Florida needs to limit the importance of the FCAT

By Lois K. Solomon, Sun Sentinel

The state needs to limit the importance of the FCAT because the high-stakes exams fail to measure critical thinking skills, are not a good predictor of academic success and are stressing out teachers and students, a group of parents told the state's education commissioner on Friday.

Parents said they know the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests are here to stay and even support standardized testing as a way to assess student progress. But they recommended an assortment of tweaks, including sharing information about changes to the grading system, letting parents see their children's exams and decreasing the barrage of other state-required tests, including diagnostic and end-of-course exams.

About 50 parents attended a community forum at Boca Raton High School to ask questions of state Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson, who started work less than a year ago. The visit came 10 days after the state Board of Education voted to lower the passing mark for the FCAT writing test from 4 out of 6 to 3 after student scores plunged when standards were raised. Only 27 percent of the state's fourth-graders scored a 4 or higher on the exam, an enormous drop from the 81 percent who had passed in 2011.

Florida students in third through 10th grades take the FCATs in subjects such as reading, math, writing and science, depending on their grade. Third-graders have to pass the FCAT to be promoted, while high school students must pass the reading and math FCATs to graduate.

Robinson and Barbara Feingold, a state Board of Education member from Delray Beach, defended the exams, but Feingold said the state "moved the bar a little too quickly."

"You will be assessed throughout your life for professional purposes," Feingold told the crowd. "We want to know what we can do differently to provide support to you."

Parents shared with Robinson and Feingold their mostly negative observations of the FCAT, while teachers detailed how frequent testing limits their ability to be creative educators.

"There are fall diagnostics, winter diagnostics, FCAT, EOC, chapter tests, pop quizzes. There is way too much testing," said Jaime Worrall, a math teacher at Christa McAuliffe Middle School west of Boynton Beach.

Kimberly Cooper, PTA president at Spady Elementary School in Delray Beach, said she asked her son's fourth-grade teacher why she didn't teach science. The answer: Fourth-graders are not tested on science for the FCAT.

"I was told he'll get it next year," Cooper said. "That's not well-rounded. That needs to be overhauled."

Parents and teachers also noted that required end-of-course exams, given in addition to the FCATs, are taken six weeks before the end of the school year, which they said is not the true end of the year. But Robinson said the state needs time to grade the tests and send the results back to school districts.

Robinson said the FCATs are a valid tool for evaluating student progress and have improved the state's reputation and national rankings.

"The FCAT has made the state better," he said. "We were [ranked] in the 40s [out of 50 states]. Now we are moving in a different direction. That is not a coincidence."

lsolomon@tribune.com or 561-243-6536

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/boca-raton/fl-education-commissioner-parents-20120525,0,7854879.story