Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz: Tenure “An Immoral Concept”
From NWF Daily News reporter Tom McLaughlin on Matt Gaetz meting yesterday with the League of Women Voters of Okaloosa County:
Gaetz, “an unapologetic supporter of FCAT,” debated school testing and teacher tenure with a couple of former educators in the audience.
One of them, Pat Burrough, said she couldn’t understand why the state would authorize an exam like Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test that she contended focused only on math and reading.
“I never saw it as a real good test for students,” Burrough said.
Gaetz predicted that legislation will trend more this year toward “de-emphasizing portions of the
Claims NAEP or FCAT Scores Validate Florida Formula “Implausible” and “Violates Basic Principles of Policy Analysis”
In the December 2012 open hearing where incoming education Tony Bennett was interviewed, board of education chairman Gary Chartrand began the meeting with “good news” about how well Florida 4th graders stacked up against the rest of the world on NAEP. Former chair Kathleen Shannahan seconded the good news as it should end controversy over high-stakes testing and justify their reforms.
Not so fast says respected senior fellow from the Albert Shanker Institute, Matthew Di Carlo. From John O’Connor of StateImpact comes this from Di Carlo:
Not so fast says respected senior fellow from the Albert Shanker Institute, Matthew Di Carlo. From John O’Connor of StateImpact comes this from Di Carlo:
In the meantime, regardless of one’s opinion on whether the “Florida formula” is a success and/or should be exported to other states, the assertion that the reforms are responsible for the state’s increases in NAEP scores and FCAT proficiency rates during the late 1990s and 2000s not only violates basic principles of policy analysis, but it is also, at best, implausible. The reforms’
The Next Irresponsible Expansion of Florida’s McKay Scholarship is Here
Now it won’t matter that a child wasn’t even a student in Florida the year before to qualify.
From the wisdom of Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R-Miami) comes SB 172 which provides:
From the wisdom of Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R-Miami) comes SB 172 which provides:
John M. McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program; Revising the eligibility requirements for the John M. McKay scholarships for students with disabilities program; deleting the requirement that a student must have spent the prior school year in attendance at a Florida public school, etc.which >Fresh off the McKay Scholarship abuse scandal of 2011, which nobody would have known about had it not been revealed in a disturbing piece of investigative journalism by the Miami New Times, another republican politician