Scathing Purple Musings
Color me purple in Florida ALL Week
Jeb Bush Calls Common Core a “Truth Serum”
Miami Herald political reporter Marc Caputo was in attendance this week when Jeb Bush spoke to 900 business leaders in Broward county. Bush made these comments on education policy: Aside from immigration, Bush’s advocacy for Common Core State Standards has earned him enmity on the right. Bush has repeatedly explained the standards, implemented and controlled by the states, are designed to make the
YESTERDAY
Pensacola News Journal: “Dysfunctional” VAM a “Farce”
From the editors of the Pensacola News Journal: Thanks to a legal challenge by the Florida Times-Union, Floridians now have yet another glimpse at just how dysfunctional and absurd school accountability standards are in this state. After battling the Jacksonville newspaper to keep the public records secret, Florida’s Department of Education finally surrendered data showing how well most teachers s
Influential Miami-Dade Superintendent Finds Selection of New Florida Tests “Insufficient”
StateImpact reporter John O’Connor has this: Miami-Dade schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the process by which Florida chose a new statewide exam was ‘insufficient’ and he questioned whether the test from the American Institutes for Research will be right for Florida. StateImpact Florida’s Sammy Mack caught up with Carvalho today. In particular, Carvalho was concerned the exam would be
Voucher Expansion Dies in Florida Senate
Miami Herald reporter Kathleen McGrory reports: The Senate sponsor of the controversial school voucher bill withdrew his proposal Thursday, significantly weakening its chances of becoming law this year. Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said he pulled the bill because there wasn’t enough time to develop accountability provisions that everybody could agree on. “I thought it would be better if we took
MAR 20
Jeb Bush’s Fingerprints on Florida’s New High-Stakes Tests and His Sudden Arrival to the Common Core Wars
Scathing Purple Musings wrote yesterday that the next FCAT is going to parachute in just like the last one. Only this time, fresh off a field test of predominately white kids in Utah. Brevard Federation Teachers President Dan Bennett adds more in a letter to the editor in Florida Today: It’s no surprise that Florida Secretary of Education Pam Stewart chose the American Institute of Research (AIR)
MAR 19
Florida’s New Tests to Be Field Tested….in Utah
In an odd opinion piece on Common Core from the Tampa Tribune - more on that later - this tidbit of incredulity is sure to be rolling eyes in district offices across the state: Also unhappy are many of the educators who are left to deal with any fallout. Stewart says the new test will be developed in time to be administered next spring, a pretty tall order. The company that won the $220 million,
MAR 18
Florida’s New Testing Non-Profit Has Received $36 Million in Grants From Gates Foundation
You just knew there had to be a catch. Yesterday’s news that Education Commissioner Pam Stewart had selected a new testing company to replace FCAT. Erin Jester reports in the Gainesville Sun: Stewart picked the nonprofit company American Institutes for Research to provide the test, which doesn’t yet have a name. The state is approving a six-year, $220 million contract with AIR to develop the test.
MAR 17
The Florida Voucher Cap Cost Limit Allows for a Stunning Rise to Almost $1 Billion
When a Florida superintendent of schools said last week that the expansion of Florida’s voucher program would rise to $1 billion in five years, he knew what he was talking about. From the text of SB 1620: Scholarship Funding Tax Credit Cap Limits.—The Department of Revenue may approve annual tax credit amounts under s. 1002.395 or s. 1002.396 until the sum of such approvals under both sections com
MAR 16
Florida’s Voucher Expansion Assures the Expansion and Enrichment of the Step Up for Students Brand
It’s now called the Florida Sales Tax Credit Program, a teeny-weeny little change in what was simply the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Sponsored by Sen. Bill Galvano (R-Bardenton), SB 1620 is summarized this way: Tax Credit Scholarship Programs; Creating a credit against the sales and use tax for contributions to an eligible nonprofit scholarship-funding organization; revising the disqualifying
Miami Herald: “Vouchers Please a Few, But Undercuts the Many”
The Miami Herald became the latest large state daily to criticize the republican legislatures’ latest expansion of its school voucher program: Florida’s school vouchers, called the Tax Credit Scholarship program pays for about 60,000 students to attend private schools, of which more than 80 percent are religious. However, this is money that, in effect, has been denied to the public-school system a
MAR 15
What Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage Knows That Floridians Don’t
From Orlando Sentinel reporter Lauren Roth: Charter Schools USA isn’t waiting for a judge to decide if it can open a disputed school in Orange County. Construction already has begun. “They have already invested in some construction of a facility,” somewhere on or south of Narcoossee Road, district counsel Woody Rodriguez told the Orange school board this week. The district plans to appeal a state