Florida Choice Resource Center

Educator Resources

Florida Magnet Schools
A comprehensive list of all the magnet schools in the state of Florida.

Procedures for Developing a School Choice Program
Produced by the Florida School Choice Resource Center

Equity, Diversity, and Excellence in Florida’s School Choice Programs: Good Educational Practice and Good Business A Pilot Study of Florida School Choice Mentor/Mentee Districts

Small Schools Workshop
http://www.smallschoolsworkshop.org
The Small Schools Workshop is a group of educators, organizers and researchers based in the College of Education at the University of South Florida (Sarasota).

National Center for School Choice
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/schoolchoice/index.html
The National Center for School Choice exercises national leadership in school choice research, including charter and magnet schools, private school vouchers, teacher recruitment, school management, and state policymaking.

Florida Public School Choice Consortium
http://www.fpscc.net
This website, and associated electronic newsletter, are designed to maintain communication between educators and other stakeholders. The eNewsletter will profile continued efforts of the FPSCC and the awesome strides that are being made in terms of School Choice.

Southeast Coalition of Essential Schools
http://www.southeastces.org
To create, promote, develop and sustain small diverse high performing secondary school programs incorporating the ten principles of the coalition of essential schools.

Florida Charter Schools Consortium
http://www.floridacharterschools.org
Website with information about charter schools in Florida and links to related research and resources.

No Child Left Behind

On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The Act is the most sweeping reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since ESEA was enacted in 1965. It redefines the federal role in K-12 education and will help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. It is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work.

NCLB School Choice Contacts 2007 - 2008

Florida Department of Education
http://www.fldoe.org/NCLB/

The Florida Department of Education provides information on No Child Left Behind as it relates to public school education in Florida. The website provides memos, press releases and guidance on No Child Left Behind.

US Department of Education
http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml?src=fp

The US Department of Education provides a website for the Legislation, Regulations and Guidance regarding No Child Left Behind. Their website offers "one-stop-shopping" for links to legislation, Federal Register Notices, Policy Guidance, and Grant Applications for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Links to Legislation, Regulations, and Policy Guidance for programs still being implemented under the Improving America's Schools Act are also on the site.

Building Choice

USDOE School Choice
http://www.buildingchoice.org
The BuildingChoice.org website was designed with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement to help districts expand and improve their public school choice programs. The site features promising practices and materials from districts around the country and provides easy access to research, materials, and tools to implement and enhance public school choice.

This Web site is designed to help districts raise student achievement through public school choice programs. If you've been thinking about starting a choice program in your own district, or improving the one you already have, this site offers resources drawn from diverse districts across the country that have been identified as having promising practices related to choice.

Building Choice
http://www.buildingchoice.org/cs/bc/print/bc_docs/home.htm
A new website www.BuildingChoice.org has many tools and resources on public school choice, magnet schools, and charter schools that will be useful. Designed for school administrators and others involved with education management, the site offers an array of tools taken from real life experiences and used by districts and schools which have succeeded in implementing public school choice programs.

Privatizing Educational Choice: Consequences for Parents, Schools, and Public Policy By Clive R. Belfield and Henry M. Levin Paradigm Publishers
Order copies directly from the publisher at http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/

Has Research Oversimplified the Cases For and Against Privatization? Most analyses of the privatization of education fail to account for the complex nature of schooling. New initiatives are cast in the simple terminology of private versus public, allowing ideologues to sway public opinion with rhetoric instead of evidence. A new book by Clive R. Belfield and Henry M. Levin addresses this problem and examines in-depth the many forms and meanings of privatization. Specifically, five criteria- school sponsorship, governance, funding, production and outcomes-are used to describe home-schooling, private schools, charter schools and public schools. Policies designed to transfer public dollars to private enterprises, such as educational vouchers and tuition tax credits, are included in the discussion of private schools. The authors begin by explaining that all schools serve both private and public interests. Students acquire individual benefits that enhance life experiences, while cumulative gains spill over and enhance the larger society. To better understand the private and public influences that shape educational policies a comprehensive framework of analysis is introduced and advocated. All privatization and choice reforms can be analyzed according to how their regulation, finance and social services provisions impact freedom of choice, productive efficiency, equity and social cohesion. Subsequent chapters discuss specific issues in the privatization of education, including: the marketplace in education, early-childhood education, determinants of school choice, home-schooling, the effect of competition, schools as market suppliers, educational management organizations, and higher education and lifelong learning.

University of West Florida, Preparing All Learners for Success (PALS) Degrees/Certification in Career and Technical Education http://www.uwf.edu/pals

The University of West Florida, College of Professional Studies, offers Degrees/Certification in Career and Technical Education. The program includes Adult Education and Endorsements, Workforce Development Initiatives, Distance Education, Career Academy Training, Academic and Vocational Integration, Teacher Training, and Contextual Learning. For more information on this program, contact Dr. Wally Holmes Bouchillon at wholmesb@uwf.edu.

HOME SCHOOLING DATA NEEDS CLOSE LOOK
http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/11/20060211-A12-01.html

The neoconservatives managing the federal government have created for public schools an anomaly of requiring testing while, at the same time, encouraging parental autonomy through home schooling, vouchers, and charter schools. If education really is a state function, as provided by law, writes William Bainbridge, then careful attention needs to be provided for a more rigorous evaluation of home schooling processes and outcomes. On any given day in America, about 1.1 million children are being educated outside of a school, and about 2.2 percent of the total school-age population is home-schooled. About 77 percent of home-schooled children are white; 81 percent are from two-parent households, most of them where only one parent works. Parents give many reasons for home schooling their children, citing concerns about the public school environment (85 percent), a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (72 percent) and dissatisfaction with academic instruction (68 percent). Not surprisingly, education groups believe home schooling needs more-rigorous regulation. Other groups, however, contend that parents have a right to teach their children at home by their own standards.

FEW CHILDREN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NCLB TUTORING
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/education/12tutor.html

Four years after President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind education law, vast numbers of students are not getting the tutoring that the law offers as one of its hallmarks, reports Susan Saulny. In the nation's largest school district, New York City, fewer than half of the 215,000 eligible students sought the free tutoring, according to figures from the city's Department of Education for the school year that ended in June 2005. Yet New York's participation rate is better than the national average: across the country, roughly two million public school students were eligible for free tutoring in the school year that ended in 2004, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education, yet only 226,000 -- or nearly 12 percent -- received help. City and state education officials and tutoring company executives disagree on the reasons for the low participation and cast blame on each other. But they agree that the numbers show that states and school districts have not smoothed out the difficulties that have plagued the tutoring -- known as the supplemental educational services program -- from its start as a novel experiment in educational entrepreneurship: largely private tutoring paid for with federal money. Officials give multiple reasons for the problems: that the program is allotted too little federal money, is poorly advertised to parents, has too much complicated paperwork for signing up, and that it has not fully penetrated the most difficult neighborhoods, where there are high concentrations of poor, failing students.

TAX DEDUCTION FOR TEACHERS TO OFFSET CLASSROOM COSTS
http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/060213/9760.html?.v=1

Teaching takes a toll on many educators' pocketbooks as they routinely buy supplies for their financially strapped schools. Now there's a tax break for such academic dedication. Teachers and other educators can deduct up to $250 that they spent last year to buy classroom supplies. Even better, the deduction is claimed directly on Form 1040 or Form 1040A, meaning there's no need to itemize to get the break. Rather, it's an adjustment to your income, helping cut your tax bill by reducing your overall income. The less income to tax, the lower the tax bill. True, the deduction amount is relatively small, but more teachers should now be able to claim at least a portion of their school-related expenditures. In the past, these costs could be claimed only if they were included as miscellaneous itemized deductions on Schedule A. Even then, the expenses were useless unless they and all other allowable costs totaled at least 2 percent of the filer's adjusted gross income. The deduction is not limited to teachers. The Internal Revenue Service says you can take the deduction if, for the tax year, you were employed at a state-approved public or private school system as a: Teacher; Instructor; Counselor; Principal; or Aide.

Florida School Choice Home About Florida School Choice Resource Center Public School Choice Options Parent Resource Center Educator Resources No Child Left Behind Teaching/Learning Grants/Funding Research Library Professional Development School Improvement Marketing School Choice Technical Assistance Request Form District Resources Choice Newsletter Online Training Legislative Corner Upcoming Events Contact Us		Educator Resources Florida Magnet Schools A comprehensive list of all the magnet schools in the state of Florida. Procedures for Developing a School Choice Program Produced by the Florida School Choice Resource Center Equity, Diversity, and Excellence in Florida’s School Choice Programs: Good Educational Practice and Good Business A Pilot Study of Florida School Choice Mentor/Mentee Districts Small Schools Workshop http://www.smallschoolsworkshop.org The Small Schools Workshop is a group of educators, organizers and researchers based in the College of Education at the University of South Florida (Sarasota). National Center for School Choice http://www.vanderbilt.edu/schoolchoice/index.html The National Center for School Choice exercises national leadership in school choice research, including charter and magnet schools, private school vouchers, teacher recruitment, school management, and state policymaking. Florida Public School Choice Consortium http://www.fpscc.net This website, and associated electronic newsletter, are designed to maintain communication between educators and other stakeholders. The eNewsletter will profile continued efforts of the FPSCC and the awesome strides that are being made in terms of School Choice. Southeast Coalition of Essential Schools http://www.southeastces.org To create, promote, develop and sustain small diverse high performing secondary school programs incorporating the ten principles of the coalition of essential schools. Florida Charter Schools Consortium http://www.floridacharterschools.org Website with information about charter schools in Florida and links to related research and resources. No Child Left Behind On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The Act is the most sweeping reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since ESEA was enacted in 1965. It redefines the federal role in K-12 education and will help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. It is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work. NCLB School Choice Contacts 2007 - 2008 Florida Department of Education http://www.fldoe.org/NCLB/ The Florida Department of Education provides information on No Child Left Behind as it relates to public school education in Florida. The website provides memos, press releases and guidance on No Child Left Behind. US Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml?src=fp The US Department of Education provides a website for the Legislation, Regulations and Guidance regarding No Child Left Behind. Their website offers "one-stop-shopping" for links to legislation, Federal Register Notices, Policy Guidance, and Grant Applications for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Links to Legislation, Regulations, and Policy Guidance for programs still being implemented under the Improving America's Schools Act are also on the site. Building Choice USDOE School Choice http://www.buildingchoice.org The BuildingChoice.org website was designed with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement to help districts expand and improve their public school choice programs. The site features promising practices and materials from districts around the country and provides easy access to research, materials, and tools to implement and enhance public school choice. This Web site is designed to help districts raise student achievement through public school choice programs. If you've been thinking about starting a choice program in your own district, or improving the one you already have, this site offers resources drawn from diverse districts across the country that have been identified as having promising practices related to choice. Building Choice http://www.buildingchoice.org/cs/bc/print/bc_docs/home.htm A new website www.BuildingChoice.org has many tools and resources on public school choice, magnet schools, and charter schools that will be useful. Designed for school administrators and others involved with education management, the site offers an array of tools taken from real life experiences and used by districts and schools which have succeeded in implementing public school choice programs. Privatizing Educational Choice: Consequences for Parents, Schools, and Public Policy By Clive R. Belfield and Henry M. Levin Paradigm Publishers Order copies directly from the publisher at http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/ Has Research Oversimplified the Cases For and Against Privatization? Most analyses of the privatization of education fail to account for the complex nature of schooling. New initiatives are cast in the simple terminology of private versus public, allowing ideologues to sway public opinion with rhetoric instead of evidence. A new book by Clive R. Belfield and Henry M. Levin addresses this problem and examines in-depth the many forms and meanings of privatization. Specifically, five criteria- school sponsorship, governance, funding, production and outcomes-are used to describe home-schooling, private schools, charter schools and public schools. Policies designed to transfer public dollars to private enterprises, such as educational vouchers and tuition tax credits, are included in the discussion of private schools. The authors begin by explaining that all schools serve both private and public interests. Students acquire individual benefits that enhance life experiences, while cumulative gains spill over and enhance the larger society. To better understand the private and public influences that shape educational policies a comprehensive framework of analysis is introduced and advocated. All privatization and choice reforms can be analyzed according to how their regulation, finance and social services provisions impact freedom of choice, productive efficiency, equity and social cohesion. Subsequent chapters discuss specific issues in the privatization of education, including: the marketplace in education, early-childhood education, determinants of school choice, home-schooling, the effect of competition, schools as market suppliers, educational management organizations, and higher education and lifelong learning. University of West Florida, Preparing All Learners for Success (PALS) Degrees/Certification in Career and Technical Education http://www.uwf.edu/pals The University of West Florida, College of Professional Studies, offers Degrees/Certification in Career and Technical Education. The program includes Adult Education and Endorsements, Workforce Development Initiatives, Distance Education, Career Academy Training, Academic and Vocational Integration, Teacher Training, and Contextual Learning. For more information on this program, contact Dr. Wally Holmes Bouchillon at wholmesb@uwf.edu. HOME SCHOOLING DATA NEEDS CLOSE LOOK http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/11/20060211-A12-01.html The neoconservatives managing the federal government have created for public schools an anomaly of requiring testing while, at the same time, encouraging parental autonomy through home schooling, vouchers, and charter schools. If education really is a state function, as provided by law, writes William Bainbridge, then careful attention needs to be provided for a more rigorous evaluation of home schooling processes and outcomes. On any given day in America, about 1.1 million children are being educated outside of a school, and about 2.2 percent of the total school-age population is home-schooled. About 77 percent of home-schooled children are white; 81 percent are from two-parent households, most of them where only one parent works. Parents give many reasons for home schooling their children, citing concerns about the public school environment (85 percent), a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (72 percent) and dissatisfaction with academic instruction (68 percent). Not surprisingly, education groups believe home schooling needs more-rigorous regulation. Other groups, however, contend that parents have a right to teach their children at home by their own standards. FEW CHILDREN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NCLB TUTORING http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/education/12tutor.html Four years after President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind education law, vast numbers of students are not getting the tutoring that the law offers as one of its hallmarks, reports Susan Saulny. In the nation's largest school district, New York City, fewer than half of the 215,000 eligible students sought the free tutoring, according to figures from the city's Department of Education for the school year that ended in June 2005. Yet New York's participation rate is better than the national average: across the country, roughly two million public school students were eligible for free tutoring in the school year that ended in 2004, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education, yet only 226,000 -- or nearly 12 percent -- received help. City and state education officials and tutoring company executives disagree on the reasons for the low participation and cast blame on each other. But they agree that the numbers show that states and school districts have not smoothed out the difficulties that have plagued the tutoring -- known as the supplemental educational services program -- from its start as a novel experiment in educational entrepreneurship: largely private tutoring paid for with federal money. Officials give multiple reasons for the problems: that the program is allotted too little federal money, is poorly advertised to parents, has too much complicated paperwork for signing up, and that it has not fully penetrated the most difficult neighborhoods, where there are high concentrations of poor, failing students. TAX DEDUCTION FOR TEACHERS TO OFFSET CLASSROOM COSTS http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/060213/9760.html?.v=1 Teaching takes a toll on many educators' pocketbooks as they routinely buy supplies for their financially strapped schools. Now there's a tax break for such academic dedication. Teachers and other educators can deduct up to $250 that they spent last year to buy classroom supplies. Even better, the deduction is claimed directly on Form 1040 or Form 1040A, meaning there's no need to itemize to get the break. Rather, it's an adjustment to your income, helping cut your tax bill by reducing your overall income. The less income to tax, the lower the tax bill. True, the deduction amount is relatively small, but more teachers should now be able to claim at least a portion of their school-related expenditures. In the past, these costs could be claimed only if they were included as miscellaneous itemized deductions on Schedule A. Even then, the expenses were useless unless they and all other allowable costs totaled at least 2 percent of the filer's adjusted gross income. The deduction is not limited to teachers. The Internal Revenue Service says you can take the deduction if, for the tax year, you were employed at a state-approved public or private school system as a: Teacher; Instructor; Counselor; Principal; or Aide.