Happy Labor Day??

Well, at least the kids get a break from this madness for a day!

Standardized tests gaining more influence

New and already existing laws give high-stakes FCAT more power over schools

By Deirdre Conner

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Some say it leads to data-driven instruction that boosts student achievement.

Others believe it’s a recipe for creating high school dropouts and burned-out teachers.

Either way, the heavy-handed influence of standardized testing is at an all-time high in Florida schools, and almost every student is feeling the effects.

Because of a spate of new laws and mounting pressure from existing ones, the state’s high-stakes test, known as the FCAT, is more important to schools and students this year than ever before.

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is driving more than two-thirds of high school freshmen and half of sophomores into remedial classes instead of electives this year.

And it’s causing elementary schools to move back toward the trend of grouping children together by ability level, since they are graded on how well they improve in reading.

And it’s the reason some local schools got hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra funding while others didn’t.

While opinions vary widely, this much is not in doubt: As Gov. Jeb Bush finishes his last year in office, his reform efforts in Florida have been sweeping in their consequences, both intended and unintended. And they are likely to be a big factor in this fall’s election season.

The A-plus plan he championed as a first-term governor grades schools based on student performance and improvement on the annual test in math, reading, writing and, for the first time this spring, science. It also makes the 10th grade FCAT a high school graduation requirement, holds back third graders who fail the reading portion of the test and mandates extra reading classes for all students who perform poorly on the test, which is scored in levels from one to five.

A new law passed this year requires teacher bonuses based on test scores next spring.

“After Jeb Bush’s election and passage of the A-plus plan, the importance of the FCAT got ratcheted up several notches,” said David Figlio, an economics professor in Gainesville at the University of Florida who has studied high-stakes testing and school accountability reform.

Schools have improved dramatically in the dimensions measured on the test, Figlio said. But, he said, there is also “increasing evidence that schools have been narrowing their curriculum as a result of heavy emphasis on the FCAT.” That means history, social science, art, music and other classes wither away.

Mary Maxwell doesn’t need research to tell her that. Her daughter, an honor student at Estero High, is stuck in an intensive reading class at school instead of Spanish II this year because she missed passing the FCAT by 10 points. Instead, the B-average medical academy student will take the elective online so as not to jeopardize her chances for getting into college.

“It’s becoming more and more of a pain,” Maxwell said. “The class is basically FCAT prep.”

Too, Maxwell worries that the test is holding teachers back with added workload or driving them out of the profession altogether.

It’s a legitimate concern, Figlio said.

“For better or for worse, teachers are working longer hours and bringing work home,” he said.

Without better pay or bonuses to make up for that, he said, good teachers could end up leaving schools altogether.

Some of that extra time is undoubtedly devoted to learning how to find and apply test data in the classroom, which is why Lee County schools administrators devoted pre-school workshops to train teachers in how to find and use such information, said Larry Tihen, the district’s curriculum director.

Few teachers learned data analysis in college, but knowing how to do it helps students, Tihen said.

“We know much more about our students than we have in the past,” he said. “Once teachers know what students need, they’re able to provide that instruction.”

Nancy Foley, a math teacher at Estero High whose students had some of the biggest gains of any teacher at the school, is helping other teachers tailor their lessons to what kids don’t know and avoiding repeating concepts they’ve already grasped based on how students did on the FCAT.

“It really makes you start to think, ‘What could I have done differently?’” Foley said.

Foley also has her students do the same analysis on their own FCAT score, because their diploma depends on it. Although she believes it helps, she admits the test pressure is unrelenting.

“It’s on everybody’s mind all the time,” she said. “Their whole life revolves around — gotta pass that test.”

More than any other subject, though, reading is the biggest focus. That’s because so many of the punishments and rewards from the state depend on it, from school grades to third-grade retention. And because only about 30 percent of high school students are considered to be on grade level, which means Level 3 or above.

In elementary schools, Level 1 and 2 scorers on the FCAT reading get 30 minutes of additional reading intervention per day. At middle and high schools, scoring at Level 2 now means students must take one “intensive reading” class each day, while Level 1 mandates a two-period block.

Working them all in has been difficult for administrators and students, and some are left without electives at all.

Still, in politically conservative Lee County, district officials and School Board members have been quicker to embrace the policies handed down from the Republican-controlled Legislature and executive branch than have other counties.

That doesn’t mean FCAT isn’t a four-letter word to many in Southwest Florida and statewide. The mere mention of it can roil some parents and teachers; vocal coalitions and teachers’ unions are determined to repeal the way the test is used.

Some of the heaviest criticism is leveled at the test’s secrecy. Parents get detailed score reports but aren’t allowed to see their child’s graded answer sheets. Last year, for the first time since the FCAT was developed in the late 1990s, the Florida Department of Education scheduled releases of multiple actual tests given in years past.

The FCAT’s grading generated controversy earlier this year when two Democratic state senators sued to get the employment records of the $10 hourly temporary workers hired to grade the free-response portions of the test. They found two-thirds lacked degrees or teaching experience in subjects they were grading, as required by contract. Some of the graders had only non-education job experience, including hair styling, pizza delivery and work as a store clerk.

Maxwell sees the FCAT as a “political ploy” and doesn’t think schools should be graded based on the results. She isn’t the only one whose frustration is growing, and thousands of fed-up parents will factor prominently in this fall’s gubernatorial campaign. The primary election is Tuesday.

Democratic candidates Rod Smith and Jim Davis hope to galvanize parents angry about the pervasive influence the test has on public schools. Both want to eliminate the FCAT’s use in punishing low-performing schools and in holding back students in certain grades.

Those goals are unlikely to become reality any time soon. That’s because of a constitutional amendment limiting the governor’s control over education policy. In 1998, the same year Bush was first elected governor, voters approved an amendment that changed the department of education. The commissioner is now chosen by the Board of Education, whose seats are filled with gubernatorial appointees.

Bush appointees will remain a majority on the board until 2010, leaving current commissioner John Winn secure in his position until the new governor’s last year in office.

Republican candidates for governor Charlie Crist, who became in 2000 the last elected education commissioner, and Tom Gallagher, who preceded him in that job, want to keep the current system they both helped put in place.

Figlio said that system still needs improvement but also is in jeopardy of getting much worse.

“Who knows what will happen next year?” Figlio said. “Democrat or Republican, there may be an incentive to change the school grading system.”

Good changes would come in the form of better teacher pay, he said, while doing away with the accountability program’s reliance on tracking individual students’ improvement instead of just looking at their scores would be a bad idea.

Figlio, whose research has extended nationwide, said simply measuring levels instead of learning gains can lead to disturbing unintended consequences. His research found that in those situations, administrators are more likely to suspend low-achieving students on test days, and that schools on test days “carbo-loaded” students at lunch with higher-calorie meals.

With the federal No Child Left Behind Act, most states are trending toward that model, he said. Florida should not.

- - -

To look at the FCAT and an answer key, plus find scores for individual schools and districts, visit www.fldoe.org.

© 2005 Bonita Daily News and The Banner. Published in Bonita Springs, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.