Florida Tribune: Florida’s new performance pay law would put in place a evaluation system that has been questioned nationally. The teacher evaluation portion of the bill turns on a statistical method that…
Category: State & National News
Wachovia laundered money for Mexican drug cartel
Something you won’t find in the local daily today: The Observer reported in its Sunday edition that Wachovia Bank laundered billions of dollars for the Mexican drug lords. A 22-month investigation by…
GOP continues to mix God and Politics
New York Times: Revitalizing the Religious Right was the agenda for a special meeting held in Iowa last month. The program, sponsored by the Iowa Renewal Project, featured four possible Republican contenders…
State Roundup: Sunday editions
Miami Herald: Florida Republicans are on pace to dismantle regulations, cut jobs and adopt significant changes to Medicaid and abortion rights — because they have the votes. Read more. Sun-Sentinel: Since state…
Rubio in the limelight
Florida’s junior U.S. senator, Marco Rubio, is taking led on the federal debt debate. According to the New York Times, in the space of 24 hours, Rubio penned an opinion article opposing…
Rhee strikes back at USA Today
Taking a lesson from Jeff Bergosh, former chancellor of D.C. schools Michelle Rhee says USA TODAY’s investigation of erasures found on standarized tests is an insult to teachers and children who worked…
House bill wipes out most consumer protections
The Florida House leadership, of course, has a different, grander purpose for its vast deregulation bill, HB 5005. They say they are after “Job-killing regulations.” What do they want to stop? Auto…
Scott pays his dept. heads more
Austerity, pay cuts and sacrifice don’t apply to Gov. Rick Scott’s new agency heads who are earning $20,000 more than their predecessors. Read Florida Tribune.
Manslaughter charges considered for BP managers
The Guardian is reporting that BP executives, including ex-chief executive Tony Hayward, may be charged by US authorities over the lost of lives caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Read more.
Scott and lawmakers set to put growth in local hands
The Florida legislature doesn’t want local governments regulating fertilizer (Rep. Clay “Cow Patty” Ingram) or shooting rangers (Sen. Greg “Lock & Load” Evers). However, the lawmakers do want to repeal most of…
Scott’s advisor Rhee caught in possible cheating scandal
As the District of Columbia’s former public schools chief, Michelle Rhee rode soaring student test scores to a national reputation as a model education reformer. She is a counselor to Gov. Rick…
Scott signs bill tying teacher pay to test scores, ends tenure
At KIPP Impact Middle School, a charter school in Jacksonville, Gov. Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 736, ironically named “Student Success Act,” into law. The law phases out teacher tenure and it…