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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Florida polls show state fed up with FCAT

From Scathing Purple Musings, by Bob Sykes

The Florida Current and the Northwest Florida Daily News have polls which shows that by 61% to 39% and 83% to 17% , respectively, Floridians want something else for their children.

Rebukes continue for Jeb Bush’s test-based system. Such polling data when combined with the outrage that Bush’s hand-picked education commissioner in Gerard Robinson is facing on his FCAT Listening/Apology/It’s Here to Stay Tour indicate significant opposition by Floridians – voters and taxpayers all.

The implications of the collapse of Bush’s test-based system are more far-reaching than what appears on the surface. Bush has been going all over the country and selling his Florida model to friendly Republican governors and ALEC-driven legislatures. News of Florida’s implosion will give pause to policy-makers and justification to opponents.

But won’t a Florida crash grievously wound the Common Core Standards movement, too? It is the existence of the standards which enables test corporations like Pearson to assume valid licenses to create tests. If teachers are teaching the standards, they say, kids will do well on tests and be prepared for the future. This attempt to narrow curriculum and put the teaching-learning dynamic into a box is running into a wall. Doesn’t the amount of remediation – 55% of Florida college freshmen need it – already dispatch the myth of the link between standards, testing and success?

http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/two-polls-show-floridians-want-an-end-to-reliance-on-high-stakes-test/

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