Closing for storm: Schools in 28 of Florida's 67 counties are shuttered today as Hurricane Michael moves closer to making landfall somewhere in the Panhandle. State officials say it could be the worst storm to ever hit that area of the state. Associated Press. Florida Department of Education. Panama City News Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Tallahassee Democrat. Education Week. Gainesville Sun. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. WFSU. Tampa Bay Times. Miami Herald. Orlando Sentinel. Daytona Beach News-Journal. WLRN. WTSP.
High ranking for Florida schools: Florida is ranked third among the states in K-12 educational quality and No. 1 in educational efficiency, according to rankings by Reason magazine. The rankings are based on National Assessment of Educational Progress reading, math and science test scores. Reason's rankings closely mirror those by Education Week, which recently ranked Florida fourth among U.S. states for K-12 achievement. “Overall, our results demonstrate that existing state education rankings aren’t to be trusted. When those scores are corrected, the conventional narrative is turned on its head,” say study authors Stan Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly. redefinED.
Education savings accounts. Bills filed Friday and Saturday would create a new mechanism for funding school choice options. Tallahassee Democrat.
Charter schools. Some 1,200 students apply for 650 slots at a new charter in Viera, reports Florida Today. An overwhelming majority of parents and teachers vote against the proposed conversion of a Key Biscayne school into a charter, reports Miami Herald. The Palm Beach school district is recommending that its board shut down three charters, reports the Palm Beach Post. The Pepin Academies, a charter that serves disabled students in Tampa, wants to open a campus in Pasco, reports the Tampa Bay Times.
School choice. Pasco Superintendent Kurt Browning is merging the district's choice programs - open enrollment, charters, career academies, etc. - in one department. Gradebook.
Parents. At Jacksonville's first-ever ed summit, Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti reiterates that he wants to transform how the district views parents. Florida Times Union.
Common Core. Tampa Bay Times overview of what's coming - and whether it can happen according to schedule. Part one here. Part two here.
Legislative preview. "Reforming school reform." Tampa Bay Times.
New faces. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Laurene Powell Jobs have joined the board of directors for the Foundation for Excellence in Education. EdFly Blog. (more…)
Charter schools. Florida's first classical preparatory school, slated for opening this fall in Pasco, asks for a one-year delay so it can find better digs, reports Gradebook. A judge again rules in favor of allowing a Sarasota principal to temporarily stay as head of an Imagine charter school that wants to split from the parent company, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Magnet schools. Magnet Schools of America names Roosevelt Middle in West Palm a National Magnet School of Distinction. Extra Credit.
"Progressive" agenda. Self-styled progressive groups put forward a legislative agenda that includes "rejecting efforts to revive the so-called “parent trigger” bill and curtailing the use of private school vouchers, both of which slash public education funding while privatizing public education for corporate gain." Central Florida Political Pulse.
School recognition money. Gov. Rick Scott wants to increase the per-student amount from $93 to $125, notes Extra Credit. In Palm Beach, he hands out $14 million in checks to schools, reports the Palm Beach Post.
Sequestration. Potential effects on Head Start, reports StateImpact Florida. More from Naples Daily News.
Teacher evaluations. More than 100 people show up - including a number of upset teachers - to a Department of Education hearing about the new evals in Orange County, reports the Orlando Sentinel. A different take from the EdFly Blog. (more…)
Bill Cosby has joined the board of directors of StudentsFirst, the education reform group founded by Michelle Rhee.
In a statement emailed to StudentsFirst supporters a few minutes ago, Cosby, a school choice supporter, wrote: "Enough is enough. I've seen the statistics on where American students rank in the world. I've heard the stories of children being sent off to schools that are nothing more than dropout factories, and our youth end up back out on the street uneducated and unprepared for life. I refuse to sit back and watch this happen. That's why I'm joining the board of StudentsFirst and will be working alongside you and StudentsFirst members across the nation to put children's needs first."
According to Education Week, StudentsFirst named other board members today, including Connie Chung, Joel Klein, Roland Martin and Jalen Rose.
Diane Ravitch called Cosby's move "the worst news of the day."
"This is a coup for her (Michelle Rhee) in her efforts to demean our nation’s teachers and promote the privatization of American public education," she wrote on her blog. "He is clearly uninformed about what she is doing. If you know how to contact him, do so. This is not in character for him."
It’s a common refrain in ed reform debates: If only more parents would do the right thing, schools would be a lot easier to fix. Especially, it seems, black parents.
Whenever I wrote a newspaper story about struggling black students, it was guaranteed to make the web site’s “most commented” list. Scores of angry people would write in to berate and belittle black parents, often in blatantly racist terms. Bill Cosby makes similarly hard-line arguments in a tough-love kind of way. So do some media personalities, like nationally syndicated columnist Bill Maxwell.
In his column last Sunday, Maxwell takes on a faith-based group in Pinellas County, Florida called FAST, which stands for Faith and Action for Strength Together. FAST recently made headlines for urging the Pinellas County School Board to do something about abysmal reading scores in 20 high-poverty schools, many of them with predominantly black student populations. In a public meeting, 3,000 members of the group called on the board to adopt a “direct instruction” approach.
As he has done before, Maxwell called for more accountability from black parents. He suggested it was a waste of time to focus on what schools may or may not be doing. He said the district’s web site had plenty of good tips.
Maxwell is right to stress how much parents matter. Nobody in their right mind disagrees. But like many things in education, this isn’t a case of either-or. (more…)
