We have to stop hoping or pretending that the Privatization off our schools is not Tallahassee's goal.

A lot of people in Tallahassee and not just republican politicians are calling for increasing FSA scores as high as possible.

From the Tampa Times, Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle, a long-time advocate for improved math and science education, says in his latest blog post that, like it or not, the Board of Education might be on to something.

"To summarize the plot: The scoring scales proposed by the FSA educator and reactor panels would label between 50% and 60% of Florida's elementary and middle school students as proficient, while NAEP says that only 41% of Florida's elementary students and 31% of the state's middle school students are proficient or better.

"Florida's NAEP proficiency rates are at or below the national averages, so the state has ground to make up to be competitive with the top tier states. And excusing Florida's students from the national (and international) competition, as the educator and reactor panels are proposing, will not help."

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/whats-wrong-with-the-proposed-cut-scores-for-the-florida-standards/2246565

First we all know when we factor out poverty are NEAP scores rise to the top of the international rankings, so my question is how do higher passing scores address poverty? They answer is they don’t, they just make it seem like more kids and schools are failing and more teachers aren’t doing their job. The whole reason behind wanting to raise scores as high as possible is to further erode confidence in  public schools and hasten privatization.

Furthermore most of the states in front of us really invest in education, maybe we should try that before raising the scores.

Then factor in what incoming speaker of the house Corcorcan said about wanting universal vouchers and head of the education subcommittee O’Toole about if you don’t like the tests you can go elsewhere and it seems pretty apparent, that making public schools look bad and privatization is their true goal.

Cottle needs to go back to the drawing board.