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Florida Test Reform Email News Digest
Your weekly source of news from the Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform (FCAR)
v. 6 no. 7 - April 27, 2008
Editors' Corner
YOUR OWN COMMENTARY
We welcome your commentary on Florida's educational accountability system, from a personal, parental, professional, or policy perspective. Send relevant links to your blog, or we'll post your commentary at http://fcarweb.org and link to it in F-TREND. FCAT Stories, which are generally first- person accounts of FCAT encounters by parents and teachers, are always welcome.
Student Progression Plans--2007-2008 PLANS NOW POSTED
Florida statute requires each school district to submit a document known as the Student Progression Plan (SPP), to the DOE by September 1 each year. Among other things, the lengthy document spells out requirements for promotion and criteria for retention at every grade level. The FLDOE has links to these policies at http://tinyurl.com/6c8acg . As the FCAT noose tightened during the previous administration, less and less of the SPP was left to local option, but for advocates of children and policy watchdogs, it's a still a valuable document for determining just what the rules are--and for opposing them when they're counter-productive.
A Day in the Life...
. . . of a teacher prepping for FCAT
We invite teachers to submit their accounts of teaching in the shadow of FCAT, to be posted to fcarweb.org and featured in F-TREND. We'll honor requests for anonymity, but we'd like to indicate grade level of any respondent. Please send your story to gpipkin@... .
Our first submission, from a fourth grade teacher, is now on the FCAR web site at http://www.fcarweb.org/docs/080310_a_day.htm .
Take Action
Sign a Petition Calling for the Dismantling of NCLB
http://www.petitiononline.com/1teacher/petition.html
By a unanimous vote, the Board of Directors of the Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform has signed on as an organizational partner of the Educator Roundtable.
News
FCAT scores of Miss Raines pageant contestants create controversy
http://www.news4jax.com/news/15972562/detail.html
WJXT-TV, Channel 4 [Jacksonville]
April 23, 2008
Now we've heard it all--beauty pageant contestants wrangle over relevance of FCAT scores. ~EDs
FCAT has less weight in Senate plan
Grading criteria would be broadened
http://tinyurl.com/4f57ju
By Jim Saunders and Linda Trimble
Daytona Beach News-Journal
April 26, 2008
Cosmetic changes to grading of high schools will make schools look better, but nothing really changes for students who still have to pass the FCAT to graduate with a standard diploma, for English learners who have to take the test after only two years of English instruction, and for those who lose electives to "intensive" remedial courses. ~EDs
Commentary
Poor-student hypocrisy
http://tinyurl.com/6ogk2s
Palm Beach Post
April 20, 2008
Students who often score poorly on high-stakes tests are being shoved further into the shadows by the Legislature and the state Board of Education.
FCAT Rules alter after all the effort
http://tinyurl.com/5h9o8h
Blair Libby, Gulfport
St. Petersburg Times
April 23, 2008
After her district used a "flotilla of practice materials" to prepare high school students to pass the FCAT writing test, which was to be a graduate requirement for the class of 2010, a teacher vents her frustrations when the high stakes were delayed by the state, not for lack of "rigor," but to save money. We worry when anyone voluntarily identifies herself as an "FCAT stakeholder." ~EDs
Rational school testing standards at last?
http://tinyurl.com/5qsmeh
Daytona Beach News-Journal
April 24, 2008
The News-Journal is correct in acknowledging that the Legislature is moving closer to reducing FCAT pressures on schools, while ignoring the fact that those same test scores will be used to determine whether students are promoted and granted standard diplomas. Leaving the pressures on the most vulnerable doesn't seem like a rational move to us. ~EDs
FCAT changes are a start, at least.
http://tinyurl.com/6zq5af
South Florida Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale]
April 24, 2008
"Critics must accept that [the FCAT] has an important role," the Sun-Sentinel editorial board tells us. We'll concede that it has toxic role, as we continue to advocate for constructive assessment of learning. ~EDs
Making career choices in middle school
http://tinyurl.com/5lvcdu
By Katrina Fins
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
April 25, 2008
A Broward County student offers a brilliant critique of the problems with forcing high school students to declare a major. Our hope is that the author's career path takes her into the governor's office. ~EDs
On The Web
See Chan Lowe's FCAT cartoon at http://tinyurl.com/6dff3s . Although we never thought the FCAT was lovable, we agree that it has grown to monstrous proportions. ~EDs
Recommended Reading
http://tinyurl.com/6joc6d
"Childhood's End: Growing Up Too Fast," by an elementary teacher in northern California
Something is lost when little red wagons and mud pies make way for worksheets and tests.
Susan Ohanian's When Childhood Collides with NCLB, published by Vermont Society for the Study of Education, is now available. To order send $8.95 (which includes postage), with checks payable to VSSE to Susan Ohanian, P. O. Box 26, Charlotte, VT 05445.
Steve Krashen's review of the book is available at http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_outrages.html?id=3344 .
Comments by F-TREND editor John Perry, as well as a PDF of the first two pages of the book are on the FCAR web site at http://fcarweb.org/docs/ohanian_nclb.htm .
Notable Quotes
"I watched this test [FCAT] turn classrooms into test prep centers, and instruction into mindless drill and kill exercises." ~ Jeffrey Fessler of U. B. Kinsey Elementary in Palm Beach County, one of five recipients of the 2008 Dwyer Award, given by the Economic Council of Palm Beach County and the Education Foundation of Palm Beach to recognize excellence in teaching. Despite testing pressures, Fessler wove music and art into his teaching.
Telling the Truth about Testing:
A Challenge to Teachers and Parents
Please share your experiences with the FCAT and help us educate Florida citizens about the ways in which FCAT cannibalizes the curriculum, hampers creative teaching, penalizes poor test-takers, traumatizes children, and turns schools into giant test prep centers. School children across the country are speaking out against test abuse. Let's stand with them. Because of the repressive atmosphere created by high stakes testing, we will protect your anonymity if your job is at stake.
Send your items, stories, anecdotes, etc. to Gloria Pipkin at gpipkin@... or send hard copies to
Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform
Telling the Truth about Testing
310 Michigan Avenue
Lynn Haven, FL 32444-1428
Support FCAR
Support open, broad-based assessment of learning -- contribute to FCAR.
Use PayPal to make secure donations online at https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=marbleface%40bellsouth.net&no_shipping=0&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=USD or send a check or money order payable to FCAR to:
Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform
8680 S.E. Eagle Avenue
Hobe Sound, FL 33455
F-TREND is a project of the Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform (www.fcarweb.org).
John L. Perry and Gloria Pipkin, editors
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