District app: The Broward County school district redesigns its website to make it more parent-friendly, adding a mobile app and translating into more than 40 languages. Sun Sentinel.

Libraries: Five Miami-Dade County technical school libraries will open to the public starting the first day of school to offset expected budget cuts. Miami Herald.

Back pay: An arbitrator tells the Broward school district it owes high school teachers hours of back pay for teaching an additional class period last school year. Sun Sentinel.

Higher ed: Florida’s next higher education Chancellor will inherit a job that requires a soft touch, keen political savvy and the dexterity to manage many bosses. Miami Herald.

Tony Bennett: His last-minute changes to Indiana's school grading formula benefitted 165 Indiana schools. StateImpact Florida.

School support: Hernando County parents support Eastside Elementary as it works to improve its F grade from the state this year. Tampa Bay Times.

Teachers: StateImpact Florida looks at why teachers leave the classroom.

Business help: Polk County schools Superintendent Kathryn LeRoy pushes businesses to get involved with improving district schools. The Ledger.

School board: Former Duval County School Board member Betty Burney is cleared from any wrongdoing in a vote benefitting a company that once employed her sister. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

Lawsuit: The Palm Beach County School Board faces a lawsuit from two students and their rabbi/attorney/father that charges the district fails to teach evolution and truths about religions. Sun Sentinel.

Protest: Parents protest the Lake County school district's planned busing cuts that will force some elementary and middle-school students to walk to school when classes start Monday. Orlando Sentinel.

AFT: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten blasts former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Education Commissioner Tony Bennett during a speech where she called the state “ground zero for every single market-based experiment that has been done to our children.” Miami Herald.

Accountability: StateImpact Florida looks at what the switch to Common Core State Standards would mean for Florida's school grading system.

2016: A-F grades, Florida's school grade results and Common Core - that's how StateImpact Florida ranks talking points for Jeb Bush's possible 2016 presidential run.

Working: Polk County's Summer Youth Employment Program gives almost 400 teens and young adults work experience with businesses and public organizations before heading back to school or into a new career. The Ledger.

Homeless: Children from the Sulzbacher Center for the homeless in Jacksonville get a school bus ride to Old Navy and a gift certificate to buy new school clothes. Florida Times-Union. Pinellas County school officials look to a Hillsborough County program that helps homeless students. Tampa Bay Times. 

Teachers: Nearly 5,000 educators head back to school this week in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Pensacola News-Journal.

Charters: Steele-Collins All Male Charter Academy starts the school year with a new focus, a new curriculum and new students. Tallahassee Democrat. A state report shows more Florida charter schools had operating deficits at the end of fiscal 2012, compared to the previous year. Tampa Bay Times.

Fix it: The Hillsborough County School Board and administrators need to re-examine the district's staffing levels and training to ensure its special needs students are adequately served, writes the Tampa Bay Times editorial board.

Tutoring: A Tampa Bay Times investigation finds that one in four public educators made money from a taxpayer-funded program by tutoring children from their own schools.

Education crisis: Nothing less than a community-wide commitment and expectation of excellence can turn the tide for children in St.Petersburg, writes the Tampa Bay Times editorial board.

Single-gendered: Hillsborough County's two single-gendered middle schools find success, see state grades rise. The Tampa Tribune.

Tony Bennett: Before resigning as Florida's Education Commissioner, Bennett emails former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, and describes his last few days on the job as a "living hell.'' The Buzz.

GEDs: South Florida is seeing a spike in applicants rushing to earn their GEDs before tougher new standards kick in. Sun Sentinel.

Overcrowding: West Boynton Beach is growing - too much and too fast for some parents in the Palm Beach County school district. Palm Beach Post.

Back to school: Palm Beach County hands out backpacks and other school supplies at six free community events. Palm Beach Post. Seminole County's nearly 64,000 public school students head back to classes this morning. Orlando Sentinel. Churches and community agencies help outfit students with new supplies. Florida Today. Lincoln Park Elementary, the turnaround school in Escambia County, starts the new year with new teachers. Pensacola News-Journal.

Special needs: A teacher's emails to Hillsborough County district administrators reveal problems months before a special needs student dies. Tampa Bay Times.

Jeb Bush: Bush backs Common Core State Standards while speaking at the ALEC conference in Chicago. Associated Press.Educational scandals cast a cloud over the former Florida governor's presidential prospects, writes the Miami Herald.

School grades: A Miami Herald analysis of A-F grades shows the wealthiest schools never get Fs, and schools with high populations of poor students face an uphill battle to get even a C. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho lauds student achievement while criticizing the state’s A-to-F school grading system as “dysfunctional.” Miami Herald. Clay County kindergarteners through second-graders no longer get A-F grades. Florida Times-Union.

Student conduct: St. Lucie County public schools have more than 100 arrests a year, reports the TCPalm.

New super: The St. Lucie County School Board continues its search for the district's next superintendent. TCPalm.

Principal conduct: Four years after Journeys Academy shut down in Lee County due to its principal embezzling more than $360,000, the school’s owner is waging a legal battle for reimbursement from two banks. Naples Daily News.

Common Core: Pasco County schools move ahead with preparing for the new education standards. The Tampa Tribune.

Frank Brogan: The outgoing Florida university system chancellor talks about Common Core, state grades and Tony Bennett. TCPalm.

Common Core: Polk County's new teachers get a primer on the new education standards during their district orientation. The Ledger.

Florida Virtual School: About 6,000 Polk County students took classes last school year through Florida Virtual School. Recent drops in enrollment statewide have resulted in teacher and staff layoffs. The Ledger. More from the Associated Press.

Early dismissal: Polk County's early dismissal days will be 1½ hours shorter this school year than last. The Ledger.

Safety: St. Johns County schools wants to limit each school to one entrance. St. Augustine Record.

First day: Summer is over for 86,000 Lee County students who are back in school. News-Press. More from Naples Daily News.

School supplies: Lipman and Pacific Tomato Growers hand out 1,400 back packs to needy Immokalee families. Naples Daily News.

More Bennett: Two more Tony Bennett hires, Anna Shultz and Katie Stephens, leave their Florida Department of Education posts. Tampa Bay Times. American Federation of Teachers and its Indiana affiliate request public records from the Indiana Department of Education, seeking all communications between Tony Bennett, Foundation for Excellence in Education, ALEC and others since 2009. School Zone. (more…)

Report cards: Palm Beach County second-graders won't see traditional A-F grades on report cards this year as the district moves toward a standard-based system. Sun Sentinel.

Charter schools: There are already 40 charter schools in Palm Beach County, serving 12,000 students, with another 11 set to open this fall. Palm Beach Post.

More magnets: Palm Beach County school board members want more arts high school and middle school magnet programs. Palm Beach Post.

Tony Bennett: Indiana school officials continue to investigate school grading manipulation that could result in changes to that state's system created by Tony Bennett. Associated Press.

Back to school: One of Central Florida's largest back-to-school events, which has drawn 30,000 people, will be held this year at the Citrus Bowl. Orlando Sentinel. 

FCAT: "Don't, don't, don't focus on the FCAT," Pasco County schools Superintendent Kurt Browning tells the staff at Lacoochee Elementary, a D school tapped by the state for a turnaround. "I don't care about FCAT. I don't." Tampa Bay Times.

Teacher conduct: A special-education specialist fired for her role in a high-profile scandal is reinstated by the Miami-Dade School Board. Miami Herald. Another Manatee County school administrator is placed on paid leave during an ongoing investigation into a former football coach accused of groping students. The Tampa Tribune. More from the Bradenton Herald.

Library cuts: The Miami-Dade School Board may open some of the district’s libraries after hours to offset the closure of some 14 facilities. Miami Herald. (more…)

Common Core: Protesters gather at a Broward County School Board meeting to show they don't support the new Common Core education standards. Miami Herald. State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, organizes a panel to talk about education reform and Common Core. Florida Times-Union. Step Up For Students' vice president of student learning talks about why private schools are signing on for the measures. Education Week.

Bennett and school grades: Former Florida Sen. Paula Dockery shares her thoughts about Tony Bennett and school grades, asking "Isn't it time for an honest conversation on doing away with a school-grading system that is costly, divisive and unreliable?'' The Ledger.

Conduct: A Rodgers Middle School assistant principal fights for his job after the Hillsborough County school district fired him following the death of a special-needs student at his school. Tampa Bay Times. More from The Tampa Tribune.

Debit cards: Leon County joins other school districts that won't be offering teacher debit cards issued by Gov. Scott. Tallahassee Democrat.

Extended day: Broward County joins the list of districts where low-performing schools will offer students an additional hour of class time. Sun Sentinel. Palm Beach County will spend $7 million to add an hour to the school day at four low-performing schools. Palm Beach Post.

School funding: The half-cent sales tax is the only funding source the district has for capital projects, writes Shannon Nickinson for the Pensacola News Journal.

Charter schools: Pasco County gets its first virtual charter school, Florida Virtual Academy of Pasco. Tampa Bay Times. (more…)

In today's chat, we talked with Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students in Florida.

Readers asked him about everything from Common Core and private schools, to whether the value of tax credit scholarships should be increased, to the right balance between school choice and government regs when it comes to accountability.

Step Up is the largest private school choice program in the country. It’s expected to serve 60,000 students this fall. And as recent news stories have pointed out, it continues to experience strong growth. (Step Up also co-hosts this blog with the American Center for School Choice. As we noted in the advance post, we strive not to be self-promotional but in this case thought it was appropriate to feature Doug.)

Before joining Step Up in 2008, Doug had been a college professor, a classroom teacher, the president of two teachers unions and a driving force behind the creation of Florida's first International Baccalaureate high school.

You can replay the chat here:

Jeb Bush on Tony Bennett: "Tony will be sorely missed in Florida at a time when we need his leadership the most,'' writes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Miami Herald.

School grades: The fall of Tony Bennett might bring a new level of scrutiny to grading systems across the country. Education Week. There must be total transparency in any school accountability process, writes Nina Rees, executive director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, in U.S. News & World Report.

More fallout: Dale Chu, chief of staff to Tony Bennett, resigns. Associated Press.

PARCC: Top Florida lawmakers will continue their push to abandon the PARCC testing consortium. Tampa Bay Times.

Teen work: Lauderdale Middle School students have received more than $500,000 in grants to spruce up an overpass behind their school. Sun Sentinel.

Charter schools: Even as 11 new charters open this fall in Palm Beach County, the district has another 31 applications in the pipeline. Palm Beach Post.

Magnet schools: The Pinellas County school district looks to bolster career and technical education and help low-performing schools by offering new magnet programs at middle schools. The Tampa Tribune. (more…)

Interim chief: Florida's chancellor of public  schools, Pam  Stewart, will step in again as interim education commissioner after Tony Bennett's resignation. The Buzz. Is all this hoopla a sign the top education post should be an elected position? The Buzz. And the Sun Sentinel editorialized, "Rather than a divisive leader, let's find a crusader who can rally disparate people around a common shared value: creating a prosperous future for Florida's children.'' More from John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times.

Hot mess: The Orlando Sentinel's Scott Maxwell writes that even before Tony Bennett resigned, we knew things were messed up with Florida education. Bennett's controversy casts a pall on school grading systems. Times/Herald. More from TCPalm and Tallahassee Democrat. "If the goal of school grades is to clearly communicate quality, then Florida has consistently earned an F,'' writes Mark Woods of the Florida Times-Union.

Civil  rights: The Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and the Southern Poverty Law Center file a complaint alleging the state's race-based education goals for minority students violate civil rights law. Sun Sentinel.

Outreach: Broward County's South Plantation High School students start a website for socially isolated middle school students. Sun Sentinel. Miami's Edison High offers dual-language program in English and Creole. Miami Herald. A preschool for students with autism expands into an academy for 5- and 6-year-olds with the disorder. Miami Herald.

Charter schools: An F grade for Orange County's Renaissance Charter School at Chickasaw Trail could result in its parent chain, Charter Schools USA, losing its "high-performing'' status. Orlando Sentinel. Academica is taking over the small Somerset Bay at Pinewood Acres charter in East Kendall, but hasn't told residents how many students to expect. Miami Herald. Polk  County school district receives five new charter applications. The Ledger.

Career academies: The Miami-Dade school district hopes to start a Transportation Academy at three of its schools to meet projected growth of new jobs. Miami Herald. (more…)