There has been some concern about what will happen to teachers if too many kids opt-out, will they not get their growth scores and be eligible for raises? Some have mentioned their schools may lose funding too. I don’t believe we should worry about these things. Everyone knows that high-stakes testing is bad for public education; everyone but the voters, that is. I would like to see Tallahassee explain why they are taking away funding from public schools for not taking the tests while doing absolutely nothing to private schools for not taking the same tests.
In Florida, the high-stakes tests give at the end of the year aren’t designed to help public education and the teaching profession; on the contrary, they are designed to harm them. Want proof, look at the hundreds of thousands of kids that Florida sends to private schools on the public dime. They don’t have to take any high stakes tests, their teachers don’t have VAM scores, their schools don’t lose money based on performance or the number of children who take them, and they damn sure are retained based on a test. Yet both are paid for by taxpayers. Testing in Florida is nothing but a scam.
Florida now spends billions on school vouchers. Those schools do not have to give the FSA or EOCs. In fact, they can teach what they want to who they want, and it is all funded by the taxpayers and friends its getting worse. Each year the program is expanded, diverting more and more money to schools that are so unregulated you might as well say they have none. Heck, most schools don’t even have to report how they spend the money. Can you imagine a public school doing that?
Then let's throw in the hundreds of millions the state spends on testing and the weeks kids lose to it. It’s a terrible system all around, and I know it, you know it, but wildly even Tallahassee knows it too.
From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune,
A member of the audience pointed out that private schools do not have the same accountability measures imposed on public schools, including the same testing requirements.
Both (Representatives) Robinson and Gregory argued that there is too much testing in public schools, and said that they would rather scale that back than impose new testing requirements on private schools that enroll voucher students.
“I don’t think the answer is to take these ridiculous burdens and apply them to everyone,” Gregory said.
https://www.heraldtribune.com/
Um, do you know what representatives Robinson and Gregory did to scale back the testing going on in Public schools while voting for tens of millions more in vouchers at schools with no testing? Absolutely nothing, then they have the chutzpah to say public schools are tested too much. If the Republicans in Tallahassee didn’t have corruption and hypocrisy, then they wouldn’t have anything.
The republican party’s goal is to dismantle public education, and at this point, there can be absolutely no doubt about it.
So parents say no to testing, and if they try and defund your child’s school or not, give their teacher a raise, make them explain why and hold them accountable for it. It’s the right thing to do all around.
To learn more about opting out, click the link: https://
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