Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Guest AuthorFebruary 15, 2015

The ironically named Student Success Act of 2011 mandated something called the Valued Added Model, which attempts to quantify each teacher’s influence on each student. The complicated formula purports to predict what a student’s normal gain scores on a standardized test will be from one year to another. If a student gains more or loses […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 9, 2015

February is national Career and Technical Education month, and across the country educators and counselors are preparing America’s next generation of skilled workers. In just a few months, students will graduate from high school, and many aren’t sure of their next step. Florida’s construction contractors face a related but different problem: a major shortage of skilled […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 4, 2015

The loss of Gov. Rick Scott’s candidate for chairman of the Republican Party of Florida has spawned a lot of punditry minimizing his importance. But Scott is actually more important than ever. He is creating a road map to victory in Florida for any Republican presidential candidate through sound and successful policies that have righted […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 4, 2015

His name was Eddie, and he was a lot like me. We both were studious, scrawny and 11 years old at the time. He wore a starched white shirt with sharply creased sleeves and heavy-rimmed glasses that probably brought teasing from classmates. We sat awkwardly – mostly in silence – at the end of a […]

Shannon NickinsonFebruary 2, 2015

Tim Wyrosdick has a big idea that could change the educational and economic future of the Pensacola metro area. If you have $55 million, he says he can provide the staff and students to fill it. “It’s a pie-in-the-sky dream kind of thing,” says Wyrosdick, Santa Rosa County School District superintendent. The idea – Innovation […]

Shannon NickinsonJanuary 26, 2015

Pensacola’s business community made its pitch for the 2015 legislative session. Now it will be time to let the chips fall where they may in Tallahassee. At the recent Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce’s 2015 Legislative Luncheon, chairman of the board of directors Justin Beck said the group had three broad areas of interest as […]

Guest AuthorJanuary 21, 2015

Most of us who are born American citizens take for granted the basic freedoms and affluent way of life that our country gives us. Living in the USA, we’re spoiled because we don’t encounter abysmal poverty, despotism and the lack of value of human life that exists in the rest of the world. Think about […]

Ryan RayJanuary 20, 2015

Jeb Bush‘s prominent and idiosyncratic views on education are liable to make or break his presidential ambitions, writes Alec MacGillis in The New Yorker. Few people doubt that he’s developed an expertise on the subject. But whether his public policy conclusions will alienate Republican primary voters is another question altogether: Dan Gelber, a Democrat who served in the Florida […]

Guest AuthorJanuary 13, 2015

I’ve been invited to contribute to Context Florida and want to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My career in journalism started 47 years ago when I was selected to be the editorial cartoonist for my high school newspaper. I had moved the previous year from a close-knit, small-town high school to a large suburban […]

Jac VerSteegJanuary 4, 2015

Candidates mouthed the words “education” a lot in 2014, but it was not a decisive election issue. Still, against the odds, 2015 might be the year the Florida Department of Education makes a sincere effort to make its testing policies reasonable. There has been legitimate concern that Rick Scott, safe in his second term and […]

Tag: education
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Catherine Martinez: 'Value Added Model' of no value to teaching

Steve Cona: Construction industry has opportunities to build a career

Joe Gruters: Forget pundits, Rick Scott matters because results matter

Rick Brunson: Orlando's 1972 grand experiment in race relations

Shannon Nickinson: Santa Rosa dreams of Innovation High School

Shannon Nickinson: Health care, taxes top business legislative list

Steven Kurlander: Give all Americans a mandatory civics exam

Good read in The New Yorker: The Education of Jeb Bush

Catherine Martinez: Teacher still looking for elusive new world order

2015 might bring high-stakes testing reform to Florida