|
Feds offer advice to Florida in effort to win NCLB waiver
Florida education officials have made a big deal of their effort to eliminate confusion between state and federal accountability measures on schools via a proposal to get out from under No Child Left Behind rules.
Leaders have said the application would create a single system that would help schools, parents and students get a true and non-conflicting view of how the schools are performing, while still offering a path to increased success.
Waiver application reviewers have suggested that Florida's proposal, while strong in certain areas such as a "well-rounded transition to college and career-ready standards," needs some work in other key areas. The "significant concerns" include: ... Read more
School improvement means sustainable change, Florida accountability chief says
As Florida's most struggling schools look for ways to improve their performance, they must seek to put in place initiatives that are both substantive and sustainable, and not simply quick fixes that get short term results.
That's the renewed focus of the state's Differentiated Accountability teams as they head out for this year's instructional reviews and support sessions, state school improvement bureau chief Fred Heid tells the Gradebook.
"We don't want the yo-yo effect," Heid said, noting that effective practices often can come and go with changing school leaders. ... Read more
It's official: Middleton High leaves state watch-list
TAMPA -- Principal Owen Young got the news first, and blasted it out to his school's many supporters with a "Breaking News" email. After two years of struggling, Middleton High had officially been taken off Florida's list of most troubled schools.
"I received word of our removal from the list this morning around 6:00 a.m. from superintendent of schools, MaryEllen Elia," he wrote on Friday. "As a result of community support, your prayers and the hard working Instructional staff of Middleton High School, the student body and faculty, I can truly say, we are doing it!"
Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters confirmed that Middleton was taken off Florida's "Intervene" list after improving its state grade from D to C and making sufficient improvements among at-risk groups in both reading and math. No other schools have been removed from this year's list since it was issued last summer, she said. ... Read more
No speed limit: Uncle Sam unveils new education 'dashboard'
As we've previously reported, the era of apples-versus-oranges -- 50 separate sets of education statistics, one from each state, for things like graduation rates and education standards -- may be drawing to a close. Whether the federal government mandates it or states simply pool resources with an organization like the National Governors Association, the nation seems to be moving toward a common set of measures for determining whose kids are learning the most.
Whether those new measures are fair and accurate, of course, will likely prompt endless debate. But there's little doubt that the stakes will continue to rise.
This week the federal government took another step down the path. Its new Education Dashboard offers one-stop-shopping for those who wonder how their patch of America measures up. ... Read more
Florida low-performing schools don't improve or shut down, study says
A new report from the conservative-leaning Fordham Foundation finds poor academic performance in Florida public schools to be "remarkably stubborn," regardless of whether they're traditional or charter schools:
"The vast majority of the state’s low-performing charter and district schools failed to make notable improvements over five years. Florida’s charter sector has, however, been more successful at closing persistently low-performing schools—one positive indication of the charter sector’s more stringent accountability policies at work." ... Read more
At Hillsborough's Middleton High, a sigh of relief
TAMPA -- The cheers reverberated through Middleton High this morning after principal Owen Young announced the good news. The long fight had finally produced a tangible result.
"Everyone is just elated," Young said. "You could just hear the energy. Some people who have been here for eight years were crying."
After spending six years with a D grade, and the past two on the state's Intervene list of troubled schools, Middleton had earned a C. ... Read more
Here come the school recognition funds
It's that time of year when many Florida schools get to debate/discuss/wage war over their school recognition funds, an award from the state ostensibly intended to reward success on the FCAT.
Elementary and middle schools will get their share of the money on Tuesday, the Florida Department of Education tells the Gradebook. They then have until Feb. 1 to decide what to do with the cash within the allowable uses of bonuses, equipment and temporary personnel. If the staffs and advisory councils can't reach agreement, the money becomes bonuses for all classroom teachers currently at the school.
The decision deadline has been pushed back from the usual Nov. 1 because of the later release of high school grades, which aren't due until December, with their recognition funds to be distributed in January.
In the Tampa Bay area, 194 elementary and middle schools are in line to receive $10,742,569, including $637,200 for Hernando schools, $6,141,709 for Hillsborough schools, $1,585,141 for Pasco schools, and $2,378,519 for Pinellas schools. That's $75 per full-time equivalent student. Read on for the local list, which shows school name, FTE count and award amount, and let us know what your school plans to do with the money (or what you think it should do). ... Read more
Two Pasco schools get accountability upgrades
In reviewing Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) appeals, the Florida Department of Education got a request to consider rounding up its AYP percentage calculations to the nearest whole number instead of using fractions.
The DOE agreed to do it. As a result of the rounding, some schools ended up with higher percentages of standards met than initially reported.
For Zephyrhills High School and Bayonet Point Middle School, that means a move on the state's accountability schedule from Correct II to the less stringent Correct I.
No schools in Florida were negatively affected by this change in calculations.
A weekend interview about testing with Florida Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith
This year's FCAT scoring, with late results challenged by many superintendents, did little to reassure Floridians that the state's school accountability system was achieving the desired results. Hoping to instill more confidence in the public -- not to mention teachers, who soon could find these test results impacting their pay rates -- Florida education commissioner Eric J. Smith convened several advisory committees to seek out ways to improve the system. The Leadership Policy Advisory Committee for Assessment and Accountability met Wednesday in Jacksonville, and plans to meet again in a few months. Smith spoke with reporter Jeff Solochek about the first session and what he hopes to accomplish.
Why did you even have this meeting?
The superintendents have raised issues about the accuracy of the FCAT. I think we got those resolved. But as follow-up, there certainly are other questions that they raised that persist. For example, we do see in some of our score reporting fluctuations in results from year to year. We'd like to see if we can't reduce some of those fluctuations. The bottom quartile numbers, for example, were accurate as the auditors found, but is there a technical way that we can reduce that fluctuation to have more consistency in scores?
... Is there strong equating from year to year from elementary to middle to high school? Because the results you see is that high school kids are not doing as well, so does that mean the elementary should be strengthened? Or is high school not equated to the elementary accurately? And so forth. So some of these questions have been raised in the process of working with the superintendents. I think they're all very valid and appropriate questions to be raised. Right now it's the perfect time to raise them and really analyze them to see if there's a way to improve our testing and accouintability program. We're preparing to go into what we call FCAT 2.0 this spring, so there are some near term issues, recommendatios adn so forth that we should take time to explore as they relate to this year's test. There are also some long-term recommendations or things we should explore as it pertains to a year from this spring.
What are some of the short-term things that you are looking at? Did they raise very specific questions? ... Read more
Hillsborough's Middleton High gets another turnaround year
UPDATED AT 8 P.M.
TAMPA -- High school grades aren't out yet, but the writing was on the wall: troubled Middleton High was on the ropes this fall.
Despite vast improvements in boosting the school's culture and crafting interventions for students, according to state and district officials, test scores have been slow to budge. The school made some improvements on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test last spring, such as sophomore reading. But other scores dropped. And that wasn't helping the school break its string of D grades and move off the state's Intervene list, the bottom rung of its accountability system.
On Tuesday, Hillsborough superintendent MaryEllen Elia traveled to Tallahassee to make a personal appeal to the state Board of Education. As described in a recent letter, she was asking for another year for Middleton as a "district-managed turnaround school." ... Read more
Most Recent Blog Posts
Advertisement
Most Popular Categories
Comment Policy
| Please be sure your comments are appropriate before submitting them. Inappropriate comments include content that: |
| Is libelous |
| Is abusive, harassing, or threatening |
| Is obscene, vulgar, or profane |
| Is racially, ethnically or religiously offensive |
| Is illegal or encourages criminal acts |
| Is known to be inaccurate or contains a false attribution |
| Infringes copyrights, trademarks, publicity or any other rights of others |
| Impersonates anyone (actual or fictitious) |
| Solicits funds, goods or services, or advertises |
| The Tampa Bay Times does not edit posts but reserves the right to delete comments that violate our policy. |
THE TEAM