Sparking the evolution of education choice
Kiera Wilmot. Prosecutors won’t file criminal charges against Kiera Wilmot, the Polk County student who has become a cause celebre after igniting a small chemical explosion on school grounds, reports the Lakeland Ledger. Beth Kassab says the arrest took things way too far. In the aftermath, neighboring Orange will get[Read More…]
AP results. Florida students rank No. 4 in the nation in the percentage of graduates passing an AP exam. redefinED. Tampa Bay Times. Miami Herald. Tallahassee Democrat. Orlando Sentinel. CBS Miami. Florida Today. Associated Press. Fort Myers News Press. Tutoring oversight. The Tampa Bay Times elevated a handful of bad actors to[Read More…]
Words such as voucher, privatization, profit and corporation are often used as weapons by individuals and groups who oppose parental empowerment and school choice. Using words as weapons is especially common during periods of significant social change – we all do it – but the practice undermines civic discourse and[Read More…]
Charter school performance. StateImpact Florida gives more ink to University of Central Florida Professor Stanley Smith. His latest analysis finds little difference in academic performance between charter schools and district schools in Florida. Grad rates. The new, tougher federal formula could backfire if states ease up on their graduation requirements,[Read More…]
Editor’s note: Step Up For Students president Doug Tuthill wrote the following letter, which was published this morning in the Tampa Bay Times. It’s in response to this Times editorial about testing for students in Florida’s tax credit scholarship program and recent comments from Gov. Rick Scott. Some recent news stories have[Read More…]
Standardized test costs. They total about $1.7 billion a year nationwide, according to a new report from Brookings that includes state-by-state figures. Not much, concludes researcher Matt Chingos, who adds “perhaps we’re spending less than we should.” Coverage from Education Week and Huffington Post. Former Florida education commissioner Gerard Robinson tells the[Read More…]
As a group, low-income students struggle more than their wealthier peers. But in Florida, poor kids in some districts do a lot better than poor kids in others. In Seminole County, for example, 56 percent of third graders eligible for free- and reduced-price scored at grade level or above on[Read More…]
It does sound nefarious: The people who back accountability for Florida public schools, the argument goes, are really out to mine huge sums of money from their degradation and demise. In a weekend op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, Florida teachers union president Andy Ford (pictured here) mashed the privatization button hard[Read More…]
