English-only tests: Florida is asking the U.S. Department of Education for a waiver from giving statewide assessments tests in any language other than English. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to make every effort to test students in their first language. About 12 percent of all K-12 students in Florida - almost 300,000 children - are considered English-learners. The waiver request points to the state constitution, which declares English as the state's official language. Education Week.
Board group's agenda: The Florida Coalition of School Board Members' agenda for the 2018 Legislature includes expanding school choice by creating a scholarship for bullied students to attend private schools, using paper and pencil testing through the 8th grade, allowing SAT and ACT scores to be used in place of state assessments as a requirement for high school graduation, and more. Gradebook.
Financial questions: How will the finances work for the company that is managing the first charter takeover of a public school district in Florida? Members of the House Education Appropriations Subcommittee have questions about Somerset Academy's ability pay the district's administrative overhead of about $421,000 when it's receiving just $254,000 to pay a superintendent, another employee and five elected Jefferson County School Board members, and still raise salaries for teachers significantly. Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah Gardens, says Somerset’s budget is still a “work in progress,” and says legislators are trying to get an accurate assessment of the district's assets. redefinED.
Football contact: The Florida High School Athletic Association is adopting guidelines to limit contact in high school football practices to 30 minutes a day during the season, and just 80 minutes a week, in an attempt to reduce the risk of injuries. During the preseason, contact would be limited to 40 minutes a day. The new rules begin Aug. 1. Tampa Bay Times. Florida Times-Union. Florida High School Football. USA Today.
Teacher bonuses: The Florida Department of Education is touting the state's Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship Program as a recruiting tool for districts. The teacher bonus plan pays up to $10,000 to new teachers who had high SAT or ACT scores. Last year 5,332 teachers qualified, and each received $8,256. Orlando Sentinel.
Opting out: Some parents who are opting their children out of the state's standardized testing are citing 1920s-era Supreme Court decisions, known as Meyer and Pierce, as legal authority. School districts that are demanding the tests have been relying on a 2005 appeals court decision, Fields vs. Palmdale School District. Gradebook.
School absences: Suspensions are down nearly 20 percent in U.S. schools, but about 10 percent of students miss at least three full weeks of school, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education. The report also suggests that sharp disparities remain between the ways black and white students are disciplined in schools and what types of advanced coursework are offered to black and Latino high school students. Associated Press. Education Week.
Babies and test scores: Children who spend an additional week in the womb have a slightly greater chance to be gifted or achieve higher standardized test scores, according to research from the University of Florida. But children staying in the womb 41 weeks instead of the typical 40 also have a slightly higher chance to be born with physical disabilities. University of Florida. (more…)
Rep. Erik Fresen
As we noted last week, Florida's perennial debate over charter school facilities funding is plagued by distortions that, even when debunked, don't seem to go away.
State Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, went after some of them this week in a Miami Herald guest column.
Fresen chairs the committee that writes the Florida House's education budget. In the column, he writes that charter schools have become a "boogeyman" in the annual legislative fight over facilities funding.
Florida lawmakers are looking to amend the state's constitution to create a new, statewide body to oversee charter schools.
Rep. Manny Diaz Jr.
The proposal cleared a state House panel this morning, and would need to be approved by voters if passed by the full Legislature.
State lawmakers have previously tried to create statewide boards with the power to approve and oversee charter schools. But courts ruled the state constitution gives local school boards exclusive control over all free public schools in their geographic area.
School districts would keep their authorizing authority under HJR 759 by Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah. The amendment would add a provision requiring the State Board of Education to create "a statewide charter school authorizer to authorize, operate, control and supervise charter schools" in addition to local districts.
Backers said the plan would create an "impartial" forum, free of the legal and political wrangling that has hampered charter schools in some Florida districts, and allowed others to approve shaky operators who opened charter schools that quickly failed. (more…)
There were some interesting exchanges when state Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, stopped by the Broward County School Board this week (see the video here). One dealt with the role of charter schools in Florida's education system, and why parents might choose them even when their children already go to an A-rated school.
School board member Laurie Rich Levinson questioned the purpose of charter schools that open in the vicinity of district schools where students are already doing well.
Levinson
"They're going to open in areas where we have our highest-performing schools, where there's not a need for a charter school," she said. If charter schools open right down the street from a high-performing school, "what are we achieving?"
Fresen responded with a case study from Broward's neighbor the south, Miami-Dade. Charters have opened in Coral Gables, where most existing public schools were already high-performing. Now, he said, while A-rated charter schools may draw students from A-rated district schools, all the schools have been forced to step up their game. District schools now offer language and international-baccalaureate programs they might not have otherwise.
In other words, competition from private and charter schools, which is more intense in Miami-Dade than in most Florida districts, may be adding to the school choice "tsunami" in South Florida. (more…)
Fresen
Bills aimed at helping Florida school districts screen people who apply to open charter schools didn't survive this year's legislative session, but those efforts may be revived.
During a visit this week with the Broward County School Board (hat tip to the Sun-Sentinel), state Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami said elements of this year's plan would help form the "starting point bill" when lawmakers return to Tallahassee in the fall.
Fresen said he was willing to consider going further in some areas, like requiring new charter schools to post a surety bond before they open. Such a proposal has been floated the past, but some lawmakers worried it could create hurdles for smaller schools. It's intended to keep school districts from being financially liable for schools that suddenly fold.
"I'm in favor of the concept, because it provides a lot of assurance to a school district," Fresen said. (more…)
Testing. The cyberattack on state testing systems remains under investigation. Associated Press. Florida's ACT scores rise but still trail the rest of the country. School Zone. Mother Jones profiles an Orlando teen who opted out of state testing.
Charter schools. State Rep. Erik Fresen talks reform with the Broward County School Board. Sun-Sentinel. A troubled Brevard charter school faces a 90-day ultimatum. Florida Today. Bay schools reach transportation agreements with a local charter school network. Panama City News Herald.
Rankings. Miami-Dade magnet and charter schools earn top marks from Newsweek. Miami Herald.
Failure factories. The community addresses a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation during a school board meeting.
Growth. Pasco public school enrollment jumps, surprising officials in some areas. Gradebook.
Back to school. Hillsborough, Lee and Manatee students return. Tampa Bay Times. Naples Daily News. Bradenton Herald.
Discipline. A Hillsborough middle school cuts back on out-of-school suspensions. Tampa Tribune. Black students face disproportionate punishment. School Zone. (more…)
Florida's system for regulating high school sports has become a perennial issue in the state Legislature. This year some key lawmakers are looking at it from a new angle: Is the organization that governs high school athletics in the state prepared for a system in which students increasingly choose magnet programs, career academies, charters and other options outside their zoned schools?
The Florida High School Athletic Association has a strict anti-recruiting policy, which it says is intended to ensure fair competition and protect student athletes from "unscrupulous" coaches.
The policy can sideline students who change schools for athletic reasons. The governing body counts charter, private and virtual schools among its members, and it allows students to remain eligible for varsity sports if they leave their zoned school for academic reasons. Sports can't enter into the equation.
Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, told the House Education Committee on Wednesday that he was concerned students enrolling in choice programs could fall into a "gray area," where the association could flag their moves to schools outside their neighborhood zones as recruiting violations, "as opposed to a more holistic decision by the parent."
After a contentious debate, the Florida House approved school choice legislation that would create education savings accounts for special needs students and allow students with higher incomes to participate in the state's tax credit scholarship program.
Rep. Gaetz
Friday's 73-43 vote fell on party lines. Many of the Democrats who opposed the bill focused their arguments on testing and accountability. So did one notable supporter: Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach.
Gaetz said he believes in school choice. But he also said he agreed with Rep. Karen Castor Dentel, D-Maitland, who on Wednesday proposed an amendment that would require students receiving scholarships to take standardized tests that allow for more direct comparisons with public school students.
Florida's system of standardized testing and school grades, Gaetz said, helps explain why Florida's graduation rates have risen and its achievement gaps have shrunk. Republicans, he said, have been "the party of accountability."
"We should be the ones that seize this mantle of accountability, because it's worked," Gaetz said. "That's why we're doing so well in our public schools."
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Gaetz's father, Senate President Don Gaetz, has also called for more comparable standardized tests to be given to scholarship students. (The scholarship program is administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.)
Democrats also seized on a provision that would expand program eligibility to families whose incomes are currently too high to qualify. The bill would allow partial scholarships, on a sliding scale, to families earning up to 260 percent of the poverty level. For example, a family of four with a household income of $62,010 would be eligible for half the scholarship amount. The scholarship is currently worth $4,880 a year.
Rep. Richard Stark, D-Weston, said the scholarships were "designed for the truly needy." But the new eligibility standards would "get close to the middle class."
"I believe in public money for public schools," he said. "I was willing to make an exception here. I'd like it to stay the way it is."
In his closing arguments on the bill, its sponsor, Erik Fresen, R-Miami, said wealthy parents have always had the ability to enroll their children in private schools, and the existing programs help people with lower incomes. He said the changes would expand options for the "largest class" - people with middle incomes.
Supporters of school choice, he said, are on "the right side of history."
"It's coming. It's happening. It's a feature of education that is going to happen. Look around. All the fights are between institutions and groups that are somehow embedded in a system," he said. "Forget about the system. Let's talk about the kids."
School choice legislation that would expand eligibility for the country's largest tax credit scholarship program and create new personal learning accounts for special needs students is ready for a final vote in the Florida House.
Lawmakers on Wednesday removed a $30 million increase on the caps that limit the growth of the tax-credit scholarship program, though the state's current law would still allow the program to grow by as much as 25 percent a year.
Rep. Erik Fresen
The change did little to tamp opposition among House Democrats.
They proposed a series of contentious changes during nearly two hours of floor discussion on Wednesday, including a proposed requirement that schools participating in the tax credit scholarship program administer state's standardized tests. The Democrats' amendments were defeated, largely along party lines.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, broke with his fellow Republicans to vote in favor of the testing requirement, which also would have required schools with scholarship students to participate in the state's A-F grading system for schools. His father, Don Gaetz, is the Senate President, and has called for requiring state assessments for scholarship students, an idea that remains controversial among some school choice supporters.
The House voted down other Democratic proposals, which among other things would have required private schools with scholarship students to hire state-certified teachers, mandated that they teach the state's education standards and restricted the way scholarship funding organizations that administer the program can use their revenue. Step Up for Students, which co-hosts this blog, is a scholarship funding organization.
Requiring state standards in private schools "would ensure private schools are going to be accepting public money, that they do something similar to the public schools and reach the same standards that we have for those schools," said Rep. Richard Stark, D-Weston.
Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, said parents chose private schools for a host of reasons, including the kind of learning environment they offer.
While the full House could approve the school choice bill as early as Friday, the Senate has so far taken a different approach to school choice legislation after withdrawing its original tax credit scholarship bill from consideration earlier in the session.
Florida is one of seven states where lawmakers this year have considered creating education savings accounts for special-needs students, and competing proposals have gained traction in both chambers.
"It allows incredibly more flexibility to the parents' use for specific services that they know their child needs," he said.
Additional coverage: Post on Politics, Central Florida Political Pulse, Associated Press, Tampa Bay Times.
