State Rep. Marlene O’Toole, R-The Villages, joined in Gov. Rick Scott’s three-day education summit in Clearwater, but the governor was a no-show.
Although Scott called the summit, he did not attend. Rather, he tapped Interim Education Commissioner Pam Stewart to be his representative at the event.
The Education Accountability Summit brought together dozens of the state’s education leaders.
“I want to thank Gov. Scott for bringing such a diverse group together … I have truly learned a lot and I believe that is true of everyone here. While there is still work to be done, the good news is that much consensus has been reached. We now have a clear starting point for this critical work ahead,” O’Toole said.
Ultimately, the group decided to focus on four strategic priorities:
• State Standards. Continuing to raise the bar on education standards, by including an emphasis on critical and analytical thinking, to drive continued improvement by Florida students;
• State Standard Assessments. Ensuring the assessment that replaces the FCAT will accurately measure the more challenging standards that will be taught to our students, provides meaningful performance information to our students, is cost effective, results are timely provided and we do not unnecessarily become intertwined with the federal government.
• School Grades. Improving our education accountability system to further ensure transparency and fairness while providing meaningful and useful information to our parents and educators about how our students and schools are performing; and
• Teacher Evaluations. Understanding how our teachers are evaluated, ensuring transparency throughout the process and using a fair system to identify, recognize and reward our highly performing teachers.
