Bullying scholarship verification: The Florida Department of Education is advising school districts not to verify students' bullying claims before deciding whether to award them Hope Scholarships to attend different public schools or private schools. Doing so would violate state law, the DOE told superintendents in a memo that also warned that "any district that is adding this requirement is in violation of statute and administrative rule and will be dealt with according to law.” The Pasco County School District, which had announced it was considering verifying incidents before offering the scholarship, has abandoned that idea. Gradebook.
Teachers protest: Teachers around the state rallied Monday for more financial support for schools from the Legislature. The “fund our future” events were organized by the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. The union wants a boost in per-student spending of $743, or about 10 percent, to better fund schools and would allow higher pay to combat the shortage of teachers statewide. The 60-day legislative session begins today, and Gov. Ron DeSantis will deliver his State of the State message at 11 a.m. Orlando Sentinel. Keynoter. Florida Phoenix. Florida Politics. WKMG. WINK. Daytona Beach News-Journal. (more…)
Threat assessments: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teachers say they noted alleged school shooter Nikolas Cruz's aggressive behavior more than a year before 17 people were shot to death at the school a year ago. And Cruz himself told school officials that shooting guns helped relieve his stress. But none of those observations were forwarded to police or to mental health workers who were evaluating him for possible hospitalization. Sun Sentinel.
School choice poll: A survey shows that Florida parents support the state's steps toward expanding school choice. Seventy-eight percent of those responding to a poll by the pro-choice Foundation for Excellence in Education say they favor “giving parents the opportunity to choose where they send their child to school rather than assigning children to schools based on zip code.” The poll also shows strong support for education savings accounts for parents to use at a school of their choice, voluntary prekindergarten vouchers, and tax credit scholarships for low-income children and Gardiner scholarships for children with disabilities. Gradebook. Florida Politics. (more…)
Education agenda: Gov. Ron DeSantis and legislative leaders outline an ambitious agenda for reshaping education in the legislative session that begins March 5. DeSantis says his budget, due next week to the Legislature, will include changes in the Best and Brightest program for teacher bonuses and will allow willing teachers to carry guns in classrooms. Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, suggests the Legislature will also consider cutting the number of mandatory standardized tests and adding funding for teacher pay raises as a way to address the shortage of teachers. Orlando Sentinel. Tallahassee Democrat. WUFT.
Workforce training: Gov. DeSantis also said Wednesday that he intends to improve Florida schools' U.S. ranking in career and technical training programs from 24th to 1st by 2030. His first step was to order Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to audit the state's current programs and make recommendations that will bring them "in line with market demand." DeSantis says his budget request to the Legislature will include $10 million for workforce apprenticeships and $26 million on vocational programs in state colleges. Gradebook. WTVT. Politico Florida. News Service of Florida. WFLA. (more…)
Education funding: The Florida House PreK-12 Appropriations is preparing to take a closer look at how state money is divided among school districts, including hiring a consulting group to make recommendations on adjusting the school-funding formula. That formula, known as the Florida Education Finance Program, uses several factors to decide how the $21 billion-plus is distributed among districts. The focus may begin with the price-level index, which tries to factor in the cost of living differences of districts. Some districts have complained that the current formula shifts money from poorer districts to wealthier, urban ones. News Service of Florida.
Bright Futures boost: The Legislature's Joint Legislative Budget Commission added $25.3 million to the Bright Futures scholarship program on Thursday. Last spring, lawmakers budgeted $520 million for the program, which offers full and partial college scholarships for high-achieving students. But a study in November indicated an increase in students eligible would push the amount needed to about $545 million, prompting the increase approved for the fund. News Service of Florida. (more…)
Education bills: Proposed bills on education issues are starting to stack up for the Legislature, with more than 40 already filed for the legislative session that begins its 60-day session March 5. Among the latest filed are bills that would allow districts to adopt their own academic standards as long as they're more "rigorous" than what the state requires, restrict elections for tax measures to general elections, require the state to provide textbooks for students who are home-schooled or attend private schools and take dual-enrollment courses, and end the reassignment of teachers based solely on their state value-added measure evaluation scores. Gradebook. Florida Politics. Another bill would allow fulltime students in high schools, colleges and other schools under the age of 21 to be excused from jury duty. News Service of Florida.
Court and education: Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, says Gov. Ron DeSantis' conservative makeover of the Supreme Court could embolden the Legislature to make sweeping education reforms that have been rejected by previous courts. “You’ll probably see some more bold steps in education and revisiting some of the ideas that Gov. Bush brought to the table back in the day,” he told a Sarasota business audience Tuesday. He mentioned voucher programs such as education savings accounts as one idea that could be considered. ESAs provide each student a set amount of money that can be used to attend any school. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
School shooting report: The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission approves a 458-page final report that calls on the state to arm willing teachers, provide more money to add school resource officers and harden school buildings and campuses, and streamline communications between schools and law enforcement agencies, among the dozens of recommendations. The report now goes to Gov. Rick Scott, Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis and Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. Sun Sentinel. Miami Herald. Associated Press. News Service of Florida. Gradebook. WJCT. WTVJ. WTLV. Capitolist. Florida Politics. DeSantis says he'll decide soon whether to suspend Broward Sheriff Scott Israel for the agency's failures during the shooting at the Parkland school Feb. 14. Sun Sentinel.
Education and Legislature: State Rep. Chris Latvala, R-Clearwater, the chair of the PreK-12 Appropriations committee and vice chair of the education committee, says the Legislature is likely to tweak the significant education bills passed in 2017 and 2018, but probably won't have any single bill that "will dramatically change the education system, as we've done the past few years." Gradebook. (more…)
U.S. school safety report: The federal safety commission looking into school shootings is recommending an end to Obama administration guidance for schools that was intended to curb discipline disparities for students of color and those with disabilities. The panel, led by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, also urges schools “to seriously consider the option of partnering with local law enforcement in the training and arming of school personnel,” but stopped short of saying it should be a mandate. The 177-page report says school buildings should be hardened and journalists should be "be more responsible in their coverage of school shootings." The report promptly drew criticism. Associated Press. New York Times. Washington Post. Washington Times. NBC News. Politico. Politico Florida. Education Week. Chalkbeat. The 74. Sun Sentinel. The state commission's report takes a stronger stance on arming school employees than the federal panel's does. Politico Florida. Does the future of teacher training include treating gunshot wounds? It could, as soon as next year. WLRN.
A whopping bill: An engineering report concludes that the Duval County School District needs $1.08 billion to repair or replace its 159 schools if it chooses to keep them all open. The report by Jacob Engineers says Duval has some of the oldest school buildings in the state, and 56 need to be replaced. School officials are considering ways to raise money for repairs, saying they need about $80 million a year but receive just $22 million from the state. Florida Times-Union. (more…)
More choice, accountability: At its first meeting, Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis' education transition team urges more school choice for Florida students, more information about those choices for parents, expanded personalized learning options and increased accountability for schools. "We're moving from school choice to informed, high quality school choice," says Kim McDougal, former chief of staff and education adviser to Gov. Rick Scott. "The closer we can get to individualizing education for each child, the more success we will see," says Marva Johnson, chair of the Florida Board of Education and co-chair of the transition committee. The group meets again Dec. 19 and 28. Gradebook.
Teacher performance pay: A bill is introduced in the Legislature that would end state restrictions on the way public school teachers get paid. Rep. Rene Plasencia, R-Orlando, wants districts to be able to decide if they want to use the performance pay plans, instead of forcing them to, and to end a prohibition on using advanced degrees as a criteria when making salary schedules. "The way you pay teachers should be done at the local level," says Plasencia, who calls the current model "flawed" and "rigid." Gradebook. (more…)
Expanded-day benefits: Students at the state's 300 lowest-performing elementary schools benefit from the extra hour of daily reading instruction the state requires, according to new research from the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. The extra time requirement began in 2012 at the 100 lowest-performing schools, and two years later was expanded to 300 schools. Researchers who looked at the 2012 data say that in one school year, students’ test scores jumped by the equivalent of one to three months of extra learning. That cut the gap in reading test scores between the best schools and average ones by about a third. Chalkbeat.
Teacher shortage: Florida's shortage of teachers is real and it's getting worse, the Florida Board of Education was told this week. Cathy Boehme of the Florida Education Association told the board that two years ago, the number of advertised teaching positions posted on district websites was about 2,400. Last year it was 3,000, and this year it's 4,063. "That's the acceleration in the teacher shortage you need to be looking at," Boehme said. "This is a critical problem we must address." Gradebook. (more…)
