The first measures to pass in either chamber came Wednesday in the Senate, as members approved a scaled-back plan to take regulations off the books for public schools.
The legislative package, a priority of Passidomo, consists of three wide-ranging bills that are aimed at what she characterized as “cutting red tape” for the state school system.
One measure underwent a significant change that nixed a provision related to the state’s third-grade literacy policy, after former Gov. Jeb Bush heavily criticized it.
The bill (SB 7004) would make changes related to state assessments and instruction.
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For example, the bill would remove a requirement that high-school students pass the state’s tenth-grade English-language arts exams in order to graduate.
Instead, the exam would count for 30 percent of the students’ final course grade.
But part of the proposal received high-profile pushback from Bush, who nearly 25 years ago championed reforms that the measure sought to — in Bush’s words — water down.
A previous version of the bill proposed to remove a requirement that third-grade students score adequately on an English-language arts exam to advance to fourth grade. Instead, the measure would have changed the policy to allow parents to override decisions about retaining students if the parent “determines retention is not in the best interest of the student and approves a good cause exemption” to advance the student.
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That part of the measure was removed through revisions to the bill that were backed by its sponsor Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee.
Simon has touted the deregulation effort as a way to let teachers place more focus on classroom instruction, which he has said would benefit students.
“Over the years, our education code has only grown. And there are great ideas from great senators and great House members. But those great ideas have added up over the years, and it’s cost our students,” Simon said just before the Senate unanimously passed the measure.
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