Florida wants to get rid of the FCAT which is a good thing.
Unfortunately they just want to replace it with a new test. The group they have chosen not only has
close ties to Jeb “I think picking a school should be like picking milk” Bush but also helped deliver the disastrous Florida VAM sores.
From the Tampa Times: AIR may
not be as well-known as the large testing companies that lost out, but the
nonprofit has experience in Florida. The group helped develop the complex new
formula used to evaluate teachers.
Um has Pam Stewart been under a rock for the last month?
Wait don’t answer that. VAM has been an unmitigated disaster and for her to
pick the company, not that the others that were applying for the contract are
much better, is unconscionable!
Superintendents, teachers and parents all across the state
have come out against the decision, unfortunately Pam Stewart remains tone deaf
to those people who are doing the actual educating.
Regardless the bottom line is the same company that came up with VAM as
a teacher evaluation tool has no business getting one more nickel from the
state let alone hundreds of millions of dollars.
To read more click the links:
Upon hearing the big news
yesterday - Florida chose a
firm to develop its Common Core assessments - Pinellas Superintendent Mike Grego said he was planning
to press politicians to ease off the gas pedal.
"There's not going to be a
national comparison with these tests," Hillsborough schools superintendent
MaryEllen Elia said, echoing concerns of many district leaders. "The
problem is, you're still comparing Florida to Florida."
"Pam Stewart has made an
appallingly bad choice for the state test to replace the FCAT," the
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition said in a March 19 letter to
supporters. "Not only does the American Institutes for Research
(AIR) do major behavioral/mental health testing and research and is developing
the test for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), but they are
very involved in developing briefs and other information promoting acceptance
of the LGBT lifestyle for elementary age school children."
“I don’t need to explain the
differences between population diversity in Utah versus the state of Florida,”
said Carvalho, who last month was named the national superintendent of the
year by the School Superintendents Association. “So, I find it
insufficient from a statistical perspective, from a fairness prospective and
even, perhaps, a legal perspective with so much riding on this exam.”
http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2014/03/20/miami-schools-chief-selection-of-new-test-is-insufficient/
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