PEN of Florida
|
PEN Website
|
|
|
|
The Long Reach of Teachers Unions
Using money to win friends and influence policy
By Mike Antonucci
Legislative and campaign spending is far from the sum total of teacher union expenditures with a political aim. Both NEA and AFT send additional millions to a vast panoply of advocacy groups, coalitions, community organizations, and charities. Along with their statutory role as labor unions and stated role as professional organizations, NEA and AFT fill the role of philanthropic benefactors for a host of causes, most of them left-leaning
NEA funds groups that overwhelmingly fall on one side of the political spectrum. Here are a few examples of the organiza tions, large and small, that benefited from NEA's largesse, along with the amounts they received and excerpts from their mission statements. Alliance for Justice: $7,000. "Our Student Action Campaign cultivates the next generation of progres sive activists and strengthens public interest grass roots advocacy."
Read more
|
FL DOE Establishes New FCAT Website
A new website related to the delays in reporting this year's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results has been launched by the Florida Department of Education. The website hosts a variety of information resources on the issue including:
Descriptions of the FCAT scoring and validation process;
Frequently Asked Questions about the delays and other related topics; andLinks to contractual and procurement documents detailing the selection of the state's testing contractor, NCS Pearson.
Due to technical issues with Pearson's database technology, extra time was needed this year to ensure each individual student's test results matched up perfectly with their demographic information. These technology issues are completely separate from the scoring process, and detailed analyses by the Department, Pearson, and a third party testing expert, The Buros Institute, confirm that this year's results are both accurate and reliable. To access the website and learn more about the FCAT, click here.
|
Closing schools' achievement gaps
Five school systems across the country, with differences in location, funding and demographics, all have raised achievement notably using five common-sense steps.
While the Obama administration, with its federal Race to the Top program, is setting up a host of new rules for schools, five large urban school districts have raised achievement and closed achievement gaps using approaches that make such obvious sense, it would amaze parents to know that these aren't the norm everywhere.
The Broad Prize for Urban Education is awarded to large school districts that show the most progress. I had the opportunity to closely observe the innovations at five winning districts during the four years I spent working for the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, overseeing the process for selecting winners. That included visiting schools, analyzing test data and other statistics, and conducting follow-up interviews with teachers and parents.
Two of the districts are in Southern California - the Long Beach and Garden Grove unified school districts. The others are the Boston Public Schools, Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia and the Aldine Independent School District outside Houston. As different as the five school systems are in location, funding and, to some extent, demographics, all have raised achievement notably using five common-sense steps.
Read more
|
5 school districts cite FCAT problems, ask for delay in releasing school scores
Five of Florida's largest school districts say there are "significant anomalies" with the 2010 FCAT scores and with so much at stake - money, reputation, class schedules and job placement - the state should delay releasing school grades, which are based on the test scores.
Superintendents of Broward, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Duval and Leon county school districts said in a letter Monday to State Education Commissioner Eric Smith that each noted possible problems in the FCAT results. They want a committee of experts to review the data because they fear it will produce inaccurate school grades.
"Something is wrong, and we don't know what it is," Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter said. "Why do we have to be reactive to grades that are going to fall without a quality explanation?"
Read more
|
New Tool for Florida Voters
The Florida Division of Elections has a new tool for voters: an information access system where individuals can look up voter registration, absentee ballot status and polling place location online. Florida voters can now check to see if they are registered and make sure that their information is correct. Click Here
|
Check out PEN's new blog
We plan to use this as a platform for publishing concise and informative analysis of various practices the education system currently uses and also ideas for reform. We value teachers' time and it is our intention to provide a quick "pros vs. cons" style approach, allowing teachers to quickly inform themselves and determine where they stand. Please feel free to comment on or add any articles or links to any postings. Click here to connect to the blog
|
Become a fan of PEN of Florida on Facebook!
Click on the link below and become a fan today!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
