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Social Media Aflutter with Florida's Education Achievements, New Standards

March 27, 2014 - 7:00pm

The Foundation for Excellence in Education has a new campaign to promote Floridas education successes, taking to social media and television airwaves to speak about the positive strides made in the Sunshine States education system.

"Learn More. Go Further." began in last fall, with a heavy focus on Floridas education system. Its mission: to educate the public about Floridas education success story and great results for students, teachers and schools.

In the mid-2000s we had gone from the Sunshine State Standards to the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards as kind of the halfway point to Common Core, now the Florida Standards, explained Jaryn Ernhof, director of communications for the Foundation for Excellence in Education. We discovered that the raising of these standards and the state of education in Florida in general was Floridas best kept secret.

Emhof told Sunshine State News that there just wasnt a lot of information regarding Floridas achievement readily available for public consumption -- and so "Learn More. Go Further." was born.

Teachers from across the state have recently become involved in the campaign. Four involved in LMGF have their own Twitter accounts where they tweet messages in support of Floridas achievements and vouch for Floridas new education standards.

As a teacher AND a parent, I want what's best for ALL children -- that's why I support Florida's higher standards, wrote Faye Adams, a teacher from Tampa.

Former teacher -- now assistant principal -- Beth McClaulin is another educator who joined forces with LMGF on a volunteer basis to promote Floridas new education standards. Her Twitter account, FLTeacherBeth, bears a striking resemblance to Adams and other teachers affiliated with the campaign. Many tweets are identical.

Emhof told SSN the LMGF team works on the ground, meeting with teachers, parents and community leaders to get them involved in the campaign.

For McClaulin, it was her firsthand experience in dealing with questions about education standards that led her to get involved in the campaign.

I was concerned about the message that parents were coming to me as an educator, asking me about these Common Core standards and the Florida Standards and the misconceptions that they had about the whole process, she said. I felt like I wanted to have a voice and help everybody that has school-age children be educated on what the standards were really and truly all about.

The teachers have appeared on social media as well as inTV ads.

While the campaign promotes the positive steps Floridas made over the last several years, it also promotes a topic that has gathered significant controversy over the last year -- Common Core.

LMGFs website speaks highly of the standards and attempts to dispel myths propagated by anti-Common Core activists, condemning the notion that CCSS is a federal program and assuring that the new standards will give students a deeper understanding of classroom material.

The standards provide clarity and consistency for what students across our country are expected to learn. This initiative helps provide all students with an equal opportunity for a high-quality education, regardless of where they live, reads the site.

LMGF has plans to continue hitting ground zero in education as Florida transitions to the new Florida Standards and a new assessment test next year. LMGF ads will run for 10 weeks, but Emhof said the campaign to promote Floridas education achievements will go on for the next two years -- and possibly beyond.

This year and next year are particularly critical years, said Emhof. [The campaign] may not always be specific Learn More. Go Further. in the outer years, but I dont think the conversation really ends.

Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen atAllison@sunshinestatenews.comor follow her on Twitter at @AllisonNielsen.

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