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Florida's Education Woes Should Be Wake-Up Call to Nation

COMMENTARY | According to Reuters, high school education in Florida is in bad shape. Fifty percent of sophomores did not pass the reading portion of the standardized Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Days before the reading scores were released, the state's Board of Education voted to lower standards needed to pass the writing portion. The Board's vote occurred because preliminary results revealed only 1 in 3 high school students would have passed the writing portion.

Education

  • Half of Florida high school students fail reading test MIAMI (Reuters) - Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state's new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday. Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels. Students in the 10th grade must pass the exam in order to eventually graduate but can retake it if they fail. The results came days after the Florida State Board of Education voted to lower the standards needed to pass the writing part of the test, known as FCAT. ...

  • Oregon bans American Indian team names, mascots for schools PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - The Oregon state board of education has banned public schools from using American Indian names and mascots for their athletic teams, out of a concern they disparage native American people. The move is believed to be one of the nation's most sweeping prohibitions of its kind in favor of native Americans who say their culture is stereotyped by a number of sports teams. It follows years of controversy surrounding a range of teams, from the Cleveland Indians in Major League Baseball to the Washington Redskins of the National Football League. ...

  • Obama Focuses on Education in Florida, Nevada TV Ads President Obama?s re-election campaign is courting voters in Florida and Nevada with a new, positive 30-second TV ad on higher education. The spot, which began airing Friday, features pictures of a young Obama with his mother and at school as the narrator paints a picture...

  • NYC schools chief pushes buyout plan for teachers New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott is proposing to offer buyouts to hundreds of teachers who don't have permanent jobs.

  • 5 Ways Teachers Can Evaluate Educational Games Dr. David Dockterman is chief architect, learning sciences at Scholastic Education and an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is an educational software pioneer and has designed dozens of award-winning instructional technology programs.

  • The 1 Percent Solution Seattle?Nick Hanauer toddled through his early years in a cramped Greenwich Village apartment. His mother waited tables at the Bitter End. His father worked low-level jobs on Wall Street and as an editor at a publishing house. When Nick was 5, his folks left New York to join a family pillow-making business in the Pacific Northwest. They raised their three sons in a three-bedroom house in the suburbs and sent them to public schools. After Nick, the eldest, earned a philosophy degree at the University of Washington, he went to work for his father. ...

  • Kansas budget negotiators resume talks Budget negotiators said Wednesday that proposals to increase spending on Kansas public schools and other government programs are joined at the hip to a pending compromise on tax cuts.