The big FCAT news: More than half (51%) of all FCAT-takers this past year are reading on grade level. Today's press conference webcast can be found here; score reports are on the same page. The reading scores suggest that schools in the lower grades are doing a much better job of educating readers than the upper grade schools; 70% of fourth-graders scored a 3 (out of 5) or better, while only 32% of ninth-graders did the same. There's no such pattern for math, though.
Third-graders with disabilities fail the FCAT at twice the rate as their non-disabled peers. 8,300 of them have flunked the test for the second year in a row, and more than half of those have a disability. There is a loophole: "special education students who already have been retained one year and have received intensive remediation are eligible to be promoted, even if they flunk the test a second time."
And speaking of loopholes: The 143 Collier County seniors who failed the FCAT but fulfilled all other graduation requirements will still be able to walk across the stage at graduation. The lone voice of concern ("Somehow our curriculum and instruction does not correlate with the FCAT. What should we be doing to prevent this discrepancy?") was bypassed in favor of making sure students don't become "another statistic in welfare." But if those students don't ultimately learn what they need to know to pass the FCAT, that graduation walk isn't going to get them hired.
Florida's senate said parents of failing students should be able to view FCAT items and answers; however, the measure, approved by the Florida senate three days before the end of this year's legislative session, did not make it through the House. The fight to open up the test to parents (and, on the part of education officials, to keep the test confidential) will resume next year.
More FCAT opinions and letters to the editor: The FCAT provides "a measure of reality". The FCAT is "not the solution". Retaining disabled students is somehow "breeding failure." And schools need to be teaching the skills measured by the FCAT, not the test-taking skills that have been the focus.
Last but not least, a bill approved by the state Legislature this spring allows seniors to substitute "passing" scores on the SAT and ACT for the FCAT requirement. The qualified students must have failed the FCAT three times but make a "passing" score on the SAT/ACT. In case you're wondering why I'm putting "passing" in double-quotes, it's because I'm skeptical about how such a standard will be chosen for a college admissions exam when the population in question has repeatedly failed a tenth-grade exam.
There's no reason to provide this alternative if the FCAT and SAT/ACT scores would identify the same group, so the thesis must be that there is some "passing" point on the college admission exams that students who fail the FCAT can achieve. But if the purpose of the exam is to "rescue" those repeated failers, the SAT/ACT standards will be set so low as to do nothing but verify that those students aren't too skilled.
Reading further, I see my worst fears are realized:
...the cutoff scores that seniors must earn to qualify for the substitution are a 15 each on the ACT reading and math tests. For the SAT, they must earn a 370 on the SAT reading test and a 410 on the SAT math test.
In other words, if you fail the FCAT three times, you don't get a standard diploma. But if you fail the FCAT three times and then, on the SAT, score around the 15th percentile on reading, and around the 28th percentile for math - scores which essentially show convergent validity with the failing FCAT scores - you can get a diploma.
To whom did this make any sense whatsoever?
To these state representatives, I assume:
State Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, said Thursday he proposed that the Legislature make the SAT or ACT tests permanent substitutes for the FCAT for seniors who fail the FCAT, but the state Senate did not agree. Pickens said that means the Legislature must approve a new law each year for the SAT and ACT rule to apply.
[Tony Hill Sr., D-Jacksonville] said in the release that "obtaining a high school diploma after diligently working toward it for 12 years should be joyous [sic] occasion, celebrating the end of the first phase of ones [sic] life and the beginning of the bath [sic] toward the remaining phases in ones [sic] life..."
If that's a verbatim quote, I worry about Senator Hill just as much as I worry about those students who learn so little from their Florida high schools.
Posted by kswygert at May 10, 2004 01:42 PM