Regraded Test Upends Florida Schools

[IIOY]

More standardized testing fun, from today's WSJ:

MIAMI—Plunging results on Florida's standardized writing test for fourth-graders has triggered concern among school officials, teachers and parents that the state is implementing changes to the testing system too quickly, and has spurred a broader debate about the increasing role of standardized testing in classrooms.

On Monday, the Florida Department of Education released preliminary scores on the writing test that showed a drastic falloff in student performance, with only 27% of fourth-graders receiving a passing score of 4, on a 6-point scale, compared with 81% last year.

The drop prompted the State Board of Education to call an emergency meeting on Tuesday. At that session, board members decided to lower the passing score to 3, boosting the percentage of those who passed back up to 81%. That threshold is significant, since it is used to calculate the grades that the education department awards to schools in Florida, from A to F.

"It calls into question the veracity of the entire enterprise," said Kathleen Oropeza, a mother of two students in Orlando and the founder of FundEducationNow.org, an advocacy group that has criticized the state's testing regime. "We all know our children didn't become good writers, then bad writers, then good writers within 72 hours."

Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson conceded that the back-and-forth could be "very confusing." But the state is pursuing ambitious plans to raise academic standards, and "some ebbs and flows" are unavoidable, he said.

The writing test, for instance, now places more emphasis on spelling, grammar and punctuation. In one example of a writing question, students were prompted to tell a story with a specific instruction: Suppose someone had a chance to ride a camel and to write a story about what happens on this camel ride. What's new in 2012 is the way the writing test was scored, with added emphasis on correct use of standard English conventions and to the quality of details.

Though mandatory testing has grown in importance over the past decade, pockets of protest have been growing across the country. Some 400 local school boards in Texas have adopted a resolution this year calling for lawmakers to scale back testing. Two school boards in Florida have passed a similar resolution, and seven others are considering it, according to Rita Solnet, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and co-founded Parents Across America, which is promoting the resolution.

Supporters of standardized testing say it provides a critical measure of learning and teacher performance, while opponents argue that it becomes an all-consuming endeavor that detracts from more creative learning.

As Florida prepares to implement a new set of academic standards in the 2014-2015 school year called the Common Core State Standards—a state-led initiative that 45 states have adopted—the education department has been making numerous changes to the school-grading system and to the state's standardized test, known as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT.

Many school officials say they weren't sufficiently informed about the changes and were unable to prepare adequately. They also say education officials have been implementing too many changes too quickly.

Superintendents are "trying to implement what I believe is an excellent accountability system," said MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools. "But it has changed in so many ways in such a short period of time, it just creates havoc."

Mr. Robinson dismisses complaints that the state is moving too quickly. "If not now, when?" he said. As the world becomes more interconnected, he said, Florida students will have to compete against peers in rising powers like China and India. "We need to prepare our students for the future," he said.

[smock]

It seems like a problem to me that (if I'm reading this right) 54% of all the grades were a 3. That's a pretty stacked distribution to begin with.

I'd also be interested to see the guidelines for assigning scores, because especially with something like writing it's very subjective.

[thejackpot]

As a teacher, i find he use of standardized testing to be extreme and ineffective. The scoring of testing changing that dramatically in one year is ridiculous. Not saying that those standards are not acceptable but as school's spend an entire year teaching to the test to have that testing criteria changed without fair warning is just stupid. Yes, punctuation and spelling are important but if you have been spending the year telling students not to worry about it and get the info down then that seems pretty unfair.
I get it there needs to be some accountability but I really want my child to be learning and exploring and not churning out rote spelling words on a test. In addition the reliance on spelling and grammar accountability goes against the middle and high school years where they rely on computers to spell check for them

[cookiemdough]

May 19, 2012 8:28:42 GMT -5 IIOY said:

The drop prompted the State Board of Education to call an emergency meeting on Tuesday. At that session, board members decided to lower the passing score to 3, boosting the percentage of those who passed back up to 81%. That threshold is significant, since it is used to calculate the grades that the education department awards to schools in Florida, from A to F.

Well that of course makes the test useful. Kids don't pass, don't try to figure out the issue instead lower the threshold so more pass. Excellent idea!

Seriously we should just get rid of the stupid test. If it means virtually nothing then why spend the money, time and energy in even administering the thing?

[fluff]

I hate the stupid FCAT. My kids go to public Florida schools and they get so stressed out about this test. There is so much pressure on the teachers and the students and it also seems like a lot of class time is spent practicing for this.

[sporklemotion]

May 19, 2012 8:35:04 GMT -5 smock said:

It seems like a problem to me that (if I'm reading this right) 54% of all the grades were a 3. That's a pretty stacked distribution to begin with.

I'd also be interested to see the guidelines for assigning scores, because especially with something like writing it's very subjective.

I agree with all of this, and I'd be curious to see the questions on the test, too. I'm not saying this is what happened in FL, but I know here in MA there was an issue on our state test a few years ago. The essay prompt for 4th graders (I think) was to describe their most recent snow day. It was one of those years that didn't have a lot of snow, and there were enough kids that had moved here from other states or countries that had never experienced one. If they're all like the camel question mentioned in the article, I could see where that might be an issue. If they're graded on topic development or amount/relevance of detail, kids are going to have more trouble.

That huge a drop seems weird to me, even considering the change in the focus on usage and mechanics. Unless teachers are focusing solely on the skills that used to matter most on the test (which would not surprise me) at the expense of everything else.