Critics are howling about ten-buck-an-hour temps grading FCAT essays:
Critics were fuming Friday after learning the FCAT -- the standardized test that will leave a permanent mark on the academic future of thousands of Florida students -- will be graded by $10-an-hour temporary workers who are required only to have a week's training and a bachelor's degree."It's just incredible to me that after all of the pressure that is placed on me to maintain my teaching credentials, the countless hours spent in workshops, and then they turn around and hand these tests off to be scored by a bunch of temps," said David Worrell, president of the Leon Classroom Teachers Association. "It's just insulting."
The DOE says that many of the workers have teaching experience and are very familiar with the exams. Keeping permanent full-time graders would certainly up the costs of the exam. Others say that criticizing the temps misses the point:
Of the many legitimate concerns raised about the FCAT over the years, this is the least of them. Temps are used to grade other important exams, such as the ACT college entrance exam, and the FCAT graders will have bachelor's degrees and training. Those grading essays will handle questions that relate to their college degree. Essays are to be graded twice, and possibly a third time.The real problem is that, under Gov. Jeb Bush, the FCAT has been wielded like a cudgel in the evaluation of school quality - and now, teacher quality.
In other words, they're fine with how the essays are graded; they're just not happy with the FCAT use as a whole.
Posted by kswygert at March 8, 2006 09:13 AM