Gerard Robinson. The former Florida education commissioner, who stepped down three months ago, will be among the panelists next week responding to a new Brookings report on standardized testing and the Common Core. More here.
DOE responds to Tampa Bay Times contracting story. I can't remember the last time DOE did a point-by-point, line-by-line rebuttal to a story. Press release here.
Career academies. Get a nice write-up in the Gainesville Business Report.
Testing. New Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti removes some internal standardized tests from the district schedule, prompting praise from teachers union president Terrie Brady, reports the Florida Times Union.
FCAT. Will any private schools that accept tax credit scholarships give it? Asks Gradebook.
Contract talks. Continue next week in Palm Beach County after nearly falling apart last week, reports the Palm Beach Post’s Extra Credit blog.
Schools put kids in reach of convicts. Tampa Bay Times columnist Sue Carlton.
Many of you are aware that the New Jersey legislature is considering a tax credit scholarship bill modeled on Florida’s successful program. Sponsored by some prominent Democrats, this bill has inspired spirited debate in legislative committees, at rallies at the Capitol, and in the press. Today, former Democratic Gov. James Florio weighed in with a column published in the Newark Star Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper. I don’t often do this, but I couldn’t resist adding my own comments after the Governor’s (His column is below, and my comments are in italics).
By James J. Florio
The establishment of a system of universal public schools for all American children was a historic event for the world and the key to our nation’s development and prosperity. It provided unmatched literacy levels for our citizens and a commitment to excellence as a national goal. It enabled people from every country to be blended into one people, representing an amalgam of ideas of freedom and opportunity through upward mobility. Our diversity was molded in the public schools and became our strength. [Democracy does require a publicly funded education system that embraces and develops our diverse strengths into a unified whole, but empowerment and customization are necessary for this to occur. Top-down, command and control education systems are the wrong way to go. In this century we cannot expect a one-size-fits-all model, where we assign students to schools by zip codes, to work effectively.]
Now, we find — through proposed voucher systems — a rejection of our unifying universal educational model. [Not true. Parental empowerment is a part of a new, more democratic model of publicly-funded education. The old model gave taxpayer dollars to a monopoly system that disempowered parents by assigning students to schools by geography. The new empowerment model allows parents to choose from qualified, properly regulated suppliers of many kinds—without preference for who the provider is.] (more…)
