For two years, the fifth-grader with a flair for conversation has been a student in an all-boys classroom in Brandon, where teachers speak a little louder and encourage bursts of activity.

Classmates stand when responding to questions. They address each other formally, using last names.

Cameron Rodriguez loves it.

“I’m definitely more comfortable,’’ said the 11-year-old A-and-B student, who has a little sister and likes hanging out with girls – just not while he’s trying to learn. “Around girls, you would definitely be more nervous.’’Heading into sixth grade, Cameron doesn’t want the experience to end. So with mom’s help – and with a convenient prompt from a public speaking contest - Cameron began researching his school choice options last semester.

He started with his school district in Hillsborough County, which is home to two single-gender middle schools, one for girls and one for boys.

Cameron had heard about the Boys Academy at Franklin Magnet Middle School after a few of the school’s upperclassmen stopped by his school, Hugo Schmidt Elementary.

They boasted of “hundreds of activities’’ at the collegiate middle school, including a golf program and iPads for every student. They showed off uniforms of light blue oxford button down shirts, khaki slacks and striped ties. They said Cameron and the other boys would be called “men of distinction.”

Cameron, who plans to start his own business one day, liked being called a man - a lot.

He went online to the district’s website and found more about the school than even the academy’s lead teacher, Amanda Sheets, said she knew. “Here, the student hasn’t even set foot on the campus, yet, and we’ve already touched him,’’ said Sheets, who oversees tours at the academy.

Cameron channeled his fervor into a speech he delivered for an annual public speaking contest. He wrote about how boys and girls learn differently. How it’s easier to concentrate in class. How he’s not worried about giving the wrong answer.

He practiced reading his speech aloud, over and over.

That diligence earned him a shot at the Nov. 30 schoolwide competition, where Cameron went up against five other fifth-graders. In a room full of judges, teachers, peers and his dad, Cameron walked up to the microphone and gave it his all. (more…)

Editor’s note: As we reported last night, Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett made newsworthy comments yesterday when he spoke at an all-boys magnet school in Tampa. He suggested school choice wasn't a matter of public vs. private, and credited Florida school districts – Hillsborough’s in particular - for expanding magnets, career academies and other quality choice options. Here are his full remarks, edited slightly for length and clarity.

The overview I want to give you about Florida’s choice framework is one that is, in my opinion, a true blueprint for our country. And I want to take you on this little journey. So just bear with me for a moment.

For many years, we said choice was about competition in education. And competition will raise all tides, right? The rising tide of competition will raise all the boats. And I can tell you, Florida has kind of changed that discussion. Again, being from Indiana, being from a state that tried and worked very hard to champion very similar policies, while competition in the educational system is good, the issue of choice here in Florida personifies the importance you put on what I believe to be the most important social justice issue in education. And by that, I want to do a little scenario.

If my wife and I didn’t have grown children, and in December when I was appointed, we would have gotten in our car, we would have driven to Tallahassee, and we would have driven around the community of Tallahassee, and we would have found the school that works best for the Bennett children. And the reason we could do that is frankly we could afford to. We could afford to live anywhere we wanted, send our kids to the school that we thought best fit their needs ...

And my point in this is, Florida is leading the discussion that all parents, regardless of the color of their skin or regardless of how much money they have, should have the same choice as Tony Bennett or MaryEllen (Elia, the Hillsborough superintendent). And that is a very different discussion in choice. And it is a discussion that I see is transcending what I believe can be really the first round of choice. And the first round of choice was frankly privates and charters against the public schools. Virtual schools against the traditional bricks-and-mortar buildings.

And I think MaryEllen in Hillsborough is an example of how we have taken that discussion in a completely different direction. Because this school (Franklin Middle Magnet and its Boys Preparatory Academy) provides a choice for children. This district provides a culture and a climate where choice is accepted and encouraged, and the opportunity that all children should have the same choices that Tony or MaryEllen have. They live that way.

So we’re now talking about choice – not just private schools and charter schools and virtual schools – we’re talking about public school choice. We’re talking about creative leaders like MaryEllen, like the team here, creating educational opportunities for children within the district. And really going to what we all heard was the purpose of choice to begin with, to provide incubation for innovation for our public schools. So I am very encouraged. (more…)

Florida’s new education commissioner is known for his zealous support of charter schools and vouchers and other learning options that some critics see as anti-public school.

But on Tuesday afternoon, Tony Bennett sat next to Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent MaryEllen Elia inside a Tampa magnet school for boys, and praised the growth of choice in district schools across the state.

Florida is transcending the first round of conversations on choice that pit private and charter schools against public schools and virtual schools against “brick and mortar’’ ones, Bennett said during an event marking National School Choice Week. The new conversation, he suggested, isn’t either-or; it’s whatever works to ensure all kids have access to quality choices.

“So we’re now talking about choice – not just private schools and charter schools and virtual schools – we’re talking about public school choice,” he told an audience of about 100 people gathered at the Boys Preparatory Academy. “We’re talking about creative leaders like MaryEllen, like the team here, creating educational opportunities for children within the district - and really going to what we all heard was the purpose of choice to begin with, to provide incubation for innovation for our public schools.”

Tuesday’s event was sponsored by the Florida Alliance for Choices in Education, a coalition that includes a wide swath of school choice groups. Bennett and Elia sat on a panel with representatives from home-schooling, virtual education, magnet schools, career academies, Florida tax credit scholarships and McKay scholarships.

Most were parents who had lived and breathed school choice, starting with their own children. As they shared stories of searching for schools that practiced their faith or fit their child’s academic needs, they offered numbers that shed light on the choice movement’s impact. (more…)