Closing for storm: Schools in 28 of Florida's 67 counties are shuttered today as Hurricane Michael moves closer to making landfall somewhere in the Panhandle. State officials say it could be the worst storm to ever hit that area of the state. Associated Press. Florida Department of Education. Panama City News Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Tallahassee Democrat. Education Week. Gainesville Sun. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. WFSU. Tampa Bay Times. Miami Herald. Orlando Sentinel. Daytona Beach News-Journal. WLRN. WTSP.
High ranking for Florida schools: Florida is ranked third among the states in K-12 educational quality and No. 1 in educational efficiency, according to rankings by Reason magazine. The rankings are based on National Assessment of Educational Progress reading, math and science test scores. Reason's rankings closely mirror those by Education Week, which recently ranked Florida fourth among U.S. states for K-12 achievement. “Overall, our results demonstrate that existing state education rankings aren’t to be trusted. When those scores are corrected, the conventional narrative is turned on its head,” say study authors Stan Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly. redefinED.
Taylor Richardson appears before the Duval County School Board in October.
Wearing a flight suit from her summer trip to Space Camp, fifth-grader Taylor Richardson stood in front of the Duval County School Board and told them how glad she was to be at Chet's Creek Elementary.
"Chet's has changed my life for the better, and I am proud to be a product of the public education system," she said.
She almost had to leave the school she loved after third grade, when her family moved across town. But her mother, Toni Richardson, pleaded with district administrators for a special assignment. For the past two years, she has driven her daughter nearly 23 miles each way, allowing her to finish fourth and fifth grade at the school where teachers helped her grow from a struggling reader to an advocate for literacy and a success story in science.
Taylor is among the hundreds of thousands of Florida students attending traditional public schools outside their assigned zone. Close to one in ten public school students participate in district open enrollment programs, which are among the state's most widely used forms of school choice.
That option is not available everywhere, which means for many families, public school choice looks a lot like it does for the Richardsons — special assignments agreed to by administrators, and long drives across town.
Bills now under consideration in the state Legislature are aimed at opening up more options, by giving all students the right to transfer to any public school that has room, and giving them more freedom to cross district lines. The proposals bring two issues into focus: The increasing competition and differentiation among public schools, and the importance of ensuring families can overcome barriers to school choice. (more…)
Critiquing the Florida Formula. Matt Di Carlo at the Shanker Blog is a critic to be taken seriously. In his latest post, he looks at the research that has evaluated different components in Florida’s reform effort, including the competitive pressures from vouchers, tax credit scholarships and charter schools. “As usual,” he writes, “it is a far more nuanced picture than supporters (and critics) would have you believe.”
Oropeza
Legislative wish list. What do education groups want from the coming legislative session? Florida Voices asks Ruth Melton at the Florida School Boards Association; Patricia Levesque at the Foundation for Florida’s Future; Mindy Gould at the Florida PTA; and Kathleen Oropeza at Fund Education Now. Lawmakers, Oropeza writes, are out to “starve public education” and have been “intentionally bringing districts to the brink of catastrophe.”
StudentsFirst report card. Coverage from Florida Today, Orlando Sentinel, StateImpact Florida, Education Week, Fort Myers News Press. Sherman Dorn’s take here.
Online testing problems. They’re still affecting the DOE’s FAIR system. Gradebook.
Jeb Bush headed to Arkansas. He’s scheduled to visit for National School Choice Week, reports Arkansasmatters.com.
More Newtown reaction. Tampa Bay Times. Palm Beach Post. Lakeland Ledger. In Lake County, a school board member wants teachers and principals to carry district-purchased guns, reports the Orlando Sentinel. In Manatee, the interim superintendent wants local law enforcement to inspect every inch of every public school campus, reports the Bradenton Herald.
Delinquency. In public schools, a Florida Department of Juvenile Justice report finds it's down by nearly half over the last eight years, reports News Service of Florida. (more…)
