Vouchers: Sen. President Don Gaetz says he supports private school vouchers, but that students who participate in the program should be subject to the same or similar standardized tests that public school students take. Miami Herald. More from Orlando Sentinel. School choice is becoming more valuable for parents, who are turning to Step Up For Students and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship  for help in finding the right fit for their children.  WEAR TV Channel 3.

Private schools: St. Thomas Episcopal in Miami gets on loan from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration a display of lunar rocks, soil and meteorites. Miami Herald. 

Charter schools: Oasis High School, part of the Cape Coral charter school system, win 14 awards at the International Model UN conference hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. Fort Myers News-Press. In Hillsborough County, more than half of the existing charter schools have banded together to create a choice fair for families to learn about their offerings. Tampa Bay Times. Palm Beach County School District officials are working with two local legislators to introduce a bill that would require new charter schools to put up a $250,000 performance bond before they can open. Palm Beach Post.

Magnet schools: Public school leaders in Miami and elsewhere are refocusing on magnet schools as traditional public schools come under increasing pressure from charter schools and vouchers for private schools. The New York Times.

District schools: Polk County principals work to bring improvement to local schools. The Ledger.  With a new writing coach and weekly boot camps, Hernando schools hope to pull up state test scores. Tampa Bay Times.

Collegiate high schools: Sen. John Legg proposes a bill to expand collegiate high schools, and spur community and state colleges to make more of an effort to engage high-schoolers in college-level courses. The Tampa Tribune.

Eric Cantor: GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor visits Academy Prep Center of Tampa to stump for school choice. redefinED. The Republican congressman from Virginia said the private middle school, which serves children in low-income families, is an example of how school choice can succeed. The Tampa Tribune. More from the Tampa Bay Times.

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The Congressman from Virginia asked the Florida boys in navy pants and green polos what they wanted to be when they grew up. All of them in this middle school classroom were black or Hispanic. All had been awarded school choice scholarships for low-income students.

One by one, they offered their answers.

Architect. Engineer. Paleontologist. The next student said he was gunning for the NFL first, with a transition later to entrepreneur.

"There you go," smiled the lawmaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

The exchange came Friday, during Cantor's visit to Academy Prep, a private school in Tampa that routinely sends its low-income, minority students to top-tier high schools, and from there, to 4-year colleges. After meeting with students and parents, Cantor praised the school as a model for how expanded school choice can help more kids realize their dreams.

"When I go around the country and see kids your age, most kids don't have this kind of privilege to have a school like this," Cantor told the students. "We're hoping to make sure every student your age can have this kind of privilege. Because you know why?"

"Every one of you just had a dream. And you know where you want to go, and you're going to go for it," Cantor continued. "That's what being here allows you to do."

Cantor has become a leading Republican voice for choice, with visits in the last year to either charter or voucher schools in Denver, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. He and other Republicans are putting a lot more attention on school choice at the federal level. (more…)

School choice: Florida's changing educational landscape requires policymakers to strike a balance when it comes to school choice offerings, writes Duval County School Board member Jason Fischer for Context Florida.

Career tech: Five high schools around Orange County will get $1 million to expand career and technical programs on their campuses thanks to a grant from Dr. Phillips Charities. Orlando Sentinel. Students get to show off their techie skills in a recent regional competition. Tampa Bay Times.

STEM ed: A national nonprofit called Girls Who Code is working to grow the next generation of STEM–science, technology, engineering and math–stars in South Florida. StateImpact Florida.

Eric Cantor: U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor will tour Academy Prep Center of Tampa today. ABC Action News.

Legislation: StudentsFirst is pushing a bill that would require the state to create a statewide return on investment index and rating system for all schools. Tampa Bay Times. U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has introduced legislation that ends the practice of restraining or secluding students with disabilities who become out of control, something Florida has considered. Tampa Bay Times. A proposed bill would give school districts full control over textbook selection, removing the state from the process completely. Tampa Bay Times.

Common Core: The Orlando Sentinel provides readers with a Q&A on the new education standards.

Superintendents: Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has been named the country’s top schools chief. Miami Herald.

Teachers: Thomashefsky, or “Mr. T” as he’s called by his students, is the 2014 Lee County Teacher of the Year. Fort Myers News-Press.

State testing: Parents and teachers worry over heavy testing schedule. Orlando Sentinel.

School grades: Florida's A-to-F school grading formula could be simplified this year with high school grades available months earlier. Orlando Sentinel.

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., will be in Florida Friday to talk about school choice.

He's scheduled to tour the Academy Prep private school in Tampa, and hold a roundtable discussion with students and parents. Students at the highly regarded school attend with the help of Florida's tax credit scholarship program for low-income students, which is administered by Step Up For Students (which co-hosts this blog.)

Cantor has put a spotlight on school choice over the past year, with visits to charter schools in Denver and Philadelphia, a Catholic school New Orleans that accepts vouchers, and an appearance at the Brookings Institution last month.

You can read more about Academy Prep here.

Alabama: The state's new tax-credit scholarship program has nearly reached the $25 million cap (AL.com). A councilman of Birmingham says the Alabama Accountability Act must be repealed (AL.com).

Alaska: The state should abolish the Blaine Amendment and allow private school vouchers (Daily News Miner).

Arizona: Education reformers plan to rapidly expand the Education Savings Accounts program if the state Supreme Court approves (Arizona Daily Sun). The Arizona Daily Sun editorial board takes a stand against expanding Education Savings Accounts, instead arguing that the state should spend more money on traditional public schools. A Republican state senator owns businesses that have financial dealings with his own tax-credit scholarship organization (CBS 5).

California: Gloria Romero, a Democrat and former state senator, argues school choice is a parent's right (OC Register). Some public schools that convert to charters are seen as charter schools in name only (Seattle Times, Joanne Jacobs). Market competition leads to collaboration in L.A public school choice (EdSource). The California Charter Schools Association calls for the closure of a low-performing charter school managed by UC Davis, Sacramento City College and the Washington Unified School District (Sacramento Bee). Will the state embrace charter schools (San Diego Tribune)? San Diego earns low scores on the Brookings Institution's school choice index (Press Telegram).

D.C.: Thousands of parents attend a school choice convention to find the right school for their child (Washington Post). Democracy Prep, a charter school from New York City, will be taking over an Imagine charter school in the district (Washington Post).

Delaware: A judge blocks the closure of an all girls charter school on 14th Amendment grounds (Education Week).

Florida: Four school districts in the state rank in the top 25 for school choice according to a new Brookings Institution report (redefinED). Virtual charter schools grow (redefinED). The Duval County School District holds an expo to advertise public school choice options to parents (Action News Jacksonville). Legislators propose two competing charter school bills, one creating a standardized contract to make it easier to form charter schools and the other to require surety bonds before a charter school can open (Sun-Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times). Another proposed bill would allow charter schools to share space with district schools (Miami Herald).

Georgia: New rules require charter schools to score as well as or better than the state and district averages on the state's 110 point grading scale, or risk having their charters revoked (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Illinois: An op-ed writer says Chicago has too much school choice (Chicago Business). Six Catholic elementary schools are slated to close by next year (Chicago Tribune).

Louisiana: Gov. Bobby Jindal asks the court to reconsider the decision to allow federal monitoring of the voucher program to ensure racial balance (Times-Picayune). The U.S. Department of Justice is asking the court for the power to veto any voucher award (Cato Institute, National Review, Catholic Online). A state panel suggests a new way to fund the Course Choice program (Shreveport Times). New Orleans tops the Brookings Institution's school choice index (Watchdog). School choice empowers parents (Business Report). New Orleans shows how urban districts can create real achievement growth through school choice (US News and World Report). (more…)

As the RNC wound down today, it took a sharp turn back towards partisanship in education reform, with former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings offering the week’s hardest knock on President Obama’s education record.

Former President George W. Bush reached across the aisle to work with the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and other Democrats to pass No Child Left Behind, said Spellings, who Bush appointed. And it’s no surprise, she said, that former Florida Gov. Jeb was the most successful education governor in recent times.

“That’s because of leadership,” Spellings said at an education panel sponsored by Bloomberg Link and the 2012 Tampa Bay Host Committee for the RNC. “We have not seen that from President Obama on this topic.”

“If half the minority kids in this country were not getting out of high school on time, we ought to be marching in the streets,” she continued. “If half the school lunches served next week in these schools were tainted, we would be marching in the street. Michelle Obama would write a cookbook.”

Spellings criticized some aspects of Race to the Top, Obama’s signature education program, and panned his administration’s decision to grant No Child flexibility to a number of states.

“The Obama administration has given waivers out like candy,” she said. And the result has been a return to lower standards for poor kids.

Jeb Bush, who was part of the panel discussion, did not criticize Obama. But he also did not praise him as he has in the past, including earlier this week. He directed his fire at teachers unions. (more…)