Tax credit scholarships. The Florida teachers union may have cost Democrat Charlie Crist the governor's race by filing suit against the tax credit scholarship program and alienating black voters, writes Lloyd Brown at Sunshine State News. (The school choice program is administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.)
Magnet schools. Pasco begins taking applications Dec. 1 for its first magnet school. Gradebook.
Charter schools. Nearly 50 have shut down in South Florida in the past five years. NBC 6.
Testing. State Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, files a bill to limit to 10 the number of days districts can set aside for standardized testing. Orlando Sentinel.
Teacher conduct. A former high school band director in Osceola is arrested for reportedly having sexual relationships with two students. Orlando Sentinel.
Campus crime. A second Sarasota County student is arrested for operating a prostitution ring involving students. Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Students with disabilities. River Ridge High in Pasco offers a club that fosters friendships between students with disabilities and students without disabilities. Tampa Bay Times.
Science. Middle school students in Miami-Dade show off science and innovation skills by designing new shoes. Miami Herald.
Middle schools. Duval looks for ways to boost the performance of its middle school students, among the most struggling in the state. Florida Times Union.
From Acclaim Academy's facebook page: Students at the Duval school participating in a cadet promotion ceremony.
Like they are in other states, military-style charter schools are gaining a foothold in Florida.
There are new ones in Broward, Sarasota, Osceola and Duval counties – and more on the way. With a focus on rigor, structure, responsibility and respect, supporters say such schools experience fewer behavioral problems and better academic success.
Acclaim Academy, a fairly new charter schools outfit that embraces that formula, opened its first school in 2012 in Kissimmee, followed by another in August in Jacksonville. Local school boards, which authorize charter schools in Florida, recently approved three more academies to open next fall with one each in Duval, Orange and Palm Beach counties.
The schools feature high-tech equipment, with SMART boards for every teacher and take-home laptops for every student. But organizers defer to an old-school philosophy of discipline and rules, looking to the Army’s JROTC program as a format to promote structure, character and confidence.
Students are known as cadets. They wear Army fatigues. They participate in drills. It’s an experience that may lead some participants to the armed forces, but that’s not the academy’s mission.
“We’re not creating little soldiers,’’ said Bill Orris, Acclaim Academy’s director of education. Instead, the school is working to change the learning habits of 600 of the state’s most struggling students, he said. (more…)
Legislature. The Senate Education Committee looks like it's done for the session, meaning bills like Sen. Jeff Brandes' micro-credits idea are stranded and maybe dead. Gradebook.
Charter schools. About 300 charter schools students lobby lawmakers for charter school funding, reports Naked Politics. Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale, says he wants to remove a provision in his charter schools bill requiring districts to share unused facilities with charters, reports The Buzz. Pasco district officials debate errors in charter schools applications, reports Gradebook. The teachers at a closed-down Miami-Dade charter school earned state recognition money for an improved school grade, but district officials are having trouble finding them, reports the Miami Herald.
Magnet schools. The Polk school district is considering creating a K-12 arts system with an elementary and middle school in Lake Wales, where all the other schools are community-run charters. Lakeland Ledger.
Class size. Broward's progress in reducing class sizes to meet state law is resulting in some negative tradeoffs, like ballooning AP classes. Miami Herald. More from the South Florida Sun Sentinel. (more…)
Charter schools. The Senate Education Committee moves closer to agreement on additional charter schools accountability measures, but a divide lingers over facilities funding, reports The Buzz, which includes this quote from Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee: "The time for finger pointing between charter schools and regular public schools is over. We have to have the maturity to sit down and go over the data and discuss it." A legal timeline is set to determine the fate of an Imagine charter school in Sarasota County that seeks to sever its relationship with the parent company, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
State colleges. They have a $26.6 billion annual economic impact, according to a new study. Coverage from Gradebook, StateImpact Florida, TCPalm.com, Lakeland Ledger, The Florida Current.
Parents. Angry parents keep the pressure on the Broward school district over the firing of a popular principal. South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Principals. A pending reshuffling in Broward is getting tense. Miami Herald.
School boards. Former Osceola County School Board Chair Cindy Hartig applied for unemployment benefits after her loss at the polls last August. Orlando Sentinel. (more…)
