The other day I imagined myself rich enough to be looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of a plush mansion on the beach and shaking my head, solemnly, as I whisper to myself. “Biggie and P. Diddy were right, man. Mo money. Mo Problems.” I’m pretty sure I would love to be that rich and […]
The Push for Better Schools Is Paying Off in Florida
If you live in Florida, and especially if you have children here, there’s good news for you (well, for us): Florida schools are getting better. Maybe you’ve noticed recent news lamenting the fact that students in this country, on average, have made virtually no progress in the last decade. All the charts and graphs show […]
Are Charter Schools Worse than Traditional Schools in Florida?
A couple weeks ago one of my school board members, Alva Striplin, told everyone she felt offended by some of some comments people made that evening. It was a school board meeting where the hot topic of the night was a vote on approving two charter schools and she didn’t feel good about the way […]
Florida Lawmakers Say Pretending to Evaluate Teachers Is Vital to Fixing Schools
(Disclaimer: This is satire. To all those who think the politicians mentioned and quoted in the article below would actually admit to these realities, thank you for your faith in humanity.) Florida has a long, proud history of pretending to evaluate teachers and two Republican lawmakers, Rep. Rene Plasencia and Sen. Debbie Mayfield, say they’re […]
Trick or Treat! Oh, Sorry…These Reading Scores Are Actually NOT A Halloween Prank.
Great story in the Tennessean from my friend Vesia Hawkins. She puts a very real face to the crisis of literacy in her home town of Tennessee, where only a THIRD of kids in 3rd-8th grade are reading proficient. I had to share this story for so many reasons: Broward has been addressing this very […]
Opting Out Of Third-Grade Test Is Bad, Passing Third Graders Who Can’t Read Is Worse
by Lane Wright, editor at Education Post, a nonprofit fostering better conversation for better education. If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on in the case of the Opt-Out moms versus the state of Florida, it’s that Michelle Rhea’s daughter can read just fine. Last year, Florida education officials said she needed to be […]
March 13th- March 18th
This week was a busy one in the education world and Faces captured some of the big, bold, scary, and stupid stuff that happened. Here’s the long and short of it: Over My Dead Body Last week Broward Schools took a ground-breaking stand against immigration action on school campuses. This week, Miami-Dade superintendent Carvahlo, says federal immigration agents […]
Lawmakers Seek to Repeal, but Not Replace, Parts of School Accountability Law
by Lane Wright, editor at Education Post, a nonprofit fostering better conversation for better education. The state senator sponsoring a new education bill in Florida is very adamant about one thing: “This is not a retreat on accountability.” Sen. Bill Montford (D-Tallahassee) repeated it three different times during a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Tallahassee, […]
Accountability Is Necessary and It’s Here to Stay
Standardized testing is a part of state law since…forever. If you want a high school diploma from a public school in this country, you must take tests. Tests reveal how much you know, how well you know it, how much you’ve grown and if you are ready to move on. I seriously don’t put much […]