With scores down, Florida schools are paying more attention to math

Florida has a math problem. Fourth graders’ performance in the subject on the Nation’s Report Card has stagnated over the past decade. Eighth graders recently hit a 20-year low on the biannual test, ranking 41st among the states. Despite its importance, Florida lacks the infrastructure to bolster math in the classrooms, said Zandra de Araujo, mathematics director for the University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning. While lawmakers have adopted laws requiring schools to use the “science of reading,” the state has no math counterpart. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

Florida House, Senate still split on university reforms

The Florida Senate is set to vote soon on potential university president search reforms, but the proposal lawmakers advanced Monday remains significantly different than what the state House already passed. In a final committee hearing, senators backed even more changes to their higher education package, leaving several policies for the Legislature to hash out in one of the most high-profile bills of session. More from Politico Florida and Florida Politics.

Florida faculty call for campus police to cut ICE ties

Faculty from across Florida’s public university system are raising alarms as students and staff face revoked visas and campus police sign up to assist in federal immigration enforcement. In a public letter, the Advisory Council of Faculty Senates, which includes faculty leaders from across Florida’s 12 public universities, asked state leaders to provide transparency and guidance to students and staff who’ve had their visas revoked. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

Why Florida lawmakers want to slash AP funding and why education groups say the math doesn’t add up

When a student passes AP (Advanced Placement), IB (International Baccalaureate), and AICE (Advanced International Certificate of Education) exams, or succeeds in career prep or Dual Enrollment classes, school districts get bonus funds meant to help cover the higher costs of the college prep courses. But the bonus money would be slashed in half under the current budgets proposed by the Florida House and Senate. [Source: Action News Jax]

A scholarship program for undocumented students will end at eight Florida universities

TheDream.Us, a scholarship program that has paid the tuition for non-citizen students who have lived in the United States since they were very young, called “Dreamers,” has announced they will terminate scholarships for the 600-plus students they serve at eight Florida universities. The decision to terminate the scholarships was primarily based on the fact that Florida revoked in-state tuition waivers for non-citizens. [Source: Miami Herald]

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ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Orange school district to lose 3,100 students, millions in funds next year [Orlando Sentinel]
Orange County Public Schools it is expected to lose about 3,100 students and $27.8 million in state funding for next school year, a loss that has prompted fears about teacher layoffs and crowded classrooms. In a recent memo to employees, OCPS said the expected loss of state money will have “major implications” on one of the state’s largest school districts and will mean all departments must reduce their operating budgets by 2%.

› $107M MacDill Air Force base school built to fight hurricanes [Business Observer]
With an $86 million grant from the Department of Defense, Hillsborough County is building a new K-8 school on MacDill Air Force Base designed to be hurricane resistant. Because of the DoD funding, the project has to meet Build America Buy America Act requirements, meaning all the building materials must be American made and manufactured products have to be 65% American made.

› To be 'Future Focused' for students, what majors will Jacksonville University leave behind? [Florida Times-Union]
Jacksonville University startled some alumni when it outlined plans April 15 to retire “under-enrolled” fields of study and focus on majors in high demand. But at a school that until now boasted more than 100 majors, minors and study programs, what programs made the cut? The university’s “Future Focused” initiative made a list of what will stay and what’s slated to end after current students complete their degrees.

› FAMU search committee identifies four final candidates for president [Tallahassee Democrat]
Florida A&M University's presidential search committee has narrowed its applicants for president down to an unranked list of four final candidates amid preliminary discussions in the Rattler community of who was in the running. “There was a great pool of candidates,” the committee’s chair Deveron Gibbons, who also serves as vice chair of FAMU’s Board of Trustees said.

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