My oldest comes home and says 27% passed the FCAT Writes. D’oh. I must have heard him wrong. So I did a search on FCAT writes scores. In the Tampa Bay Times yesterday, it said:
the Florida Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously reduced its passing score on the test from 4.0 to 3.0 for purposes of assigning school grades.
At 4.0, fewer than one-third of students scored at proficiency levels. At 3.0, that result rises to closer to 80 percent.
The HuffPost Miami stated:
As a result, 2012 FCAT writing scores in the state plummeted. Among fourth graders, only 27 percent scored a 4 or better as opposed to last year, when 81 percent of fourth graders got a 4 or better. The drastic dip in writing scores was also seen in eighth and tenth graders.
Wow. What went wrong? I can’t seem to find the answer to that one. Though there are a lot of opinions. Personally, I think the FCAT should be stopped. No no no… don’t get me wrong. I believe testing is necessary to make sure the children are getting educated. It helped that there was standards so you knew if you went from South Florida to North Florida, your child would be at the same level. But honestly… if you switch states… you can’t guarantee your child learned the ‘right stuff’ to keep up with the kids in the class in the new state. Again, I think kids should be tested. That teachers should have key indicators as to how well they are teaching. I just don’t think FCAT is the right answer. And this is a great example of why. Look at the difference between the two years. There will be a huge number of dollars spent on analyzing what went wrong. Ugh. Tax dollars at work – NOT. Drop it. Go back to having the schools test the kids and possibly set up a standard for half the key indicators for the teachers state wide while the school does the other half. That might just work. Maybe. Even set that some key indicators for kids. By the end of third grade they have to be exposed to cursive writing and pass a test on it.
Ok, off that high horse… I still can’t believe what I heard today.
