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Teacher Confidential: FCAT Victim is your child....

Article I just found on The Ledger online. This echos my own feelings about these tests. This is part of the reason I do not have my Kindergartener in a public school!

I definitely think parents need to be protesting the FCAT system more rigorously.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110405/NEWS/104055011/1326?p=1&a...

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Permalink Reply by Alicia (Alsan) on April 6, 2011 at 8:24am

I agree with the frustration of the FCAT and that all instruction decisions are based on the mighty FCAT but complaining to your principal or school board will do no good. The FCAT is mandated by No Child Left Behind which is a federal piece of legislature. All states must test in reading and math.

But making the tests high stakes - tying mandatory retention or graduation to test results, that's not part of No Child Left Behind. That's our state legislatures. Not all states have high stakes testing and it's not required by federal law. It has always made me INSANE that science and social studies instruction gets dropped in elementary school (except 5th when science is an FCAT subtest) in the months leading to FCAT.

So contact your state and federal representatives if you want to try and make a change. You can contact the school board too, but it's really not up to them. The good news is the FCAT as we know it is on it's way out thanks to one of the new bills FL passed. The bad news is there will still be the standardized testing just in all subject areas, I'm not clear though on how that will work in elementary school. I'm all for testing for mastery of material, I just don't trust them to get the test right and I guess it will still be high stakes which I have huge issue with.