School choice for families, including tax credit scholarships, prekindergarten vouchers, scholarships for students with disabilities, charter schools and virtual schools.

Funding for achievement, including performance bonuses for teachers and consolidation of funding to target failing schools.

The dinner is the chamber’s largest annual event. Member tickets are $145, nonmembers $175, and member tables of 10 are $1,450.

For the rest of the article, go to Morris Chamber dinner: Jeb Bush to share school reform ideas

Florida Virtual School reported scores that averaged 12 percentage points higher than conventional high schools on the 2011 AP exams. The Internet-based school offered 15 AP courses to 3,053 students, an 18 percent increase from the previous year.

Some 58 percent of FLVS test-takers achieved qualifying scores of 3, 4 or 5, compared with 46 percent at conventional campuses around Florida. The FLVS success rate matched the national average.

For the rest of the article, go to Spending $2,159 Less Per Student, Online School Outscores Florida Campuses on AP Exams

“She could drive me, so it was really convenient,” said Dombrowski, who racked up his college credits during the school year and over the summer high school break. “I didn’t have to deal with the transportation problems that a lot of kids who don’t have their license have.”

And the price was right.

“That I don’t have to pay for tuition or books was a major factor in me wanting to dual enroll,” he said.

For the rest of the article, go to Pasco High student gets head start on college with extra classes

Those online courses generally are provided by the Florida Virtual School and Florida Connections Academy, both approved by the state. Students take the courses at no cost and their respective school districts pay the tuition fees.

Treasure Coast educators want to develop a locally produced virtual school program that would use and pay local teachers, not online teachers from out of the area.

For the rest of the article, go to Editorial: School district cooperation evident in creation of Treasure Coast virtual school

How can parents decide?

First, remember that all children are different and what works for one family may not work for yours, said Heather Lambie, a mother of two at the private Canterbury School of Florida.

“You know your child best,” she said, “so you know what their comfort level is, academically and socially.”

For the rest of the article, go to Parents share tips on finding the school that fits

Florida Virtual School’s cheerleaders argue that it educates students faster, better and cheaper than traditional schools. Faster and cheaper, perhaps. The school touts a bargain price, saying it saves $2,100 per pupil compared with regular schools. But better? As Tampa Bay Times staff writers Rebecca Catalanello and Marlene Sokol reported last Sunday, those performance claims often overreach, and true accountability — so valued by legislators in traditional public schools — is spotty at best.

For the rest of the article, go to Limits of online education

Home school students could also choose virtual classes a la carte if the bill is approved.

Another bill would aid students who want to graduate high school in less than four years without reducing funding at their high school. Schools would receive four years’ worth of funding for each student, even if those students took additional classes to graduate early.

For the rest of the article, go to Budget and School Choice Lead Florida Education Agenda

Given this, I’d be surprised if districts could simply shift to the new funding model Hill describes—and even if that didn’t matter, because this funding is opposed to how they operate today, they will predictably gear up to fight the sort of wholesale change for which Hill advocates.

It’s one of the reasons that I think a more fruitful way forward, at least for now, is to create these new funding models for the online learning entities that are growing—just as Florida did with the Florida Virtual School, for example—and build on the change from there as these disruptive innovations gain share.

For the rest of the article, go to School Finance in the Digital-Learning Era: A Review

These lesson introduction excerpts were provided by Florida Virtual School show lesson obectives. To see more class examples:

For the rest of the article, go to Florida Virtual School: A growing enterprise

Florida Virtual School

In less than 15 years, Florida Virtual School has become the largest state-funded online K-12 school in the nation, an enterprise with a $166.3 million budget and close to 1,500 employees and 130,000 students. It offers more than 110 courses, from core subjects like algebra to electives such as Chinese and guitar.

Florida education leaders have turned to Florida Virtual as a solution to overcrowded classes, limited course offerings and budget cuts. It is the darling of politicians enamored of its price tag; Florida Virtual bills itself as a bargain, educating for $2,100 less per pupil than traditional schools.

And it makes millions. How many public schools can say that?

“I think we have already made a huge impact in Florida, and that’s only going to continue to grow,” says Florida Virtual board chairman Bob Muni.

But in a state that puts a premium on standardized testing, there is no clear, across-the-board measure to compare the performance of Florida Virtual students to those in brick-and-mortar schools.

For the rest of the article, go to Success of Florida Virtual School is difficult to measure