In this lengthy exit interview with the Indianapolis Star, new Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett adds to a simmering debate, sparked last month by Gov. Rick Scott, about whether students using vouchers and tax credit scholarships to attend private schools in Florida should be required to take the same standardized tests as their public school counterparts.

By law, tax credit scholarship students in Florida are required to take a nationally norm-referenced test approved by the state Department of Education. But Bennett suggests that's not enough:

"I do believe we should assess all students who get state money. I believe that in my heart. I keep having people asking me why I believe that in Florida. For voucher schools, I’ve been asked why can’t we accept just a nationally-normed test? But if IPS said let me choose a test and let me choose a performance level to determine if its schools were any good or not, would I accept that? No. So why should I buy that from them? What makes them more creditable than IPS?"

Bennett was also asked if there's anything about expanding school choice that he fears could "in any way threaten what's good about the traditional public school system." His response:

"No. I think it will enhance it. It never worries me because I believe good schools will flourish regardless, whether they are public, private or charter. I believe it will force schools to get better. I just believe that. It’s never kept me up at night. I just believe in the force that the market creates. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen (Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent) Dr. (Eugene) White make some pretty innovative changes. I maintain he wouldn’t have done those things."

Tony Bennett. The Orlando Sentinel hopes the new commissioner, who begins work today, “treads with discretion.” The Associated Press recalls his tenure in Indiana and ties to Jeb Bush.

Expand school choice now! Sort of. The Tampa Bay Times means options under district control: “The broader answer to improving public education in Pinellas is not a massive expansion of fundamental schools. It's raising the quality of all schools. But increasing the seats for fundamental schools and popular magnet programs to more closely match demand is a discussion district leaders should begin. Otherwise, they risk losing more families to charter schools and private schools — and further undermining broad support for public education.”

Slow down on charter schools. The Palm Beach Post says in one editorial that the Legislature should prioritize traditional public schools over charters. It says in another that the Palm Beach County district’s decision to transfer a troubled principal into administration will give lawmakers an excuse to continue favoring charters.

Checking out choice. In Alachua County, 600 middle school students turn out to see career academy options, reports the Gainesville Sun. In Duval, magnet students spread the word about their programs to prospective students, reports the Florida Times Union. In Miami-Dade, tens of thousands of parents are expected to apply for hundreds of magnet programs, reports the Miami-Herald. In Manatee, the Rock Your Robot Fair lets parents know about STEM options in public and private schools, reports the Bradenton Herald. (In Collier County, businesses urge students to explore STEM, reports the Naples Daily News.) The Tampa Bay Times annual school search section for Pinellas includes information about public and private options, including tax credit scholarships.

Amendment 8. The ACLU saw the proposed amendment, which despite perception had little to do with private school vouchers, as part of a "wide-ranging assault" on Floridians' rights last year by Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature, reports the Florida Current.

“Sagging schools.” Tampa Bay Times business columnist Robert Trigaux: “Beneath the top tier of students, our schools at all levels are struggling to educate our kids. Businesses need to help more. And the state needs to spend less time bragging about the educational system and admit it needs assistance.” (more…)

Florida Catholic schools are embracing Common Core academic standards and seriously considering whether to take the coming state tests aligned to them. In the meantime, their leaders say, 30 to 40 Catholic schools want to administer the FCAT in 2014, in what would be a trial run for potential transition to Common Core testing.

“Our mission is the same, public or Catholic school, to create productive citizens in our world that actually have the skills in life they need,” Alberto Vazquez-Matos, schools superintendent for the Diocese of St. Petersburg, told redefinED. “We’ll all be raising the standards and talking the same academic language.”

The push by Catholic schools towards common standards - and perhaps common tests - is an interesting counterpoint to the debate that followed last week’s comments by Gov. Rick Scott. Scott re-opened the door to a long-running conversation about voucher and tax-credit scholarship programs by saying he wants to see students in those programs take the same tests as their public school peers.

Right now, the state does not require tax credit scholarship students to take the FCAT, but they are mandated to take another comparable, state-approved test such as the Stanford Achievement Test or Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Disabled students who use McKay vouchers to attend private schools are not required by the state to take any such tests.

This year, Catholic schools in Florida enroll 7,673 tax credit scholarship students. (The scholarship program is administered by Step Up for Students, which co-hosts this blog.)

Scott’s comments sparked suggestions from some school choice critics that private schools were dodging comparisons to public schools. But Florida’s Catholic schools have been quietly moving towards Common Core for more than year. In fact, all 237 Catholic schools in Florida will be rolling out a “blended’’ version of the language arts standards, right along with public schools, in 2014. (more…)

Not the best fit. Andy Ford, president of the Florida teachers union, says in this Q&A with the Orlando Sentinel that Tony Bennett is “the best fit for the Jeb Bush power structure, but not the best choice for Florida's students, parents and school employees.” Board of Education member Kathleen Shanahan cites the PIRLS results in responding to a critical editorial about Bennett in the Tampa Bay Times.

Conflicts of interest? Three Board of Education members contributed to Tony Bennett’s campaign in Indiana. Gradebook.

Rick Scott is right to require students with vouchers and tax credit scholarships to take the same standardized tests as their public school peers, writes Adam Emerson at Choice Words.

In the wake of Newtown. Security beefed up at Florida schools: Tampa Bay Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Lakeland Ledger. Beneath the surface, emotional scars, reports the Miami Herald. State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, and the author of the "stand your ground" law, says schools would be safer if teachers and principals could bring guns, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune. More from Orlando Sentinel, Fort Myers News Press, Naples Daily News, Florida Today.

Remediation series. StateImpact Florida.

It's not news that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is a strong supporter of parental school choice. But some of his comments Wednesday night in Tampa are still noteworthy. Scott was the keynote speaker at the annual donor appreciation dinner for the state’s tax credit scholarship program, which now serves more than 50,000 low-income students.

In the excerpts below, Scott refers to John Kirtley, who founded Step Up For Students and now serves as its chairman. Step Up administers the scholarship program and co-hosts this blog. Scott also refers to results released this week from a test called PIRLS – the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which is given to a representative sampling of fourth graders from around the world. In reading, Florida students finished second only to their peers in Hong Kong. Here's a sampling of what you'll hear from Scott in the video:

Over 50 percent of the families in our state make less than $50,000 a year. Every one of them has the same goal we have: They want to be able to choose where their child gets an education …

I tell people all the time: you can get anything passed in Florida you want, if you can explain how it impacts a family making $40,000 a year. This impacts families making $40,000 a year. Families like mine that lived in public housing. Families like mine that the father never had a job at Christmas. Families like mine that didn’t have the money to pay for junior college, college …

If every child has a choice, then the thing I ran on – getting the state back to work – will actually happen. There is no reason for this state not to be No. 1 in job creation. But the only way that’s going to happen is through a great education system. And a key component of that is choice, which makes everybody better and gives different students – like my daughters are both different – different opportunities. …

What John started, what you’re continuing, is forcing the rest of the country to change. Because they see how well Florida is doing. I don’t know if you saw the numbers yesterday, but everybody can be proud of our students. In the international test, we’re right at the top. We weren’t at the bottom. We were at the top.

Basking in the glow. Interim education commissioner Pam Stewart touts the PIRLS results on CNN. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan offers praise, notes Orlando Sentinel. More from Fort Myers News Press.

More Tony Bennett. Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano sees the same old agenda. The Tampa Bay Times editorial board says the BOE pick shows it “values conservative ideology over proven performance.” More from Tampa Bay Times, Florida Times-Union, Palm Beach Post, News Service of Florida, Sunshine State News,

More on testing and voucher kids. According to this Tampa Bay Times story, Gov. Rick Scott will propose that tax-credit scholarship students take the Common Core tests when they replace the FCAT.

DOE errors. Board of Education members criticize mistakes in teacher evaluation data. Gradebook. School Zone. Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo isn’t a fan.

On top of the world. Gov. Rick Scott calls the PIRLS results (an international assessment that shows Florida fourth-graders are second only to their peers in Hong Kong in reading) “great news for Florida as our state becomes a hub for global commerce.” Jeb Bush says Florida students are “again busting all the myths.” No more Flori-duh, writes EdFly Blog: “Florida has gone from one of the worst reading states in the nation to one of the top reading nations in the world. And just last month I read a story about Jeb Bush’s education reforms in Reuters, which concluded: 'But a close examination raises questions about the depth and durability of the (education) gains in Florida.' Think we’ll see a follow-up?” More from Florida Today, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Eduwonk, Jay P. Greene’s Blog. (Image from questprblog.com)

FCAT for voucher kids? Gov. Scott seems to suggest that in comments to reporters Tuesday. Here’s the clip (starts at about the 13-minute mark). Coverage from Gradebook, WTSP, Orlando Sentinel, Associated Press, News Service of Florida. The governor will be speaking in Tampa tonight, at the annual donor dinner for Florida’s tax credit scholarship program (which is sponsored by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog).

Race to the Top. Miami-Dade wins this round, reports the Miami Herald.

Conversion. The Broward County school board considers creating a countywide K-12 digital arts magnet in an effort to help a low-performing middle school meet accountability standards, reports the Sun-Sentinel.

Protection. From the Orlando Sentinel: "After listening to nearly six hours of testimony on both sides of the issue, the Orange County School Board added protections for gay, lesbian and transgender students and staff to the district's nondiscrimination policy early Wednesday."

Wait a minute. The Polk County school board and new superintendent John Stewart may delay the opening of six district-run charter schools for at-risk students, reports the Ledger.

School-to-prison pipeline. On the NAACP's agenda in Duval. Florida Times Union.

Our preoccupation these days with a Florida amendment removing the state’s no-aid-to-religion clause may strike some redefinED readers as a touch obsessive, and we won’t argue the point. But the truth is that we agonize over whether to write at all, and we want to explain why.

At the end of the day, we are confident that Amendment 8, whether it passes or fails, will have no legal effect on school vouchers. And yet opponents so far have invested $1 million in a campaign that argues otherwise. They not only contend the amendment will open the door to new vouchers, but that those programs will be, to borrow the words of one elected Alachua County school board member, “the very death of public schools.”

So the quandary is obvious. We’re a blog built around the new definition of public education, run by an organization that administers private options to low-income students, and we think we can bring clarity to the issue. But how do we complain about a debate that we say is falsely about vouchers without being viewed as though we doth protest too much? How do we enter the volatile, polarizing world of political campaigns and not be viewed as an angry combatant?

This is shaping up as a most peculiar campaign. The pro- and anti-amendment forces are on two entirely different planets, one fighting against the scourge of vouchers and the other extolling the virtues of faith-based community services. And yet the legal landscape is unmistakable: The state Supreme Court overturned Opportunity Scholarship vouchers in 2006 through a public education uniformity clause that would be untouched by this amendment. In other words, the principle barrier to any new vouchers is not on the ballot. That’s one of the reasons, and this is important to note again, that no groups supporting parental choice are spending a penny on this campaign. They see it as legally irrelevant.

We admit taking offense at some of the liberties that have been taken so far with the legal truth. And we’re left only to speculate on why the opponents would spend so much on an amendment that means so little in the education world. (more…)

Florida has long given folks nationwide good reason to pay attention to school choice happenings at the state level. Now comes a compelling story at the local level.

Glen Gilzean, 31, is seeking a school board seat to help lead the 101,000-student Pinellas County school district.  He's a former staffer with the state education department; an education entrepreneur whose business helps low income kids; an energetic guy with a solid grasp of education issues. He also happens to openly support school choice options like vouchers and tax credit scholarships.

That support prompted headlines after Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed Gilzean to the District 7 seat in January. And it was mentioned again when Gilzean announced last week that he’s running to hold on to the seat. It should be kept in perspective.

District 7 has more black students than any other school board district in Pinellas. And as I’ve written before (and will continue to do so), black students in Pinellas score lower in reading and math than black students in any major school system in Florida. The trend lines are upsetting and baffling and don’t get the attention they deserve. They have also spurred growing numbers of parents in Pinellas to embrace expanded school choice options.

Gilzean’s support for choice may put him more in synch with the community pulse than candidates who reject such options. But he’s not a Johnny-one-note. Like many choice supporters, he sees choice as another tool to help kids, not as a silver bullet and not as an excuse to let traditional public schools flounder.

The election is Aug. 14. It will be fascinating to see if school choice becomes an issue in coming months – and, if so, how it’s portrayed and how voters respond. We know choice in Florida has strong support at the state level. The unique election in Pinellas may give us clues about how it's viewed on the ground.