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.
