Race to the Top. Florida Report. Year 4: School Year 2013-2014. [State-Specific Summary Report]
Author: Department of Education (ED)
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Academic Standards,Accountability,Achievement Gap,Administrator Effectiveness,Alignment (Education),Budgets,Career Readiness,Charter Schools,College Readiness,Core Curriculum,Data,Educational Assessment,Educational Change,Educational Improvement,Elementary Secondary Education,Federal Legislation,Federal Aid,Educational Legislation,Federal Programs,Formative Evaluation,Grants,Higher Education,Language Arts,Leadership Effectiveness,Literacy,Low Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Measurement Objectives,Models,Outcomes of Education,Partnerships in Education,Poverty,Principals,Professional Development,Program Effectiveness,Program Implementation,School Districts,School Effectiveness,School Turnaround,State Government,State Standards,STEM Education,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Evaluation,Student Characteristics,National Competency Tests

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Florida's annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. Some highlights of accomplishments, challenges, and plans reported for the year ahead include: Florida effectively communicated with educators to raise Collaborate, Plan, Align, Learn, Motivate, and Share (CPALMS) awareness and made system updates to improve the user experience. The State continued to support Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) attempting to improve instructional, administrative, and supervisory quality in Florida schools with the implementation of new LEA teacher and principal evaluation systems. As part of this effort, all participating LEAs now target professional development to teachers based on evaluation data. Based on external evaluation reports and feedback from selected LEA educators, the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) founded two programs that sought to increase participants' leadership skills and content knowledge, the Commissioner's Leadership Academy and Community of Practice series, were highly valued by participants. As part of the State's targeted support to its persistently lowest-achieving (PLA) schools, in Year 4 the State continued operating the District Accountability Summer Academy, the Teach For America program in Miami-Dade and Duval counties, and the new turnaround leaders recruiting and training programs Miami-Dade, Alachua, Pinellas, Orange, and Duval Counties. In addition, the State identified a philanthropic partner to support LEA and charter school collaboration and committed an additional $2,000,000 in State funds to support the charter school expansion project through the end of the grant period. Other noteworthy successes by the State included increased District Accountability Summer Academy participant satisfaction compared to Year 3 and a District Accountability Summer Academy participant registry that easily exceeded the four year goal of 4,500. A series of delays during Years 1 through 3 challenged the State to introduce the single sign-on portal for educator use later than anticipated. With system upgrades now in place and the State having met its revised application roll-out timelines, FLDOE is in a position to realize its intended goal of having a, &quot;centralized portal to serve as the gateway to publicly accessible information, and to secure confidential applications.&quot; Looking ahead to SY 2014-2015, Year 5, Florida will execute the last of its Race to the Top contracts, marking the culmination of a reform agenda formally articulated in Florida's 2010 Race to the Top application, and initiated by State leaders many years prior. Year 5 is also significant because it will be the first time Florida Standards and their aligned State assessments of student learning will be fully implemented. More detailed information is provided in this report and a glossary is also provided. [For &quot;Race to the Top. Florida Report. Year 3: School Year 2012-2013. [State-Specific Summary Report],&quot; see ED580300.]