LWVeducation
If you want to take the pulse of charter school legislative priorities, watch this video. It is yesterday’s Florida Senate Education Committee workshop on charters. They have a long list of proposed bills to consider, and they are looking for ways to combine bills in order to move forward.
The two most comprehensive bills were from Senator Montford and Senator Legg. Continue reading
You may not have watched the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing this week. It was about charter school management reform. Or was it? The speakers were from the charter sector and from school districts.
It was not until the last minute of a two hour session that you found out what really was at stake. A major battle is forming.
by Janet Allen
The LWVAlachua education committee made visits to numerous child care centers in Alachua County that ranged from family centers to large commercial centers like O2B Kids and Baby Gator. We had the opportunity to talk to teachers and administrators as well as children. When we asked about current needs they were remarkably the same.
Our Florida legislature has a major bill (SPB 7006) to improve childcare standards, and the Governor’s budget includes funds to expand the Voluntary PreK program for four year olds. There are, however, many different types of childcare programs, and we are learning how their programs differ and what their challenges are to provide quality childcare.
An important vote on H.R. 5 is scheduled Friday. While the League of Women Voters supports national curriculum guidelines and assessment of skills that compares the student achievement across similar districts, it also supports local implementation of the curricula and skills. The operative definition of the League’s position is that all children should have access to an equitable, quality education. To what extent does this bill have the desired result?
The bill severely cuts the role of the U.S. Department of Education. It also freezes funding until 2021. Finally, it increases support for charter schools and allows Title I funding for low income schools to be moved to other schools. The bill has generated controversy. Specific requirements follow.
If you wish to contact your legislators, a contact list is below.
Imagine, a billion 
dollars for little children. This is the amount proposed in Governor Scott’s new budget. If passed by the legislature, school readiness programs will get larger and better.
The Senate Education Committee has passed out a bill on how to improve how day care centers are run.
Read on to see what is possible.
Over and over we hear that testing narrows the curriculum, provokes anxiety rather than enthusiasm for learning, drives teachers out of the classroom, all in the name of improving student achievement.
Why do so many educators and politicians persist in an approach whose effectiveness is yet to be validated? A clearly articulated rationale for annual testing is needed. One appeared in the New York Times written by a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Education. It lays out the administration’s rationale.
The Senate version of the education bill (See: US Senator Lamar Alexandar Bill ) and the House version differ mostly on the requirements for achievement testing.
The House version is a reintroduction of last year’s Student Success Act. Both version emphasize returning control to the states.
A summary of the House version follows. We will track the bills. Check Legislative Updates on the rotating banner for the blog. It is the photo of the green chalkboard.
by Pat Drago and Sue Legg
This is not an easy walk into the woods, but you need to know where the funding for charter schools comes from and where it goes. It is your money.
There is a lot money to be made and lost with charter schools, and it is public tax dollars. As usual, independent schools tend to lose it, and large charter management chains come out on top. This is not always to the children’s benefit. How does this happen? We looked at the audits and found huge disparities in facility and fee expenditures. This meant that instructional parts of the budgets were reduced accordingly.
We wanted to know how these facilities were financed. If State funds were creating opportunities to make real estate venture capitalists wealthy, we wanted to know how this worked. Unfortunately, public dollars that go to private companies are hard to see. The lack of transparency for their financial records provides only vague outlines. We did find some clues by looking at how facilities are financed.
We wondered what other states were doing to ensure that state money was allocated for instruction and not for profit making ventures. We found some answers. As always, different approaches have their share of unintended consequences. As we groped in the darkness, there was a glimmer of light. The brave among you are invited to go down this path with us.
The current New Yorker has a long article on Jeb Bush’s role in the development of school choice. The outline of the story is nothing new. Jeb Bush launched charter schools and vouchers for private schools in Florida. He based charter school grades on individual student’s achievement gains rather than school level improvement. This offered a way to pressure teachers, because achievement would be measured at the classroom level.
According to the New Yorker article, a Bush appointee stated that Bush saw an opportunity to break the teacher’s union because it was viewed as a stalwart of the Democratic Party.
Perhaps even Jeb Bush is surprised at the growth of the choice movement. The real story, however, is behind the scenes.
Senator Gaetz wants answers to a list of questions about testing. How much time do they take? What happens if students do not take them. Where are we on setting passing levels. He wrote a letter to the Commissioner of Education, Pam Stewart. She answers at the Senate Committee Meeting on Wednesday. You can watch it. Read on, more is happening.