Disrespect or support teachers? Which do you think is better?

From the Palm Beach Post, by Jack Wilder Versteeg

FCAT sanity is hard to come by. The Legislature, in the tradition of ex-Gov. Jeb Bush, constantly invents ways to bash public schools with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Teacher unions act as if Satan spawned the test.

But the FCAT grew out of Blueprint 2000, which was the work two decades ago of education reformers such as ex-Gov. Lawton Chiles. They knew that standardized tests could serve a purpose. Kids who can't pass the FCAT really do need help. Teachers whose students consistently do worse than comparable students really do need to go.

Implementation of the FCAT is one reason - though not the sole one - that Florida's education statistics have been improving. But the state isn't properly acknowledging the success. Some legislators still act as if public schools are awful, and still use the FCAT for purposes it poorly serves.

Graduation rate is one of the most significant measures of a state's education system, and Florida last month was cited as a national leader in improving that statistic. The annual Building a Grad Nation report, which is put together by a coalition of education groups that includes the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, found that Florida's rate rose 5.5 percentage points, to 68.9 percent, between 2002 and 2009.

States measure graduation rates differently, but an apples-to-apples system will be used this year. Florida's self-reported rate for 2010-11 was 80.1 percent. It would have been 70.6 percent under the uniform system. Regardless, there is broad agreement that Florida's rate is improving.

An inescapable conclusion should be that Florida's public school teachers are meeting the challenge to improve student performance. There is plenty of room for improvement; Wisconsin's graduation rate in the Grad Nation report was 90.7 percent, and Florida's recent reading and math scores on a national assessment leveled off after several years of increases. But nothing justifies the Legislature's hostility toward public schools and teachers, typified by the FCAT-based evaluation system approved last year.

Teachers should love the FCAT. Used correctly, it shows where students need help. But they won't embrace a tool that so consistently and perversely is turned against them.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1107550755163115303