New scholarship: Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to eliminate the 14,000-student waiting list for Florida Tax Credit (FTC) scholarships to attend private schools by creating another scholarship. The proposed Equal Opportunity Scholarship program would offer the same amount of money as the tax credit scholarships do - around $7,000 a year - to those 14,000 low-income students. The $100 million set aside for the new scholarship would come directly from the state, while the funding for FTC scholarships comes from companies that receive tax credits for contributing to nonprofits. “If the taxpayer is paying for education, it’s public education,” regardless of what type of school she or he attends, said DeSantis. Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer the FTC program. Legislators will have to write a bill and pass it into law. News Service of Florida. Associated Press. Miami Herald. Orlando Sentinel. redefinED. Gradebook. Lawsuits are likely to follow DeSantis' call for a new scholarship. News Service of Florida. Politico Florida.
Guns and teachers: A recent statewide poll suggests a minority of Floridians support arming teachers, but the Republican-dominated Legislature is moving ahead with a bill that would arm willing teachers who get the required training. The bill passed last year specifically prohibited arming teachers. Legislators say they have come around on the issue after the state commission investigating the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 recommended that willing teachers be armed. “I want to remind members that we had members of that commission who were totally against any armed personnel being on a campus," said State Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, "and after their serving on that commission they have come to us with this recommendation.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune. (more…)
Education bills: Proposed bills on education issues are starting to stack up for the Legislature, with more than 40 already filed for the legislative session that begins its 60-day session March 5. Among the latest filed are bills that would allow districts to adopt their own academic standards as long as they're more "rigorous" than what the state requires, restrict elections for tax measures to general elections, require the state to provide textbooks for students who are home-schooled or attend private schools and take dual-enrollment courses, and end the reassignment of teachers based solely on their state value-added measure evaluation scores. Gradebook. Florida Politics. Another bill would allow fulltime students in high schools, colleges and other schools under the age of 21 to be excused from jury duty. News Service of Florida.
Court and education: Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, says Gov. Ron DeSantis' conservative makeover of the Supreme Court could embolden the Legislature to make sweeping education reforms that have been rejected by previous courts. “You’ll probably see some more bold steps in education and revisiting some of the ideas that Gov. Bush brought to the table back in the day,” he told a Sarasota business audience Tuesday. He mentioned voucher programs such as education savings accounts as one idea that could be considered. ESAs provide each student a set amount of money that can be used to attend any school. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
