Tagged: education

The Florida Lottery is getting an image makeover to coincide with its 25th anniversary.

An audience of Bright Futures scholarship winners applauded as the new logo was unveiled at Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee.

Lottery leaders showcased the new logo, which prominently features a pink flamingo.

Florida Lottery Secretary Cynthia O’Connell says the redesigned brand should help lure new players.

The State Board of Educations recently permitted many changes that paved the way for higher grades to label Florida's high schools with. 

According to State Impact, "The board lowered the passing grade on the state writing test, suspended the penalty for schools whose lowest-performing students did not improve their scores and only allowed school grades to drop by a maximum of one letter."

The News Service of Florida

Florida voters are overwhelmingly against charging college tuition based on what people study, skeptical that degrees can be offered for $10,000 and strongly against setting different educational goals based on race, a new poll has found.

The series on remedial education at Florida’s colleges by NPR’s StateImpact Florida and the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting has prompted lots of conversations: Why are so many high school graduates needing remediation in college?  Should a high school diploma be a certificate of college readiness -- perhaps only for some students.

We chatted online with StateImpact’s Sarah Gonzalez and FCIR’s Mc Nelly Torres along with a social media audience of students, educators and people interested in education policy.

Florida's next public university could be Online U.

Depending on how the Florida Board of Governors reconciles several issues with  expert recommendations, the Legislature may be asked next year to establish the 13th state university for Internet students only.

The indicators are good for welcome and acceptance by degree-seeking students, according to Gina Jordan's story for StateImpact Florida:

Throughout the Great Recession, laid-off workers have been trying to improve their re-employment prospects with college training.

But, once they enroll at their local community colleges, many are finding that that their math, reading and writing skills have atrophied so much they can't continue at the college level without remedial classes.

Wendy Pedroso has never liked math, but for most of elementary school and middle school she got B’s in the subject. It wasn’t until ninth grade at Miami Southwest Senior High School, when Pedroso took algebra, that she hit a wall. In particular, she struggled with understanding fractions.

“I kept getting stuck in the same place,” Pedroso, 20, recalled recently. She failed the class, and worried that she’d never get to go to college. Pedroso sought help from tutors, took algebra again over the summer and passed. She went on to graduate from high school in 2011.

Shakira Lockett was a pretty good student in elementary, middle and high school. The Miami-Dade County native says she typically earned As and Bs in English classes.

Math was always something of a struggle for Lockett. Still, she got through her high school exit exam with a passing grade and went on to graduate from Coral Gables Senior High School in 2008.

She went straight to Miami Dade College. Then, something unexpected happened: She flunked the college placement exams in all three subjects – reading, writing and math.

The series on remedial education exposed what some in the public school system at the secondary and college level already knew: that many students are graduating from high school unprepared for college. 

Most students who receive Bright Futures scholarships would have to stay in Florida after graduation or pay back the money under a law proposed in Tallahassee.  If approved, he law would take effect with the 2014-15 school year. The bill was filed by Republican Representative Jimmie Smith.