From the Orlando Sentinel, By Leslie Postal,
Florida will hold public schools harmless from this year's dramatic drop in FCAT writing scores, refiguring its calculations so the state's A-to-F grades aren't damaged by the low marks, the State Board of Education decided Tuesday.
The 2012 scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test writing exam were significantly lower than last year's marks. The percentage of fourth graders scoring acceptably — earning a 4 or better on the 6-point scale — dropped from 81 percent to 27 percent, for example.
In an emergency meeting Tuesday morning, the State Board decided to change the school grading formula for this year. Schools will now be graded on the percentage of students whose essays earn a 3 or better. The formula last year graded schools on the percentage that scored at least a 4.
The percentage of students who earned 3s or better this year is about equal to those who earned a 4 or better last year. So the formula change means writing scores shouldn't have an undue impact on 2012 school grades, which are based largely on scores from FCAT's math, reading, science and writing exams.
The Florida Department of Education released preliminary statewide results Monday ahead of the board's meeting. State officials said writing scores for schools and districts could be out by the end of this week.
State Board members, who recently raised both FCAT scoring and school grading standards, said they didn't want to lower grading standards. But they felt they needed to take action while the state worked to figure out why student essays earned such poor scores this year.
"There also has to be a time when we take a breath and assess how the kids and the districts are doing," said Chairman Kathleen Shanahan.
Orange Superintendent Ron Blocker said the vote was a "reasonable action" but also only a first step.
"It does not identify the problem. It only puts a Band-Aid on it. They really need to dig," Blocker said.
He said an independent review such as the one after 2006 third-grade FCAT scores were shown to be artificially inflated is needed.
Others were more critical, saying the state was manipulating the results by lowering the grading mark and covering up problems in its accountability system. Many of the critics, including the statewide teachers union and Democratic lawmakers, have a long-standing dislike about how Florida's uses standardized tests to make so many key education decisions.
"The dramatic drop in writing scores shows that the system is a failure," said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.
FairTest, a national anti-testing organization, called for an independent investigation of what happened and the role that Pearson, the state's testing contractor, might have played in the low scores. The group noted the company has had a history of problems with its standardized tests
State Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, generally supportive of the state's accountability plans, was also critical of the State Board's decision. Simmons, speaking Tuesday to the Seminole County School Board, said the low writing scores stemmed from the state board's hasty decision to increase standards — and that bad decision was made worse by Tuesday's vote.
"I don't like reducing the proficiency score just to get a result," Simmons said, calling the vote a "barnyard way of trying to fix something."
Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson, however, said the board's vote doesn't alter or hide the results.
The board's decision "helps to correct the process, not the results," he said. "The results still stand. If I'm a student, and I took the exam, my exam is still there."
The state announced last summer that the FCAT writing exam — a 45-minute essay on an assigned topic — would be subject to tougher grading this year, with more focus on spelling, grammar and good details. In previous years, those issues had been graded with "leniency," the department said.
Robinson said the department might not have done an adequate job explaining those changes and making sure they had filtered down to school districts and then teachers.
"There should have been more follow-up," he said. "This is information that , frankly, should have been communicated much more strongly."
Some teachers said 45 minutes might not be enough time, given the new grading standards. In the past, the essays were graded as drafts, but if students must use proper spelling and punctuation, they might need more time to go back and make corrections.
Robinson said his department will look at that issue as part of its review of what happened.
The commissioner said he knew there was a problem as soon as he saw the scores.
"I realized that, overnight, students did not become bad writers," he said, but they might not have realized their essays would be scored in a stricter way.
Central Florida educators said they knew the scoring would be tougher on the writing test, but they did not anticipate a significant change in scores on the writing exam, given to students in grades 4, 8 and 10.
Holly Wallace, a Polk County writing teacher, told the board said she did not receive "much information at all" about the changes, though her school did know the writing scoring would get tougher.
"We did make adjustments here at our school," Wallace said. "Obviously we were a little out of touch with what they expectations were."
Robinson and his staff had recommended the board adopt a 3.5 benchmark for school grading, which would have lessened the impact on this year's grades but still represented a sharp shift from last year.
State Board Vice Chairman Roberto Martinez said the 3.0 mark, which he proposed, was "absolutely not a retreat," but an effort to make sure changes to Florida's school accountability system were made carefully.
"We cannot make too many changes too fast or raise the bar too high, too soon," he said in an email to other board members this morning. "If we do so, many students will not be able to reach the first rung to climb higher and the drastic changes will unnecessarily stress the system causing a backlash on the entire accountability system."
Before its vote, the board, meeting by telephone, heard from parents and educators who shared their concerns about the scores.
Unlike some other FCAT exams, the writing test is not a high-stakes one for students as it is not used for promotion or graduation decisions..
But Barbara Wright, a reading teacher at Oak Ridge High in Orlando, said she still worried what to say to her students, who will still see poor scores on their essays — even if the marks don't hurt school grades.
"They're the ones that are going to be bearing the brunt of this," Wright said.
"What does that say to them? You worked hard but you couldn't make it, so we've got to drop the score," she added. "I'm speaking for kids I teach every day."
Dave Weber of the Sentinel staff contributed to this story. lpostal@tribune.com or 407-420-5273.
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