Tax credit scholarships. The Palm Beach Post talks funding and accountability with representatives of Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog and employs the author of this post.

School boards. Supporters of rival school board associations air their views in a political forum. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The Lake school board won't switch to single-member districts. Leesburg Daily Commercial.

Funding. Polk County district officials raise concerns about capital funding, which is stretched thin in a large district with many rural areas. Lakeland Ledger. How much of that additional revenue is going back into classrooms? Daily Commercial.

Home education. Florida Times-Union readers weigh in on home schooling.

Digital learning. The state plans to distribute digital classrooms funding, despite the lack of a state technology assessment. Gradebook.

Back to school. The state sales tax holiday starts Friday. Tampa Tribune. Daytona Beach News-Journal. Bradenton Herald. An event distributes supplies to children in need. Fort Myers News-Press. A training workshop helps Polk teachers gear up for the new year. Lakeland Ledger.

Parent involvement. Duval creates parent academies to increase involvement with district schools. Florida Times-Union.

Homelessness. Three Panhandle districts are home to thousands of homeless students, unbeknownst to many in the community. Northwest Florida Daily News. (more…)

Charter schools. Parents at a charter school that is putting off plans to open in August have few options beyond their zoned schools. Gradebook. The Miami-Dade school district faces a legal tab in a charter school retaliation case. News Service of Florida.

Digital learning. The Miami Herald's back-to-school edition takes a look at the digital landscape. Topics include: The growth of virtual school options, girls learning about high tech, digital literacy, the digital divide in poor communities, students learning to code and the rise of blended learning.

Home education. The Ocala Star-Banner looks at the growth of home schooling in Marion County.

Testing. The Seminole school board backs a plan to drop state assessments in favor of national norm-referenced tests. Orlando Sentinel.

Budgets. Duval, Lee Alachua and Collier districts approve spending plans. Tax rates fall, but tax collections may rise. Florida Times-Union. Fort Myers News-Press. Gainesville Sun. Naples Daily News. (more…)

STEM. Students in Orlando's Pine Hills neighborhood experiment with growing bioluminescent mushrooms. Orlando Sentinel. These 20 public elementary schools excel in science instruction for disadvantaged students. Bridge to Tomorrow. Students at a Lakeland Christian school learn about robotics during a summer workshop. Lakeland Ledger.

Budgets. Miami-Dade school officials plan to lower the property tax rate slightly. Miami Herald. Local districts await state information on property tax revenues for schools. Tallahassee Democrat.

Private schools. A Bradenton Montessori school plans to expand into a new location. Bradenton Herald.

Charter schools. Palm Beach's new superintendent plans a forum for charter school parents. Sun-Sentinel.

Digital learning. Florida schools seem likely to to receive state digital classrooms funding despite uncertainty caused by a line-item veto. Tampa Bay Times. A parent writes an open letter to Palm Beach's superintendent on digital learning. Context Florida.

International Baccalaureate. A St. Petersburg student gets rare perfect scores on her college-credit exams. Tampa Bay Times. (more…)

An expansion of Florida's Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts wasn't the only school choice-related issue that found new life in a state budget deal reached this week.

The new $78 billion spending plan, set to come up for a final vote Friday, would increase funding for public schools and address a handful of the issues we followed during the regular legislative session.

Digital classrooms. The classroom technology push would get a $20 million boost, or a 50 percent increase. Charter schools were less likely to take advantage of the program last year. Legislation tied to the budget would require the state Department of Education to create a "streamlined" process for charters to submit their digital classroom plans, which might make it easier for them to participate. The extra money might help make it worth their while.

Charter schools. Charter schools would take a haircut in their funding for buildings. Capital funding would decline by a third, to $50 million. School districts would also get $50 million for repair and maintenance, and a larger chunk of money would be divided among school construction projects in rural districts. (more…)

Florida gets the highest marks in the country for its digital learning policies, according to a report released Tuesday by an advocacy group.

Florida has typically gotten strong grades from Digital Learning Now in its annual report cards. This year, the state leapfrogged Utah to claim the top score, thanks in part to digital classrooms legislation that increased planning and funding for technology in the state's public schools.

"Florida has a lot to be proud of, and it reflects a commitment not just to digital learning, but creating more options for kids," John Bailey, a vice president at the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the director of the digital learning group, said in an interview.

Among the state's policies that drew praise: (more…)

For more than two years, administrators at Purcell Marian High School in Cincinnati have been navigating the competing pressures of new and old.

They decided the shift to blended learning could help them meet the varying needs of an increasingly diverse student body, and help their students meet a state requirement to pass four years of high school math courses. They also knew that they couldn't knock down all the walls in their 87-year-old building or upend the traditions that had drawn students to seek a Catholic education in the first place.

"We couldn't just gut the school and start over as an all-blended learning school," Jeanine Flick, the school's academic dean, told a crowded session at an Orlando conference for thousands of Catholic educators.

Instead, in 2013 the school began a gradual, subject-by-subject shift from paper textbooks to electronic ones, and from instruction led entirely by teachers to what principal Veronica Murphy described as a more "student-centered" approach, in which students work through material based on what they have mastered. It began converting one of its newer buildings into an open-plan "blended learning center."

While Catholic educators, much like their public-school counterparts, have been exploring blended learning for a few years, it's now becoming widespread, and was one of the hottest topics at the National Catholic Educational Association's annual convention last week. Sessions were often packed with teachers and administrators looking to draw lessons from schools like Purcell Marian that have already made the shift and are starting to draw lessons from it.

They've faced many of the same the same hurdles as public schools, and some unique ones. For one thing, they often lack public funding to pay for students' devices or the technology that connects them.

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Draw up a detailed plan for using technology in the classroom, and get a funding boost in return.

That was the bargain offered to Florida public schools under digital learning legislation passed last year — one that many school districts found valuable. Charter schools, however, were less likely to take part.

Next year, with more funding expected to be on the table, charter schools would be required to join districts in the technology planning process under a bill filed this week by the chair of the state Senate's education committee.

Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, has proposed an update to the "digital classrooms" legislation he authored last year. The new measure would require districts to get input from state technology experts on their digital classroom plans.

Charter schools were included in last year's legislation. The majority of them did submit technology plans to their local districts, allowing them to receive added technology funding. The updated legislation would clarify that they're required to do so.

They're expected to have more reason to participate. Gov. Rick Scott has proposed doubling the current $40 million in digital classrooms funding in next year's state budget, and Legg and other lawmakers have also said they plan to increase funding for classroom technology now that schools have plans in place to help them use it wisely.

The new legislation would also make it easier for charters to fill out their technology plans, by requiring the state Department of Education to create a streamlined form they could submit online.

So far, all but three of Florida's school districts have submitted digital learning plans to the state Department of Education, allowing them to claim their share of $40 million in technology funding.

Hundreds of schools, however, haven't been as quick on the uptake.

Last year, legislation by state Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, created a new pool of funding for school technology known as the Digital Classrooms Allocation. To qualify, school districts had to draw up detailed plans for how they would use technology to improve teaching and learning. Charter schools could share in the money, too, as long as they submitted similar plans to their local districts.

So far, 70 of the state's 73 school districts and university lab schools have submitted technology plans to the state, Ron Nieto, the department's deputy commissioner for innovation, told the state Board of Education during its Wednesday meeting.

He said 397, or less than two-thirds, of the state's charter schools had done the same.

As board member John Padget noted, "It looks like the charter schools as a group have left some money on the table."

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School choice. A political group that supports school choice gets involved in the Democratic primary for a Northeast Florida state House seat. News Service of Florida.

Private schools. A new private school, started by two charter school teachers, is aimed at low-income students in urban Orlando. Orlando Sentinel. A St. Petersburg private school helps gather gift donations for children in the state's Guardian ad Litem program. Tampa Bay Times.

Lawsuits. Parents from around the state are helping to defend Florida's tax credit scholarship program in court. Tampa Tribune. Wayne Blanton of the Florida School Boards Association hits back with an op-ed defending the lawsuit and criticizing the school choice program, which as administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog. South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Charter schools. Many Florida charter schools struggle to comply with state transparency laws requiring them to post financial and governance information on their websites. Naples Daily News. See the paper's analysis here. Watchdog.org looks at charter school growth statistics.

Technology. More federal dollars are going to help schools pay for technology purchases. Tampa Tribune. Flagler schools officials find the digital transition hasn't been as wholesale as they hoped. Daytona Beach News-Journal. A Bevard middle school rolls out a one-to-one inititative. Florida Today. Monroe officials try to combat online threats and cyberbullying. Keynoter.

Teacher evaluations. Districts should follow Hillsborough's lead on teacher evaluations, Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano writes. Some teachers call for changes. Tampa Bay Times. Baker County teachers boast some of the highest VAM scores in the state. WJCT.

STEM. Why not use Bright Futures scholarships to nudge students toward college majors in STEM fields? Paul Cottle raises the idea in the Tallahassee Democrat. Central Florida high school students take part in scientific research on local college campuses. Orlando Sentinel.

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A top Florida lawmaker for education issues is convening a group of educators, elected officials and tech industry representatives in Tampa Thursday morning.

One of the goals: Find ways to close the technology gap between schools and other institutions.

Thanks to the proliferation of smart-phones and affordable tablets, students, like adults, are becoming accustomed to having pocket-sized computers at their disposal. That often changes when they get to school.

"What we expect our kids to do is basically power down when they come into the classroom," said state Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, adding: "Schools tend to be lagging the rest of our culture in terms of technology."

It's not that educators aren't open to taking advantage of new tools, Legg said. A former teacher and current charter school administrator, he said he understands how hard it can be to bring technology into schools and make sure it's used in meaningful ways.

He said he hopes the half-day Digital Classroom Initiative Symposium, happening at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry, will help educators find ways to use technology more effectively. People from universities and the technology industry, as well as incoming Senate President Andy Gardiner and state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, are expected to participate.

Earlier this year, Legg sponsored of legislation requiring school districts to spell out their digital learning plans and tie them to efforts to raise student achievement. In the coming years, the Digital Classrooms Plans will be used to guide state funding for school technology.

"We're not trying to revolutionize education here," he said. "It's simply trying to make sure our schools are keeping up with the times."