State Lawmakers Pass Sweeping Education Reform

State lawmakers passed sweeping education reforms in a race to get hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money. 400-million dollars are up for grabs under President Barack Obama's ‘Race to the Top Competition.' Fewer than half the states are likely to win the money. State lawmakers said this legislation should give Michigan a better chance.

Lawmakers are calling this the biggest education reform in 20 years. They passed five bills to make up this race to the top package. The changes would make it easier to remove poor performing teachers and create a merit-based pay system to reward good performance. The bills also allow for some thirty additional charter schools. The measure also increased the dropout age from 16 to 18. Of course lawmakers hope all of these are things help qualify Michigan for the federal money....

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Florida's Fort Pierce charter school closing?

By James Kirley

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — An injunction that would have kept students in classes and public money flowing to a 14-month-old charter high school has been denied by a circuit court judge, leaving a state hearing as the school’s last chance to survive.

On Friday, Circuit Judge William Roby dismissed a complaint and request for an injunction by The Charter School of Fort Pierce.

Roby said the charter school had failed to show that irreparable harm will result without an injunction.

“On the other hand, after extensive review, it appears that the school board, which is responsible for all public schools and public school students in St. Lucie County, found that deficiencies at the school pose an immediate threat to the educational welfare of students attending the school,” Roby wrote.

The St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously Nov. 10 to close the school after district officials and a third-party audit indicated the publicly funded, privately run charter school was operating in the red. The charter school filed for an injunction Nov. 19.

Like all public schools, the charter school got state funding based on student enrollment. But it never achieved the enrollment envisioned in its business plan.

The charter school posted the school district’s only “F” when school grades based on results of the 2009 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results were released last spring. Charter school officials said their first-ever grade was because many of their students had struggled and performed poorly in traditional public schools in prior years...

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