Theyyy're back! Your favorite protestors! Those rootin', tootin', loony FCAT opponents! They've got the kids rounded up and protesting at the Florida Capitol Building, all because they believe the FCAT is unfair and should not be used for grade promotion.
Where do I start? First off, there's that photo. The third-grader in question looks pretty mopey already, although whether that's due to FCAT blues, or to the fact that activists roped him into spending a nice summer day inside a government building, it's hard to tell. And then there's that sign - "I am just nine years old. Please don't break my spirit." Gee, who knew that implementing testing to ensure that Danny gets taught to read in the third grade would be breaking his spirit?
And the inane quotes from FCAT opponents just keep coming:
The noon rally was organized by Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, a former educator who said she has been visiting summer reading programs to document what she considers the harmful and unnecessarily rigid enforcement of FCAT reading requirements..."They can read. They just can't pass a high-stakes test that is not culturally sensitive to them," Wilson said.
Hear that, Danny? Sen, Wilson believes that you do not have the proper culture to learn how to take a standardized test. She does not believe you are capable of understanding this exam, with its questions about a boy named Peter writing letters from a cat named Peaches, unless it can be modified to fit your "culture." If you recognize this for the racism that it is, then I say you're bright enough to be promoted into fourth grade.
Wilson's other comments are more meaningless than stupid. For example, we "must keep in mind that not all children are good test-takers," and that "these children are becoming collateral damage." Not once does she offer a reason for why some kids might be not be good test-takers (other than the wholly-unsupported "cultural" reason), nor does she mention the long list of exemptions that allow students to be promoted to fourth grade despite a failing FCAT score. She'd rather parents and readers assume that the FCAT is an absolute barrier, which it is not.
Oh, and there's her comment that, "You hold students back on the basis of professional-judgment reasons...You don't retain them on the basis of a test that comes out of a computer." What the computer part of it has to do with anything, I don't know, but I assume she means to contrast the cold, unfeeling world of testing and computers with the warm, fuzzy world of teaching. A dangerous comparison, considering that teaching third-graders to mistrust computers is almost as destructive as failing to teach them to read.