Bill > S0524

This bill introduces several changes to Florida's education system, including establishing a performance-based incentive program for Florida College System institutions that will award funding based on metrics like retention rates, graduation rates, and post-graduation employment and salaries, with specific wage thresholds to reflect the value of degrees. It also creates a "Distinguished Florida College System Program" to recognize high-performing colleges that meet seven specific excellence standards, making them eligible for additional funding. For state universities, the bill refines the criteria for "preeminent" and "emerging preeminent" research university designations, adjusting standards for rankings, faculty achievements, research expenditures, patents, doctoral degrees, and endowments, and outlines how funding will be allocated to these institutions. Additionally, the bill establishes a "Principal Autonomy Pilot Program Initiative" to grant increased autonomy to principals in struggling schools in select districts, allowing them to operate with more flexibility in exchange for meeting specific student achievement goals, and modifies the equity in school-level funding to ensure participating schools in this pilot program receive at least 90% of their generated funds. The legislation also creates the "Florida Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship Program" to award scholarships to teachers who achieved high academic scores on their SAT or ACT and are rated as highly effective, and revises eligibility for the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program to allow children to attend for an additional year if they turn six by February 1st of the school year. Finally, it introduces a competency-based innovation pilot program for certain schools and districts, allowing students to advance based on mastery rather than time, and makes adjustments to charter school capital outlay funding rules and school construction cost maximums.