Monthly Archives: October 2012

The proposal of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Higher Education to charge lower tuition for science and engineering majors at Florida’s universities is the first serious proposal for incentivizing the state’s students to enter these fields.  The task … Continue reading →

From “Florida has STEM jobs, but not grads to fill them” in this morning’s Sentinel: “I don’t think you can talk about jobs and the economy without talking about the disconnect that I think exists between our education system and the … Continue reading →

You know that the draft report of the Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education has made you wonder about that. The short answer is that Florida is not Illinois, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin (I’ll deal with Texas later). Look at this … Continue reading →

The Governor rolled out his legislative agenda for education at a conference in Fort Myers this morning.  The written statement is available on the Governor’s web site here. “Common Core”, which includes math and English language arts, is highlighted.  The … Continue reading →

Update (Wednesday evening):  Here is the South Florida Sun-Sentinel story. From the Associated Press: Charging different tuition rates for various degree programs could be used to encourage students to enter those fields deemed to be of strategic importance to the state’s needs … Continue reading →

Bill Nye the Science Guy, as quoted in today’s Florida Today: In general, if you want somebody who graduated from an engineering school, for him or her to take a job as a teacher, (we should) pay that person as much … Continue reading →

The debate on race-based goals (see this update from the Orlando Sentinel) is yet another distraction for Florida’s education system from this central truth, uttered by the Gates Foundation’s Stefanie Sanford and quoted in Sunday’s New York Times by Thomas Friedman:  … Continue reading →

From an FSU press release: A group of educational researchers at Florida State University are drawing widespread attention after their paper measuring the superior results of a more “student-centered” approach to teaching science was published in the pre-eminent journal Science. The … Continue reading →

From a post at the Gainesville Sun education blog Chalkboard: State university students in high-demand fields might end up paying lower tuition than their classmates under a plan being considered by the governor’s higher education task force. The task force … Continue reading →

From Sunshine State News: A release posted by the Department of Economic Opportunity, and sent out in an email to the media on Tuesday, notes there were more than 64,000 online job openings in fields tied to science, technology, engineering and … Continue reading →