Education amendments: Two Florida school officials are offering amendments to the state constitution that would provide more public financial support for schools other than traditional public schools. Marva Johnson, a member of the Florida Board of Education and Florida Constitution Revision Commission, is urging changes that would allow public money to be used for private schools "in the event that a student's right to an education that meets his or her individual needs and learning differences." Erika Donalds, a member of the Collier County School Board and the commission, is proposing an amendment allowing the Legislature to make a provision for "other educational services that benefit the children and families of this state that are in addition to the system of free public schools.” If the amendments are approved for the ballot, they would need the support of 60 percent of voters to go into effect. Tampa Bay Times. redefinED. News Service of Florida.
District's book ban: The superintendent of the Dixie County School District has issued a ban on instructional materials that contain “profanity, cursing or inappropriate subject matter.” Mike Thomas issued the ban after a parent complained about sexual references in the book A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines, but Thomas denies any connection between the complaint and the ban. Thomas says a committee will be formed to review instructional materials. Gainesville Sun.
Educators honored: Five finalists are chosen for Orange County teacher of the year. They are: Kenneth Boyd, music teacher at West Orange High School; Cindi Brasch, a teacher for the “hospital homebound”; Kyle Dencker, computer science teacher at Timber Creek High School; Bernie Hendricks, band director at Ocoee High School; and Sandy Mercer, a teacher for disabled students at Lake Silver Elementary School. The winner will be announced in December. Orlando Sentinel. Larissa Bennett, counselor at Virgil Mills Elementary School in Palmetto, is named school counselor of the year by the Florida School Counselor Association. Bradenton Herald. WWSB.
Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education now has a blog.
The EdFly Blog. launched last week, is written by Mike Thomas, a former Orlando Sentinel columnist. For years, Thomas was one of the few journalists in Florida to report the positive impact of the big ed changes here. Here's an excerpt from his introductory post today:
The more I learned, the more I understood that reform was not a plot to destroy public schools.
It was a plot to ensure that children who had long been neglected by education bureaucracies finally got a fair shake.
I saw schools I never knew existed on the front page because they received F’s from the state. And then I saw district officials react accordingly, pouring resources into them. A few years later the same schools appeared on the front page again, this time with beaming teachers and students celebrating A’s.
I saw the reading scores of low-income kids trending up and the achievement gap trending down.
From that point on, I could not write enough about the reform movement.
Does the challenged newspaper industry hold lessons for public schools? At least one newspaper columnist believes so. Orlando Sentinel scribe Mike Thomas writes that newspapers responded to the competitive threat of the Internet too late. School districts, he writes, are repeating similar errors:
There was this fledgling enterprise called the Internet, but we were oblivious to the threat, even disdainful of it. Then, suddenly, our customers had unlimited choices for picking their news sources and advertising their used boats.
This created chaos in an industry that built massive printing presses and huge newsrooms based on a monopoly model.
Now, far too late, we are adapting.
I see the same dynamic in education with school choice ...
... Fighting school choice ultimately will be as fruitless as dinosaurs whining about mammals. Public schools need to compete for every student, fill niches that aren't being met and market their product. That is what their competitors are doing. The only way to survive is to become the choice in school choice.
