Archives for category: Florida
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Junk Science in Florida

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2012 //
9

This year, Florida rolled out its shiny new teacher evaluation program.

In Alachua County, a teacher of the year was rated unsatisfactory.

Officials realized there many errors, and they revised the scoring.

Now 99.5% of the county’s nearly 1,200 teachers are effective or highly effective.

Only one teacher was found to be ineffective!

All of those hundreds of millions of dollars blown away to find one “unsatisfactory” teacher.

If the principals were doing their jobs, that one teacher would have been identified without the grand apparatus and all those millions might have been invested in the arts, playgrounds, reducing class size, social workers and other things that make a real difference.

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Tony Bennett Lands on his Feet in Florida

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2012 //
16

Tony Bennett, the defeated state superintendent from Indiana, has landed the job as state commissioner in Florida.

Bennett is the hero to the rightwing “reform” sector, a champion of privatization, vouchers, charters, online for-profit schools, and the Common Core. His last action in Indiana was to lower standards for new trackers and principals, so that no preparation was needed to become a teacher and anyone could become a principal with only two years of experience as a teacher, even in higher education.

Jeb Bush is mad for Bennett, who serves as head of Bush’s Chiefs for Change.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Indiana, Merit pay, On-Line Education, Privatization

Florida Superintendent: VAM Is Garbage In, Garbage Out

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2012 //
12

Dan Boyd, the superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida, explains what a mess the Florida value-added assessment program is.

Sixty-seven counties are each using their own formulas to rate teachers.

In his own county, 75% of the teachers are not teaching subjects or grades that are tested, so they are evaluated based on the scores of students they never taught and on subjects they don’t teach.

He writes:

“Alachua County is sending up a revised plan. The DOE will still have to approve it and it will still have to comply with the law. And there’s the rub, because any way you slice it, this system is badly flawed. It’s inconsistent, it’s unfair and it’s unscientific. Worst of all, there’s no proof that it does anything to actually help students.”

More intelligent and courageous public officials like Dan Boyd, and the public will understand the harm that these fake reformers are inflicting on children, teachers and public schools.

Categories Accountability, Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Charlie Crist Renounces His Support for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2012 //
9

Charlie Crist, former governor of Florida, switched from Republican to independent to Democrat.

It is rumored that he may run for governor as a Democrat.

In an interview recently, he said he was wrong for supporting vouchers.

Angry conservatives don’t like his change of mind.

I don’t question his motives. I applaud anyone who is willing to stand up and say he or she was wrong.

As governor, he vetoed a particularly obnoxious bill to take tenure away from teachers and do a bunch of other harmful things. He was under a lot of pressure from his party to sign the bill but he didn’t.

So, I say, welcome home, Charlie Crist and good luck.

Help to educate the public and stop the attacks on public education and teachers in Florida.

Categories Florida, Vouchers

Florida Botches New Teacher Evaluation Reports

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2012 //
15

Florida’s Department of Education rolled out its much-anticipated teacher evaluation reports, and only hours later, withdrew them. Most teachers were rated effective or highly effective, but the reports had numerous errors.

At some point, after hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted trying to standardize a process that requires human judgement, after thousands of excellent teachers have abandoned a profession they once loved, someone will finally admit that this nutty idea doesn’t work. A chorus will grow from sea to shining sea: teacher quality can’t be judged by student test scores.

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Mrs. Cook: Teacher of the Year, “Unsatisfactory”

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2012 //
12

I published a post with a photo of a teacher who was named Teacher of the Year by her colleagues but found “unsatisfactory” or “ineffective” by the value-added methods of her state. I knew her name–Mrs. Cook–but nothing more.

Here is the story. She teaches first grade in Florida. Her school got a low grade, so every teacher lost points. Her VAM rating was based on students she never taught,

She is a victim of a nutty system imposed by Jeb Bush, Rick Scott and ALEC.

Categories ALEC, Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Parsing the Florida “Miracle”

By dianeravitch
November 29, 2012 //
17

Jeb Bush claims the mantle of King of Education Reform.

He touts the Florida Miracle.

His ingredients for success: testing, testing, testing, school report cards, privatization, charters, vouchers, and big investments in online learning.

Here is one careful review of the Florida “miracle.”

Here is yet anothergood analysis of the Florida Miracle.

Bush is pushing the digitization of schooling pretty hard. His Foundation is funded by technology companies. Tony Bennett of Indiana and Tom Luna of Idaho carried the Bush banner in the November elections, and both got whipped.

There is neither research nor any evidence that kids learn more or better if they are doing it online. But this was not mentioned this at the big Bush conference in DC (Arne Duncan was the keynote speaker, boosting Bush’s credibility as an education reformer and a candidate in 2016).

Question: Will Jeb Bush’s Florida Miracle go the way of George W. Bush’s Texas Miracle?

Can we survive another such miracle?

Hmmm. A nation of digitized children.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Duncan, Arne, Florida, For-Profit, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), On-Line Education, Privatization, US Education

Mississippi Bests Florida

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2012 //
3

For years we have heard about the Florida miracle, supposedly the result of Jeb Bush’s tough accountability measures.

But whoa!

The latest federal data show that Mississippi has a higher graduation rate than Florida.

Is there a Mississippi miracle?

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida

About That Bipartisan Consensus to Privatize Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2012 //
24

If ever evidence was needed about the bizarre mind meld between the Obama administration and the far-right of the Republican party, here it is.

Secretary Arne Duncan is giving the keynote to Jeb Bush’s Excellence in Education summit in Washington, D.C. on November 28. Another keynote will be delivered to the same gathering of the leaders of the privatization movement by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who headed the Obama transition team in 2008. This is sickening.

Jeb Bush’s organization supports vouchers, charters, online virtual charters, and for-profit organizations that run schools. It also supports evaluating teachers by student test scores and eliminating collective bargaining. Jeb Bush believes in grading schools, grading teachers, grading students, closing schools, and letting everyone “escape” from public schools to privately-run establishments. The free market is his ideal of excellence, not public responsibility, not the public school as the anchor of the community, but privatization.

Here is the press release (Podesta’s keynote was announced earlier):

 

Arne Duncan to Give Keynote at the
2012 National Summit on Education Reform
WASHINGTON – The Foundation for Excellence in Education today announced U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will deliver a breakfast keynote address for the fifth annual Excellence in Action National Summit on Education Reform. This keynote will take place at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC, Nov. 28.

Prior to becoming the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan served as the chief executive officer of  Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the longest-serving big-city education superintendent in the country. Among his most significant accomplishments during his tenure as CEO, an all-time high of the district’s elementary school students met or exceeded state reading standards, and their math scores also reached a record high. At high schools, Chicago Public Schools students posted gains on the ACT at three times the rate of national gains and nearly twice that of the state’s. Also, the number of CPS high school students taking Advanced Placement courses tripled, and the number of students passing AP classes more than doubled.
Unfortunately, we have reached maximum capacity for the Summit, and registration is closed. However, you can enjoy this exciting event from the comfort of your own computer. All keynote speeches and general sessions will be streamed live at www.ExcelinEd.org/Everywhere, and all strategy sessions will be filmed and available after the event. Click here to view this year’s agenda.

Members of the press are welcome to cover the conference, including keynote and strategy sessions, however, participation in Q & A times are reserved for attendees. For more details and to apply for credentials for this event, please click here.

The Excellence in Action National Summit on Education Reform annually immerses lawmakers and policymakers in two days of in-depth discussions on proven policies and innovative strategies to improve student achievement. For all things related to the Summit, check out the #EIA12 app at http://bit.ly/W6wubM. This mobile app puts the event agenda and information about speakers, strategy sessions and our partners at your fingertips.

 

Categories Bush, Jeb, Chicago, Duncan, Arne, Florida, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization

Two Big Legislative Victories in Florida

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2012 //
4

Kathleen Oropeza of Fund Education Now is one of the state’s leading education activists.
She reports here on two crucial races for the State Legislature. In one contest, public education advocate Mike Clelland narrowly beat the future leader of the House, even though the Republican incumbent had a 12-1 funding advantage. In the other race, elementary school teacher Karen Castor Dentel handily beat her opponent, who ran a disgusting ad comparing her to convicted sexual predator Jerry Sandusky.

Kathleen writes:

On Election Day, Floridians stared down deliberate suppression and waited long hours to vote. These patriots didn’t just stand in line, they stood for democracy. In fact, Florida voters repeatedly chose authentic underfunded citizen-candidates over incumbents flush with PAC millions. The most powerful example is District 29 which many assumed would remain the property of the designated 2014 Speaker of the House Rep. Chris Dorworth. Challenger Mike Clelland, an attorney and former fire-fighter did his homework, studied the issues and walked his district every day convincing voters to give him a chance. He spent $70,000 on his campaign. His support came in hard-earned $10s and $20s sent by fellow firefighters and citizens who believed in him. In contrast, Chris Dorworth was given over $1 million dollars to keep his seat, including $300,000 the week before the election.

By early Wednesday morning, after hours of ups and downs, Mike Clelland was still standing on a tiny stack of 37 votes. An audible gasp could be heard as Dorworth’s party realized that the years of planning, the millions invested in campaigns and their strategy to transform him into a powerful Speaker of the House was dead on arrival. Provisional ballots were counted and regular ballots were counted again. Almost a week later on Monday night, Clelland defeated Dorworth by 146 out of nearly 74,000 votes cast – 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent. After more than 2 decades of blatant pay to play politics, just enough voters of every political stripe took down one of the most highly groomed future leaders in recent Florida history.

In a similar upset, District 30 went to Karen Castor Dentel, a 4th grade teacher, mom and the daughter of former Florida Secretary of Education, Betty Castor. Dentel solidly defeated Rep. Scott Plakon, the sponsor of Florida’s Amendment 8, an ALEC effort to rescind the “no-aid” language found in 30 state constitutions so religious schools could be funded by tax dollars. Amendment 8 failed.

Overall, politicians placed 11 wordy constitutional amendments on Florida’s ballot. Florida voters of every party saw the political agenda behind these initiatives and voted no on 8 out of 11 amendments.

Across the state voters repeatedly chose to put balance back into Florida politics. Though both houses are still under single-party rule, they no longer have the absolute power of the supermajority. Democrats picked up 5 House seats with Republicans still in a 76-44 majority. In the Senate, Democrats picked up 2 seats with Republicans out numbering them 26-14.

Clearly, Florida voters have more work to do. Still, Election Day sent a clear message: Florida voters are awake and watching now. It is imperative that the common sense Republicans, Democrats and Independents make the choice to reach across the aisle and work together for the people back home. Those who don’t will face the voters in 2014. Thanks to what happened in District 29, that promise now has some teeth.

Kathleen Oropeza
FundEducationNow.org

Categories Florida
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