Education

At any given place in Miami-Dade County, you’re likely being surveilled.

Modern times demand modern solutions — that’s why one Florida researcher argues it’s important to teach teens “safe sexting.”

A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) warns that recommendations issued by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission are militarizing public schools in Florida and putting students at risk.

Last week, New Times published an article based on a new report by the nonprofit Education Reform Now on racial funding gaps in Florida’s public school system. Saturday, a spokesperson for the group informed New Times that the authors had mistakenly assessed the schools’ nonwhite enrollment, drastically altering the report’s findings.

The back-to-school season never seemed so grim. To the dismay of parents, bulletproof backpacks now join 64-count crayon boxes and binders on shopping lists for the new school year.

As Florida struggles to fill thousands of empty teaching positions, developers in the Miami area continue to erect expensive (and largely vacant) condo towers. This witch’s brew of scant affordable housing and abysmal pay for teachers has made Miami one of the worst metropolitan areas in the nation for an entry-level schoolteacher.

In a cramped studio inside Florida International University’s student union, two friends sit side-by-side in swiveling office chairs and sidle up to the microphone. Six spotlights radiate from above as one of them presses the “record” button.

A recent study by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida shows that in Miami-Dade County, black children make up only 20 percent of the student population but account for almost 60 percent of student arrests. Following the report’s release, school board member Steve Gallon III has proposed that the board itself should analyze these disparities each year…

Technology today puts the world at students’ fingertips — but in many ways, education in some communities still lags behind. Despite a push for more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes and programs in Florida, a large number of public school students still lack access to the real-world training necessary to prepare them for careers in science.

In a post-Parkland world, Florida lawmakers made an extremely logical and not-at-all-crazy move to prevent school shootings by passing a bill allowing teachers to bring guns to school and act as a scholastic militia. Since the passing of this legislation, researchers have some news: This actually won’t help at all.

As of mere days ago, it appeared David Hogg and Kyle Kashuv — two survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre who became activists on opposite sides of the political spectrum — were about to attend Harvard University together.

For the third year in a row, Verizon Wireless is offering a free STEM summer camp at Florida International University with the admirable goal of increasing minority representation in science and math fields. But apparently they forgot that girls, too, are underrepresented. The camp is for boys only.

South Florida counties may prohibit teachers from carrying weapons.

Besides the public’s opposition to arming teachers, there’s plenty of evidence it can be downright dangerous. New Times has identified a litany of troubling incidents involving Florida educators and guns, including many that have gone previously unreported.

The livelihoods of college professors have gotten increasingly precarious over the last few decades. Universities keep cutting nonscience programs and offering fewer professorships while hiring more teachers as “adjuncts,” who make just a few thousand dollars per class, per semester. A recent report from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) found that 70 percent of Florida public-university professors are now adjuncts.

In 2018, Miami-Dade County residents passed a ballot initiative that gave a $232 million pay raise to public schoolteachers. That seemed logical since Florida teachers rank among the lowest-paid educators in America. While the ballot’s language clearly stated the raise was supposed to go to public schools only, Florida’s…

More than 10,000 people of Haitian ancestry live in Miramar, a city with the fifth-highest Haitian population in Florida. Naturally, the local public schools have a large number of Haitian students — after the devastating 2010 earthquake on the island, Miramar High School took in 46 Haitian refugees, more than…

As it stands, not every child who grows up in Florida gets access to the state’s full slate of college financial-aid packages. If you’re born in the United States, you qualify for everything, from the state’s Bright Futures scholarship programs to a whole host of other grants. But if you’re…

DeSantis’ advisory board includes two members of the Florida Citizens’ Alliance, which hates Islam.

Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade County School Board decided to consider installing sensors in school bathrooms to deal with what they called the epidemic of teens vaping on campus. The district is still researching that idea, but in the meantime has come up with a different solution: making kids sign…

Most Americans (up North, at least) likely made it through high-school history class without their teacher flying a Confederate flag in the classroom. It’s perfectly easy to teach kids about the pro-slavery Confederacy without draping the Rebel banner across the room.

Teachers will get a raise if MIami-Dade voters approve a referendum that would allow the county to raise $232 million a year through an increase in property taxes over the next four years.