Connecting moms in Polk County, Fla.
Hello! This blog is for compiling some of the many scattered writings regarding the FCAT.
Since FCAT scores come out in phases the information in the news comes out in bits and pieces too.
Hopefully someone will find this helpful!
FCAT 2.0 Call Center: Open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday for parents to ask questions about the FCAT and recent changes to the state's accountability system. 866-507-1109
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Writings:
1) Leaders to Discuss FCAT at Education Summit (in Orlando) 5/29/12:
http://www.clickorlando.com/Leaders-to-discuss-FCAT-at-Education-Su...
2) Education commissioner addresses FCAT concerns in black community
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-27/news/os-gerald-robin...
3) Give the FCAT an F
http://www2.tbo.com/news/life/2012/may/27/banewso1-give-the-fcat-an...
4) Lyons: Scoring for FCAT writing test misses mark
/20120516/COLUMNIST/120519657/2256/NEWS?Title=Lyons-Scoring-for-FCA...
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2012-05-22/story/le...
Views: 777
Comment
Comment by Kim Boone on June 24, 2012 at 9:54pm http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-06-23/features/os-seminole...
SANFORD — Bill Vogel has grave concerns about the future of public education in Florida as he ends nine years at the helm of one of Florida's highest-achieving school districts.
With local control largely lost to the state Legislature and governor, Vogel says, school boards across Florida are being marginalized to the point where they have little say on how to run their own schools.
Comment by Kim Boone on June 24, 2012 at 9:49pm http://impactnews.com/articles/parents-prep-for-fight-at-capitol-ag...
When the 83rd Texas Legislature convenes Jan. 8, lawmakers will be asked to consider legislation that would reduce or eliminate the effect the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test has on high school students’ grades.
The bill is being drafted by a grassroots coalition, Texans Advocating Meaningful Student Assessments, formed in January by Anderson High School parents.
“The way testing is done under STAAR takes all the joy, all the creativity and love of learning out of our classrooms. Because so much depends on the test scores, kids are no longer learning to think critically. They just learn to be test-taking machines,” said TAMSA member Dineen Majcher, who has a 10th grade student at Anderson.
Students in third through ninth grades took the STAAR test for the first time in March. The ninth-grade class that just finished the school year is the first to have to pass up to 15 end-of-course exams, among other thresholds put in place by lawmakers, to graduate high school.
In its appeal to the Legislature, TAMSA will be joined by nearly 500 Texas school districts—including the Austin, Round Rock and Pflugerville ISDs—that have signed a resolution stating their disapproval of high-stakes testing and asking lawmakers to re-examine the 2009 law that led to the creation of STAAR.
TAMSA, along with some other critics of STAAR, say they are not against standardized tests. Rather, they do not agree with the level of stakes that are now tied to them.
Unlike the state’s previous standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills—which students needed to pass at various grade levels to graduate—STAAR has several tiers of requirements. One of those requirements is that STAAR end-of-course tests, taken only by ninth through 11th graders, count for 15 percent of students’ final grades.
While details of TAMSA’s bill are still being worked out, Majcher said it would definitely get rid of the 15 percent rule, as the rule places an unreasonable amount of pressure on students.
Anderson High School Principal Donna Houser said educators are also feeling the pressure.
“The accountability over the years has become more invasive upon the curriculum focus,” she said. “In other words, the curriculum is being modified to meet the demands of the test rather than the test assessing what should be taught in that core curriculum.”
Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said the TEA encourages teachers to focus on the state curriculum.
Beyond the classroom time being dedicated to test preparation is also the large expenses that come it, critics said.
Anderson allocates $26,000 each year, about 15 percent of its annual budget, to test preparation. AISD is spending nearly $500,000 on remediation courses this summer for students who did not pass one or more of the tests, spokeswoman Erin Moore said. Meanwhile, the Texas Legislature has cut education funding by $5.4 billion statewide.
At the urging of some lawmakers, TEA Commissioner Robert Scott allowed districts to delay the 15 percent rule for the 2011–12 school year. Of Texas’ 1,235 districts, 1,150, or 93 percent, took Scott up on his offer.
“It was really hard for us to prepare for the test, and the fact that they even considered making it 15 percent of our grade was just absurd to me,” said Kameron Schultz, a 15-year-old sophomore at Anderson.
Unless legislators amend the statute or adopt a different one at the 2013 general session—or the incoming TEA commissioner (Scott announced in May his resignation effective July 2) finds a way to defer the 15 percent rule for another year—high school students taking the test next spring will see their final grades, as well as their GPA and class rank, affected by the results.
Since the birth of accountability ratings in Texas in 1993, the average four-year graduation rate for state public schools has risen from an estimated 66.1 percent in 1995–96 to 75.4 percent in 2009–10, the most recent data available, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Experts interviewed for this article said there is no scientific data that links standardized test scores and academic performance, but Drew Scheberle, senior vice president for education and talent development at the Austin Chamber of Commerce, said he thinks the improvement in the graduation rate is because students now have skin in the game.
“If everything was so wonderful without high-stakes testing, why was it that in our inner cities, 80 percent of our students were failing basic tests of literacy and numeracy?” he asked.
The problem with STAAR, Scheberle said, is not the stakes but the way TEA implemented the test. Educators were given a limited amount of material to help prepare students and even now run the risk of losing their teaching license if they ask a student what was on the test.
One Anderson biology teacher compensated for the insufficiency of material by spending the bulk of winter break going through more than 1,600 test questions on a New York exam created by Pearson, the company that put together STAAR, Houser said.
The teacher assessed the questions based on what students are expected to learn in Texas and then began every class with a warm-up question. Students who did not get the warm-up question correct spent their lunch period going over the subject matter and had to answer a similar question correctly to receive participation points.
Test results, released in June, indicate this type of rigorous preparation paid off. Anderson ranked higher than the 90th percentile in biology statewide. The school also scored above the 90th percentile in algebra I, algebra II, geometry and world geography.
However, Ratcliffe said the TEA does not endorse repetitive drills and defended the agency’s implementation of the test.
“I believe we have done a good job implementing STAAR given the time limits and legal requirements that are in place,” she said.
Fifty-four percent of Austin ISD ninth- grade students passed the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course writing exam, the lowest passing rate of the five STAAR subjects.
Students performed best in biology, which had an 84 percent passing rate, followed by an 83 percent passing rate in algebra I. Seventy-eight percent of students passed world geography, and 69 percent passed reading.
Students who failed any of the STAAR tests are required to attend EOC, or end-of-course, Prep Camp at either Anderson or Bowie high schools. The camp runs from 9:15 a.m.–1:45 p.m. daily June 12–29.
Camp attendees will retake in July the tests they did not pass.
The passing score for the reading and writing tests is 65 percent, and 34 percent for the rest of the tests, according to the Texas Education Agency.
Comment by Kim Boone on June 23, 2012 at 7:48pm http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120623/COLUMNISTS0205/3062300...
Rosanne Wood is the former principal at SAIL High School in Tallahassee and an education consultant for Leon County Schools. Contact her at rosannewood @gmail.com.
More
The Florida Legislature, “Race to the Top” and the Florida Department of Education seem to be following the questionable advice of “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”
They certainly have gone on a binge when it comes to standardized testing. Never in my 37 years as an educator have I seen such a misguided waste of time, energy and resources as the current Florida “accountability” system.
Many teachers and support staff haven’t gotten a raise in several, yet companies such as NCS Pearson have gotten lucrative contracts to make and score these tests and then sell programs to the schools to remediate their students ($7 billion in sales nationally in 2011).
Principals and teachers spend their time and energy chasing the “school grade A-F rabbit,” which is intentionally programmed to go faster and faster so it can never be caught.
Too many kids passing the FCAT? Just tweak the scores so thousands will fail. Need more resources? Quit whining. Too many failures? Oops, tweak the scores again. It’s confusing to parents and students; it’s demoralizing to hard-working teachers and principals.
Yes, we should have high standards and, yes, we should have standardized tests as one form of assessing progress. Why not pick a nationally comparable test that measures the new national common core standards, like the Stanford-10 for K-12, and ditch the rest? Unlike the FCAT, at least you could see real progress across time instead of a constantly moving target. The binge we’re on now has resulted in a micromanaged, test-driven school environment that hardly leaves time to teach.
This year at Leon County high schools, like many other schools across Florida, 88 of 180 school days were scheduled for some sort of out-of-class testing or makeup test. Teachers constantly had their classes interrupted to stream various students down to the computer lab to take these tests. End-of-course exams began in mid-April, and the only feedback teachers got was a vague Level 1-3 description of how their students did, five weeks later.
What can teachers do with that? How do they know what their students need to learn? How much motivation do high-school students have for the last six weeks of school when their final exam is already over? (Believe me, not much.)
The disruption to teaching and learning is incalculable, and there is no research that shows it works. The problem is not with one particular test over the other; the problem is the power brokers do not trust teachers and school leaders to do their jobs and educate their students. It seems the only tool they trust is a standardized test, and when the only tool you have is a hammer — everything looks like a nail.
When you add high-stakes rewards and penalties to a flawed accountability and teacher evaluation system, you get the mess we’re in right now.
Florida is spending millions of dollars to create more tests for every high-school course because teachers can’t be trusted to follow the standards and give and grade their own tests. Students will soon take more and more tests to determine whether their teachers get fired or get a raise. (I can’t wait to see the art and drama tests!)
Security alone will require a small army of administrators to guard these tests. Plan to completely call off instruction for the last two months of school. Forget coaching and collegiality; there must be winners and losers in this race. Unfortunately, the winners are the testing corporations; the losers are our students.
We can do better than this. We know what works.
We can create learning environments at every school where all students are cherished and pushed to their maximum capabilities. We can encourage and reward teachers to “go deep” and engage students in projects that result in meaningful learning. We can foster collegiality where schools work together for the betterment of every child and no child is seen as a drag on the school’s grade or reputation.
Use standardized testing results as benchmarks for improvement, not sledgehammers that scare students and derail good teaching. Let’s work harder to get the right model right.
Comment by Kim Boone on June 23, 2012 at 7:46pm http://www.theledger.com/article/20120622/EDIT02/120629884/1002/spo...
After reading a letter from a parent in Duval County who is actually doing something to rescue Florida schools from the Florida chokehold ["A Call for Accountability With the State Board of Education and the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test," June 17], I wondered why Polk County taxpayers, parents, teachers and students had to be informed of the Florida School Board Association's momentous "High Stakes Testing Resolution" by someone who lives outside of the county?
How many of our local School Board members actually attended this free lunch in Tampa, listened to State Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson (apparently still reeling enough from the recent FCAT Writing scores fiasco to cancel a June 11 appearance at the Tiger Bay Club) and his tirade about their duty as elected officials to uphold and maintain the shambles that the FCAT and its creeping consequences masquerading as "raising the bar" have turned our statewide public schools into? Just how did they themselves vote on this resolution?
During the current election year, an educated voter should have access to such information and use it as yet another means of testing the candidates who toss their hat into the ring for public offices all the way from Bartow to Capitol Hill.
Speaking of high-stakes testing, what would happen if politicians were suddenly required to walk a mile in the shoes of every third-, fifth-, eighth- and 11th-grader in Florida, and take the FCAT not only to see how bright they are but also to be told that if they fail they may not run for office?
That would certainly empty more than a few seats on both sides of the aisle — or change current testing legislation in a New York minute.
CRAIG B. McKEE
Lakeland
Comment by Kim Boone on June 23, 2012 at 7:45pm http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/successful-lawyer-father...
By MARLENE SOKOL, Times staff writer
In Print: Sunday, June 24, 2012
PALM HARBOR — The letter arrived during John G. Brady's junior year at Boca Ciega High School.
An A and B student on the football and weightlifting teams, Brady had failed a portion of the state's basic skills test, a precursor to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
An avid reader all his life, Brady had not shown on the test that he could use an apostrophe or figure out when to capitalize a noun. The state said he needed remedial work.
Brady's father, a police officer, wasn't buying it. "He thought this standardized test was telling him his son was functionally illiterate," Brady said. "He thought it was ridiculous."
So his father challenged the test.
In the late '70s, John F. Brady, now deceased, was one of the first to file suit against Florida's statewide assessment program. First he disputed the scoring system. Then he argued the testing criteria were arbitrary and unfair.
Brady, now 50, does not recall the details of the case. He just remembers getting ribbed at school because his name was in the newspaper. His friends laughed. "I was no stellar student, but I was a good student."
As the case traveled through a series of legal appeals until a final court upheld the state's right to give the test and deny students diplomas if they didn't pass it, Brady finished school. He graduated on time and can't remember doing any remedial work. He went to St. Petersburg College, served in the Marines and resumed his education at Saint Leo University.
Yes, he graduated college. And when a friend invited him to ride to Gainesville, where he was taking his law school entrance exam, Brady sat for the LSAT as well and got into Stetson University College of Law.
Today?
He's a lawyer. With a wife — "the world's best mother," he calls her — and three children. One lives in New York, after graduating from the International Baccalaureate program at Palm Harbor University High School and Northwestern University.
One is at the University of South Florida. And one plays baseball at East Lake High School.
Brady still likes to read — true crime, history novels and the novels of John Sanford.
He doesn't dwell much on that long-ago legal challenge. When his kids took the FCAT, he didn't give it much thought.
But that early lesson stuck, he said. "I know you can't always trust standardized tests to give an accurate picture of a student's abilities."
Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Marlene Sokol can be reached at (813) 226-3356 or sokol@tampabay.com.
[Last modified: Jun 23, 2012 07:11 PM]
Copyright 2012 Tampa Bay Times
Comment by Kim Boone on June 23, 2012 at 7:44pm http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/how-fcat-grew-up-to-be-t...
A week before the fourth-grade writing exam, Shelly Ladd-Gilbert's daughter started complaining about stomachaches.
On the day of the test, the 10-year-old burst into tears, saying the pain was too severe to go to school. A trip to the doctor yielded a surprising diagnosis: severe test anxiety.
Florida has tested students for decades, but since its inception 14 years ago the FCAT has evolved from a simple measure of student learning to an all-encompassing arbiter of student, teacher and school performance. The test factors into third-grade promotion, high school graduation, class placement, teacher pay and evaluations, even whether a school stays open.
The state's signature test has become a constant thread in the community, too.
Parents use FCAT scores — and the school grades based on them — to decide where to live and what public school their child should attend. Or whether that child should go to public school at all.
Real estate agents promote neighborhoods with A-rated schools. Community leaders woo new businesses with A-rated schools. Gov. Rick Scott ranked every school in the state this year, providing even more fodder for comparison.
All based on FCAT scores.
Few educators, parents or political leaders question that the state needs a way to measure how much students are learning. And the expansion of the FCAT has brought tremendous academic gains, developing Florida's reputation as a national leader in education.
But some fear that Florida's model has turned into a runaway train of testing.
With pressure to perform, school districts have adopted their own assessments to gauge how ready students are for FCAT. That means even more testing — and little consistency from one county to another.
In Hillsborough County, third-graders alone take up to nine district-required tests in addition to the reading and math FCAT. Palm Beach County's third-graders take 11. Alachua's take 13. And in Pinellas, they take three.
For the first time, state education officials have seen a strong backlash against its signature test, and they have been forced to wage a public relations campaign to defend it.
Rather than quiet the din, the result has been an intense debate about testing and a growing chorus of voices against the widespread use of FCAT.
Sal Bologna, a Pasco County grandfather of a fourth-grader, said he likes that the state has an annual test to track student performance. But he worries about the stress it puts on children.
"If they fail the FCAT, they wind up in summer school. If they don't do well in summer school, they get left back," Bologna said. "It is a lot of pressure, especially on young people."
• • •
Florida has a lot to show after more than a decade of ramping up standards and increasing the number of tests students take.
Graduation rates have climbed steadily. More students take advanced placement exams, and passing rates have risen. Until recently, Florida students posted some of the biggest gains in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the "nation's report card."
Even before the FCAT, Florida had a statewide assessment system.
The state was the first in the nation to require a test for high school graduation in 1977. During that decade, it introduced testing for third, fifth, eighth and 11th grades.
Two decades later, officials decided that minimum standards weren't good enough. The FCAT was introduced in 1998, just before Gov. Jeb Bush was elected.
Under Bush the stakes changed — for everyone.
Schools became rated A to F. The spotlight suddenly focused on two grades: third and 10th, both with major testing hurdles for students.
Teachers and principals — entire schools — started to analyze student data more than ever. Students and parents learned about data. Predicting how a child would fare on the FCAT became a normal part of the parent-teacher conference.
Many teachers and school leaders say such widespread use of testing is having unintended consequences.
Susan Spaulding, who teaches in Pinellas County, said she tries to make the FCAT seem less threatening to her third-grade students by calling it the "F-Kitty." On test day, one student showed up teary-eyed. Another vomited.
Lori Moritz, a Pasco County mother, said the FCAT unnerved her daughter Alyssa, an incoming fourth-grader.
"She was nervous. She said, 'There are kids in my class already who failed the FCAT last year,' " Moritz said. "She didn't want to be one of those kids."
Ladd-Gilbert, a candidate for Pinellas County School Board, said she would rather see students tested once at the beginning of the year and once at the end to measure learning growth. But, she said, "I don't think it should be making the children sick."
Hillsborough County schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia has not wavered on her commitment to accountability. She also hasn't hesitated to criticize state education officials for what she has seen as problems or missteps in the system.
She led a challenge of questionable 2010 FCAT results, for instance, and she blasted the state Board of Education's proposal to change the way it considers test scores for students with special-education needs this year.
But Elia said she takes a long-range view past the rhetoric that many are wielding. Testing can be used to measure student progress and how well teachers are passing along the curriculum.
"There are good uses for testing," she said.
• • •
Most recently, Florida's lawmakers have aggressively pushed education policies that emphasize standardized testing, linking it to teacher pay and evaluation.
The state Department of Education introduced a harder FCAT last year and increased the passing scores this year.
The intense reactions this year to FCAT results, Elia suggested, are a result of so many changes coming at once, including a more difficult test, higher passing scores and a move to computerized testing, all when school districts are trying to balance their budgets with less money than they had seven years ago.
But the FCAT's reliability has raised concerns.
"When you're going to base as many different things off a test as you're basing off the FCAT — merit pay, grading of schools, whether a teacher has a job — then people need to have confidence in the test," said Lee Swift, immediate past president of the Florida School Boards Association.
In past years, glitches, human error or cost-saving measures inflated reading and writing scores and delayed test results.
None of those issues prompted the widespread backlash seen this year when the state increased passing scores on the FCAT, contributing to a statewide decline in the percentage of students scoring on grade level.
Perhaps the biggest fiasco came when the state Board of Education was forced to lower the passing scores on the writing test to account for plunging results. Even the most ardent testing supporters were left scrambling.
"The DOE and its contractor led with a glass jaw and brought some of this criticism upon themselves," said incoming state Senate President Don Gaetz.
School leaders haven't remained quiet either.
The Florida School Boards Association approved a resolution this month that says the state's "overemphasis" on testing had stifled students, limited what's taught in schools and made it difficult to keep good teachers.
State Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson fired back in a public statement, suggesting that school districts, not the state, overtest students.
Swift said it's "only natural" that school districts, facing so much pressure to perform, would try to get a sense of how students are doing ahead of time. But he thought the commissioner missed the point. School leaders aren't opposed to testing; they lack confidence in the FCAT, he said.
"We want to know what students are learning and have (the test) be an accurate representation of what they're learning," he said.
• • •
Much of the debate about the FCAT is history, Gaetz noted.
By the 2014-15 school year, the exam will be largely gone, replaced by end-of-course exams and the Common Core, a state-led effort to develop national academic standards.
"I don't think there's much to be gained by changing that course of action," Gaetz said.
Already, the science and math FCAT exams for high school students are gone. This year's incoming ninth-graders must pass end-of-course exams in algebra, biology and geometry. Similar exams are coming for U.S. history and civics.
The high stakes remain — students must now pass multiple exams to graduate from high school. Robinson has said increasing the rigor on the FCAT will better prepare Florida students for the next generation of testing.
Some parents say the transition has been needlessly painful.
"If they're doing away with the FCAT, do away with it now," Moritz said. "Why make other kids suffer?"
Cara Fitzpatrick can be reached at cfitzpatrick@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8846 or on Twitter @Fitz_ly.
By the numbers
43,264 Third- graders who failed the reading FCAT in 2002-03.
36,610 Third-graders who failed the reading FCAT in 2012.
46,000 10th- graders in the Class of 2003 who failed the reading and math FCAT.
92,201 10th- graders who failed the reading FCAT 2.0 this year.
52.5% Florida's graduation rate in 1999.
70.4% Florida's graduation rate in 2009*.
* Education Week
Source: Florida Department of Education
Comment by Kim Boone on June 20, 2012 at 3:50pm http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/editorial-swamped-by-standar...
By Jac Versteeg
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
In her Monday commentary in The Palm Beach Post, Patricia Levesque disingenuously blamed local school districts for all the standardized tests in Florida that are angering parents and frustrating students. Ms. Levesque, who as an adviser to former Gov. Jeb Bush saluted every “bold” education scheme from FCAT-based school grades to vouchers for religious schools, wrote, “Many districts require two to three times more tests than are required by the state.”
In fact, local districts have little or no choice. They know that everybody suffers if students do poorly on the late-spring FCAT. So they give at least two pre-FCAT tests, one in the fall and one in the winter, to identify areas where individual students need more help.
So a student will take two pre-FCAT tests before taking the reading FCAT and another two pre-FCAT tests before taking the math FCAT. Couldn’t the schools just bag those and take their chances? In many cases, the answer is no. The Florida Department of Education identifies schools that are in danger of doing poorly on the FCAT and other assessments, and requires districts to show that they’re preparing students for the tests. Most schools in Palm Beach County, for example, are required to assess and report student progress before the FCAT is administered.
Ms. Levesque is now executive director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future. Jeb Bush is the chairman, and it’s his way of continuing to influence education since leaving office in 2007. Ms. Levesque also notes that graduation rates for Hispanic and African-American students improved after Florida went all in for the FCAT.
Here again, at least as far as Palm Beach County is concerned, Ms. Levesque is not providing the whole story. School officials track each student to be sure that they’re meeting the many graduation requirements besides passing the FCAT. For example, the district intervenes if students don’t have the necessary GPA, haven’t signed up for all required classes or haven’t met the public service requirement.
Finally, Ms. Levesque doesn’t warn parents that another shoe is about to drop. Actually, it’s an Imelda Marcos closetful. The Legislature and Gov. Scott have required school districts to develop and administer standardized end-of-course exams in every class. Students won’t have to pass all of them to graduate, but some will be graduation requirements. Teacher pay will be pegged to student scores.
Ms. Levesque doesn’t want to admit it, but in large part because of policies she advocated, the state — not local school districts — is smothering Florida students in standardized tests.
Jac Wilder VerSteeg
for The Post editorial board
Comment by Kim Boone on June 18, 2012 at 11:21pm Letter from our Florida Education Commissioner. This letter makes me sad, the last line, our Education Commissioner says the nation will be "bubbling with high expectations."
I cannot believe the man would write that.
http://www.fldoe.org/news/2012/2012_06_15.asp
Friday, June 15, 2012
DOE Press Office
(850) 245-0413
"Public pronouncements by any governing institution remain one of the best ways to measure its tenacity of purpose. Embodied inside the words adults choose to convey an important message are their hopes and fears about the future. That is particularly true when schoolchildren are the topic of conversation.
"Yesterday's vote by the Florida School Boards Association (FSBA) in favor of an anti-high-stakes-testing resolution is a perfect example of adults expressing concern about the future. Unfortunately, the resolution is short on providing hope to schoolchildren who are Florida's future. Similar to the national resolution that calls into question the need for educational assessments, the FSBA's resolution claims the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) is too expensive, narrows the curriculum and is a detriment to student success. Let us separate rhetoric from reality.
"Florida invests $16.5 billion in state and local funds to support public schools. Our assessment investment is $59 million. Ensuring that our parents, educators and taxpayers are aware of our students' educational achievement equates to less than one half of one percent of our investment in public education.
"Florida's Next Generation Sunshine State Standards are the foundation for what we expect our students to learn. Subjects covered by Florida standards include English language arts, math, science, social studies, physical and health education, world languages, and fine arts along with other content areas specific to colleges and careers. Contrary to the claim of the FSBA resolution, the FCAT neither drives the curriculum nor narrows the educational experience of Florida students. In fact, at the middle school level, student enrollment in courses such as dance, drama, and world languages has increased more than student enrollment in the subject areas assessed on the FCAT. At the high school level, enrollment in dance, world languages and the humanities has outpaced the growth in student enrollment.
"Florida statutes require students take the FCAT in grades 3-10. These assessments average two to three per student per school year and account for less than one percent of the instructional time provided during the year.
"It is worth noting that local school boards require students to take many more assessments than those required by the state. For example, four of the first few districts to adopt the anti-high-stakes testing agreement require significant testing in addition to state requirements. This additional testing ranges from an average of four to nine additional tests each year per student.
"In closing, the FSBA has a right as a governing body to express its opinion about Florida's accountability system and the tools used to evaluate student achievement. School boards in Florida also have an obligation to implement the education laws approved by the Florida Legislature and the rules promulgated by the State Board of Education. Raising the benchmark set forth in our Next Generation Sunshine State Standards, and annually assessing progress through the FCAT, is a formula with a proven track record of success over the past decade as evidenced in gains made by students-based on race, ethnicity, disability, language, income and other criteria. Surely we have more gains to make, and are putting in place metrics to accomplish this goal, which I know is shared by FSBA. And as Florida walks toward internationally-benchmarked Common Core State Standards adopted by 45 states and 3 territories, now is not the time to focus on a future tapered by fear of so-called high stakes assessments. Instead, let us focus on using assessments to help Florida students develop the high-level skills they need to be successful in higher education, to earn higher-incomes in the workplace, and to participate at a high level in a nation bubbling with high expectations.
Comment by Kim Boone on June 18, 2012 at 11:11pm http://www.fsba.org/briefsupdates.asp#accountability_testing
Above is a link to the FSBA, the High Stakes Testing Resolution, the issue brief, and Commissioner Robinson's statement - they are pdf links on the link above, located in the section that appears as follows:
♦ ACCOUNTABILITY AND TESTING
• High Stakes Testing
° FSBA Resolution on High Stakes Testing
° FSBA Issue Brief: High Stakes Testing
° Statement by Commissioner Robinson on the FSBA
There are more links to PDF files regarding school grades and other issues. The FBSA has been communicating to the State Level about Florida Schools' Accountability requirements for some time.
Here is a link to the membership of the FSBA:
http://www.fsba.org/schoolboardmembers.asp
Comment by Kim Boone on June 18, 2012 at 10:31am Below is a copy an paste quote of a comment that was posted in response to a letter published in the Palm Beach Post. The letter apparently was from a lobbyist working for a company that stands to profit from extensive testing. I really don't want to post the original letter because it doesn't reflect how I think, but if you want to look at the alleged lobbyist letter here is the link:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/commentary-too-many-standard...
Here is the comment from a reader:
"1 Comment(s) Comment(s) 1-1 of 1 Debunker's avatar Posted by Debunker at 8:09 a.m. Jun. 18, 2012 Report Abuse Do the Palm Beach Post and the other newspapers that run letters from paid lobbyists charge a fee for that service? If not, you should, because there is only one agenda in mind when it comes to Ms. Levesque—the privatization of public school functions that results in profits for the companies that employ her. This is a classic example of someone attempting to obscure the facts with rhetoric. Not one single school board member argued against the need for standards, testing, and accountability. It’s the *weight* that is applied to those activities they educators, parents, and community members object to. And don’t think for one minute that the real goal here is as it has been from the start where idealouges like Ms. Levesque and former governor Bush are after: The labeling of schools as “failures” so for-profit companies have the foothold they need to assume control and make a buck from providing services. This article from The Nation lays out just a few of the many for-profit companies that employ Ms. Levesques’ services as a lobbyist, and clearly shows the connection between “school reform” and the companies that hope to profit from assuming control of public school functions. http://www.thenation.com/article/164651/how-online-learning-compani... Dos Ms. Levesque play hardball? You betcha! See if this quote from the article sounds familiar to what we’ve experienced here in Florida "Levesque noted that reform efforts had failed because the opposition had time to organize. Next year, Levesque advised, reformers should “spread” the unions thin “by playing offense” with decoy legislation. Levesque said she planned to sponsor a series of statewide reforms, like allowing taxpayer dollars to go to religious schools by overturning the so-called Blaine Amendment, “even if it doesn’t pass…to keep them busy on that front.” She also advised paycheck protection, a unionbusting scheme, as well as a state-provided insurance program to encourage teachers to leave the union and a transparency law to force teachers unions to show additional information to the public. Needling the labor unions with all these bills, Levesque said, allows certain charter bills to fly “under the radar.” So, look closely behind the curtain of “school reform” before you buy into the diversionary tactics employed by a lobbyist. I for one applaud the actions of the Palm Beach County School Board and hope they continue the fight against over-reliance on high stakes testing that has warped our kids educational opportunities."
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