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<< back to Florida Education News Page Edweek’s Editorial Projects in Education Research Center States awarded overall letter grades based on ratings across six areas of performance and policy: chance-for-success; K-12 achievement; standards, assessments, and accountability; transitions and alignment; the teaching profession; and school finance. QUALITY COUNTS 2008 GRADING SUMMARY
OVERALL GRADE: C+ Full Florida Report: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2008/18shr.fl.h27.pdf The national Report is here: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2008/18shr.us.h27.pdf State Reports are here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/10/18shr.h27.html Mapping Educational Progress 2008 Data on student achievement in reading and math, high school graduation rates, schools making adequate yearly progress, highly qualified teachers, parents taking advantage of tutoring and choice options, state participation in flexibility options, and more. National Report: Florida Report: The Funding Gap: Spending Less Money in School Districts Educating English Language Learners, Low-Income Students and Students of Color When it comes to school funding, too many states still provide the least to school districts serving students with the greatest needs, according to a report released by The Education Trust. The seventh in a series of annual reports, The Funding Gap includes state-by-state analyses of funding trends from 1999 to 2005, comparing the resources available to school districts serving the highest percentages of low-income students and students of color to the resources available to districts serving the lowest percentages of such students. For the first time, the report also compares funding available to school districts serving the high percentages of English language learners (ELL) to that available to districts serving the lowest percentages of ELL. Using data for the eight states with the highest percentages of English learners, the report finds that high-ELL districts generally receive less financial support than do districts with few or no ELL students. The Bad News In 1999, Illinois’ funding gap was the second-largest in the nation. By 2005, the Illinois gap was still the second-largest, and had actually gotten worse. Illinois is joined by Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin at the top of the list of states in which the funding gap between high- and low-poverty districts grew between 1999 and 2005. Full report: SAIPE - 2005 School District Files Layout The files in the data directory contain estimates of population and poverty. The school districts for which we have estimates were identified in the 2005 school district mapping project, which asked about all school districts as of January 1, 2006. The 2005 estimates reflect poverty in 2005 of the population in 2005 for school district boundaries in the 2005-2006 school year. There is one file for each of the states, the District of Columbia, and the entire United States. Each file contains the FIPS state code, Department of Education Common Core of Data (CCD) ID numbers, District names, the total population, population of school-age children, and estimated number of school-age children in poverty related to the head of the household. The text files contain only data - no labels, no table headers, no titles. A description of the contents of the files can be found below or in the file "README" in the file directory. School district file layout
Access school district data files for 2005 (FL): Orange County Public Schools and ENA Celebrate New Internet Network for Teachers and Students Enhanced Network Services Providing Increased Educational Opportunities for District’s Students The Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) and Education Networks of America (ENA) have announced that all schools and administrative offices in the district have been successfully connected to a new and enhanced high-speed broadband Internet network. School and ENA officials said the network has now been successfully operating for more than 90 days providing students and teachers access to increased Internet capacity, more applications and other on-line educational resources that previously weren’t available for classrooms. Officials pointed to a number of new applications currently in use to take advantage of more up-to-date learning resources. One is a new web-based literacy program that is being used in a wireless laptop classroom at Westridge Middle School called BLASTT - Building Literacy and Skills Through Technology. Other web-based applications include gradebooks, FCAT Explorer, web-based portals for parents and teachers and student-tracking systems. These improved features, officials said, are providing increased productivity for teachers and enhanced learning opportunities for students in a diverse and rapidly expanding student population. “In partnership with ENA, the Managed Broadband Internet Access project has enabled significantly increased access to web-based resources and applications for the classroom,” said George Perreault, Director, Instructional Technology & Library Media Services for OCPS. “Prior to the new network, it was simply not possible for an entire classroom of students to effectively access a website simultaneously. Our goal is fostering constant innovation and utilizing educational technology to prepare our students for the 21st Century, and this increased bandwidth to all our schools enables us to make that a reality.” ENA was awarded the three-year contract last year and all of OCPS’ K-12 schools are connected to the managed district-wide high-speed network that provides a fundamental infrastructure to support student achievement. OCPS currently has a full-time enrollment of 176,000 students and 12,000 teachers. It is the 11th largest school system in the country with 175 schools and the fourth largest in the state of Florida. OCPS presently has approximately 50,000 computers in its schools that are using ENA’s managed district-wide network to access the Internet. Free Open Source Reading Program Adopted A free, open source reading program, www.FreeReading.net, has been officially adopted by the state of Florida. The adoption places FreeReading.net on a short list of K-3 supplemental reading programs that Florida schools may use state instructional money to purchase for the 2008-2009 school year. FreeReading.net is the first open source instructional program to be approved through an official state adoption. The Florida decision, along with educators' strong positive response to the program, indicates that school systems will consider alternatives to the traditional printed textbook. Open source coupled with a Web 2.0 platform offers distinct advantages over the traditional publishing model. Instructional material can be regularly updated to reflect the collective wisdom of teachers and researchers. In addition, open source instructional programs can be produced and distributed inexpensively, significantly reducing or, in the case of FreeReading.net, completely eliminating the prices that schools pay for such programs. Because FreeReading.net is available at no charge, Florida districts can invest more of their textbook funding in instructional tools and materials that support effective teaching. At www.FreeReading.net, educators everywhere can access a free, sequential, research-based reading intervention program for grades K-1. Open source and Web 2.0 technology enables educators to adapt FreeReading.net content to their needs, contribute their own lessons as supplements to the research-based 40-week scope and sequence, and participate in discussions about early literacy. A FreeReading Advisory Board of leading reading researchers has reviewed the FreeReading program and is guiding the expansion of the content, as well as the creation of a strict quality review process for contributions. Because FreeReading.net is already available and doesn't require that textbooks be printed, some Florida schools are considering the program for use this spring. Florida Educators Master Instructional Technology With Help From PBS TeacherLine, Florida Digital Educator Program Several of Florida’s elite educators earned the opportunity this school year to participate in PBS TeacherLine®’s online courses in instructional technology to meet their professional development goals. Through their online learning experience, these Master Digital Educators gained new skills and knowledge that they are using to enhance the learning experience for students and to train teachers in technology integration. PBS TeacherLine, the Florida Digital Educator Program, and the Florida Department of Education, Bureau of Instruction and Innovation, partnered in early 2007 to provide online professional development to a cohort of Master Digital Educators. This joint effort is part of an ongoing statewide initiative to help teachers use instructional technology in ways that support project-based learning and require students to use higher-order thinking skills. Master Digital Educators Janann Nicholson and Ana McMoran noted that the PBS TeacherLine courses use the same approach to learning and technology integration that is recommended to teachers by the Florida Digital Educator Program. “I’ve taken more than 30 hours of online professional development courses, and PBS TeacherLine was the only one to incorporate project-based learning,” said Nicholson, the technology instructor at Pahokee Middle-Senior High School in Pahokee, Fla. “We were apprehensive when were assigned a group project, but through the facilitators’ guidance and course design we used wikis and online forums to collaborate and complete our assignment. We were using higher-order thinking skills–a great example in action of the instructional strategies we need to use in our classrooms. It was one of the most rewarding professional development experiences for me.” With funding from the Florida Department of Education, the partnership has been able to provide online courses to 23 educators free-of-charge during the first phase of implementation. Several more educators will be given the same opportunity through the allotted course seats for the PBS TeacherLine spring term. For Nicholson and McMoran, PBS TeacherLine enabled them to stay abreast of new technologies and build their comfort level in using these technologies with other educators and their students, particularly as they strive to reach their professional goal of teaching online. “I developed a deeper understanding of how to develop meaningful online discussion and build a collaborative learning environment.” Nicholson said. “Because of my work with the Florida Center for Instructional Technology helping educators understand the need for technology integration and use various technology tools, I need to stay current with the latest technologies and continually enhance my skill set,” McMoran explained. “The PBS TeacherLine course showed me how to host a collaborative online learning community, which has helped me in my work with educators face-to-face and in the Center’s blended professional development offerings. I will also be able to use these skills in the future as I realize my goal of online teaching.” Adam Wolford, an eighth-grade science teacher at John D. Floyd Elementary School in Spring Hill, Fla., also found that the PBS TeacherLine course enhanced his teaching, particularly in his position as a trainer working with other teachers in his district. Using the skills he gained from the course, he created a video tutorial to demonstrate to his peers how to use one of the online curriculum offerings that is available to the district.” Additionally, the educators learned instructional strategies that they now use in the classroom with students. “I’m using the same rubric with my senior high students that my facilitator used in the PBS TeacherLine course,” Nicholson said. “It has made a significant difference in their learning and academic progress.” “I was able to immediately apply the strategies that I learned in the course to my classroom, and it has been a valuable experience for my students,” Wolford said. “My students are using Skype to talk to graduate students around the world to learn about their research, and how it could impact people’s lives.” Skype is a software program that allows users to make phone calls over the Internet to other Skype users for free. The teachers emphasized that one of the most critical factors of their successful online learning experiences with PBS TeacherLine was the quality of the course facilitator. “My facilitator took away the lonely feeling that I had associated with online learning and created a warm and friendly learning environment,” McMoran said. “She always let us know that she was there for us and allowed me to build on my knowledge and to be creative by developing and posting my own multimedia content.” “The other teachers in the course and I were sharing and discussing ideas in a way we never had before, even commenting on what was happening in our classrooms with students that day,” Nicholson explained. “In the beginning of the class, our facilitator used a fun, creative way for us to introduce ourselves and break the ice. Rather than posting dry resumes or vitae, we posted information about ourselves as if our pets were introducing us.” “Our facilitator was instrumental in encouraging course participation and deepening the online discussion,” Wolford added. “Being able to discuss educational challenges and ideas with brilliant teachers from different areas of the country was priceless.” The PBS TeacherLine courses that are available to the Florida Master Digital Educators are Online Facilitator Training I – Mastering the Skills of Online Teaching and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Capstone Certificate Program. The Online Facilitator Training course is designed to help teachers become effective instructional leaders in a web-based learning environment. The ISTE Capstone Certificate Program is a series of research-based courses that enable teachers to demonstrate their mastery of ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS•T). More Information PBS TeacherLine provides high-quality, facilitated, online professional development courses to Florida educators in cooperation with its local distribution partners WLRN in Miami, WEDU in Tampa and WSRE in Pensacola. For more information about PBS TeacherLine, visit www.pbs.org/teacherline. To learn more about PBS, go to www.pbs.org. About Florida Digital Educator Program About PBS TeacherLine Game-Based Algebra Software to Be Used in Three Palm Beach County Middle Schools Being able to captivate students so much that they will forget that they are learning -- but not forget what they have learned -- is no easy task. But educators at Roosevelt, Bear Lakes, and Conniston Middle Schools in Palm Beach County School District have found a solution that will do just that while teaching complex mathematical concepts. The answer? Educational video games from Tabula Digita’s DimensionM™ series. “In the past, teachers often found it difficult to justify the use of simulation or adventure computer games during school time because their content did not align with state or national curriculum standards,” said Gary Weidenhamer, manager of educational technology for the Palm Beach County School District. “Because the DimensionM games are designed as a supplemental tool, teachers will be able to easily integrate the games with a variety of instructional models – from classrooms to computer labs to extended day programs.” In addition to the high engagement level and collaboration capabilities, the games allow teachers to track individual student performance and provide spot-on feedback. A complete portfolio of support tools can be accessed through any combination of print, online or electronic resources. The video games also support several key objectives that have been requested by educators including: increased achievement against educational goals, diagnostics based upon performance, recommendations for remediation, online competition and peer tutoring. |
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