Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, says he's happy for the forecast improvement, but says cuts are still inevitable. Naples Daily News. News Service of Florida. Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, defends the House's budget priorities during a talk at the Panhandle Tiger Bay Club. He says cuts in education spending shouldn't affect K-12 schools, but will have an impact on higher education. Pensacola News Journal. (more…)
For their project, Gussie Lorenzo-Luaces and three classmates at Deer Park Elementary in Tampa, Fla., wanted to find out what kind of paper allows a paper airplane to fly the farthest. After five trial runs, they determined copy paper, with its smooth surface and stable weight, worked best.
Gussie Lorenzo-Luaces, a third-grader at Deer Park Elementary School in Tampa, was one of more than 2,000 students participating in the 33rd annual Hillsborough Regional STEM Fair last week.
The boys’ exhibit was among more than 1,800 presented at last week’s 33rd annual Hillsborough Regional STEM Fair, which featured 2,000 students from district schools, charter and private schools, and home schools.
That diversity was a big plus for Gussie’s mom, Susie, who was curious where other students in the county registered on the science track.
“I just feel they don’t need separation,’’ she said. “I like seeing them all together.’’
Increasingly, though, Hillsborough students are not all together in academic competitions.
In the past year, district officials have begun excluding charter schools from some districtwide contests, including Battle of the Books, a reading competition, and the Math Bowl and Math League for elementary and middle school students.
The reasons for the splintering are not clear. But everything from cost, to fear of competition, to a desire for charter schools to be more independent, has been suggested. At the least, the move points to potential pitfalls as school choice options mushroom across the landscape – even in a district with a choice-friendly reputation like Hillsborough.
“They’re all our children,” said Lillia Stroud of King’s Kids Academy of Health Science, a new charter in Tampa. Stroud said she can relate to the district’s concerns, but “separation at any level is disheartening.” (more…)
