A trio of education bills passed by the Senate K-12 education committee, all priorities for Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, could ease the burden standardized tests place on students. However, critics say they don’t go far enough to address the state’s educational needs.
One of the bills would allow parents more power to determine whether their third-graders should move to the next grade.
Florida law mandates that third-graders who do not score a Level 2 or above on the Florida Standards Assessment English Language Arts assessment, graded on a scale of 1 to 5, cannot be promoted to the fourth grade. However, a student can achieve certain “good cause exemptions” to move up — for example, if they do well on an alternative standardized test, earn grades that show their proficiency, or have a disability.
A Senate analysis of the bill says it will “expand parental rights” in line with the 2021 Parental Bill of Rights, legislation championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that states, “It is a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children.”
If a parent wants their student to move up, they would be able to work with the school to create an intervention plan in lieu of a passing English assessment score. Aspects of the plan could include read-at-home sessions, participation in a school district’s summer reading camp, or 90-minute daily reading instruction sessions.
Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat from Palm Beach County, said during a Wednesday meeting of the Education Pre-K-12 Committee that the rule would allow parents to “basically overrule any decision and say if they want their student to be able to move on.”
When she asked committee chair Sen. Corey Simon, representing the Tallahassee area, whether it was a change parents had demanded, he said he hadn’t seen anything to indicate that; instead, the idea arose from studies into how students retain reading ability during their first few years of schooling.
“When we look at this language — giving parents a seat at the table, we want to make sure that those parents also have a voice,” Simon said.
‘High-stakes testing’
The bill could eliminate the requirement for students to pass the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam and 10th-grade English Language Arts tests to graduate from high school.
Simon said that the rationale for removing the “high-stakes testing” requirements was to place more emphasis on students’ classroom work over four years of high school as an indicator of progress.
“If that child has been able to display that they understand the work product, if their grades reflect that, then we shouldn’t be crippling these kids,” Simon said.
Demaris Allen, executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools, said she supported the reforms, as tests can be unfair indicators of student’s progress and performance.
“[Exams] are not a great assessment of a student’s ability,” Allen said. “It’s a great assessment of how they’re doing that day or, often, their socioeconomic status and things like that.”
‘Burdensome regulation’
In a Nov. 3 memorandum, Passidomo, a Republican from Collier County, called the effort to cut “burdensome regulation” in public schools a personal priority.
“Reducing this bureaucratic red tape will give public schools a meaningful chance to compete right alongside other school choice options,” the Senate president wrote.
Allen disagreed with that sentiment, calling the bills “more regulation than deregulation,” in that she feels private schools and homeschool situations are subject to less scrutiny from the state government that has allocated more than $4 billion for them.
“I really would love to see all taxpayer-funded schools be held to the same level of standards,” Allen said. “Ultimately, that helps parents to make an informed decision.”
The other two proposed bills aim to give more power to school boards for scheduling and using federal funds, and would streamline certification procedures for teachers.
Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said that while he supports more autonomy for local school districts and making it easier for qualified teachers to get certified, the bills don’t address one of the biggest problems for educators: low pay. Florida’s average teacher salary is less than $52,000 — 48th in the country, according to the National Education Association.
–Christian Casale, Florida Phoenix
JimboXYZ says
Sounds like lowering the bar as usual, then again we saw what happened at a Bunnell Assembly of underachievers. 68% of that assembly don’t meet the minimum standard for testing. Since we’re doing that, reduce taxes & funding to the schools. This isn’t the deal anyone cuts for the future of America. I am so over & done with watching America get dumbed down like this. Don’t tell us the schools are better here in the near future & going forward with the frauds of a fixed scoring system.
dave says
Oh here we go, since the students can’t measure up to the standards that came before them, lets just reduce the standards so a student can ” get by” .
And this DeSantis statement, “It is a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children.” This is nothing more that Ronny trying his best to suck up to votes.
Bill C. says
I have an 8th Grader who is a pretty bright kid. But, I am taken aback by the lack of depth in the curriculum she is being taught from. They rarely get homework and when they do it never takes very long because (they have time to do it in class) there isn’t much to it. It seems to me that, because of Governmental edicts the teachers are walking on eggshells afraid to delve into discussions or Q and A’s for fear they might have to face the wrath of the Governor’s watchdogs. Parents having the ability to override the school’s decision on promotions is ridiculous. It is just another way of passing poor students to eventually get them out of the system. Parents are NOT educators and their input in the education system needs to be limited.
Endless dark money says
Republicons are domestic terrorist. Full stop.
Bethechange says
Good luck Mom, Dad with the agonizing decision to retain or not your struggling 3rd grader; as if evaluating achievement or gains is so simple. I mean it’s only brain function, right, (an unseen so) manifested in behaviors all of which are influenced by environment, circumstance, diet, natural ability, eye function, ear function, chemicals, zip code, processing ability, income, exposure to opportunities for formal and informal expressive and receptive linguistic experiences, physical, emotional and social development, exposure to developmentally appropriate opportunities for growth, etc, etc, etc…Worry less about the dumbing down of curriculum and more about the dumbing down of the rationale behind doing so. No offense to amazing and involved parents; most of whom fall in that category, even when (especially so) showing up at teacher conference running on the last bit of themselves they can muster. These same rational, caring, generous parents wouldn’t want to get anywhere near being the authority over such a decision BECAUSE they care and in so doing, they recognize the invaluable contribution of teachers and educational teams. Those called to and trained in the most noble of professions; not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard and who spend hundreds or thousands of hours (many in lieu of sleep) laser-focused on that one child, so that when called upon to help in the decision, can walk away confident in the belief that they did no harm. And confident that for their student they were the teacher they’d want for their own child.
Deborah Coffey says
Florida has become hell on Earth. DeSantis is working hard to make America the same…stupid and controlled in every facet of life.
Have fun paying your house insurance and car insurance, too. You voted for this; you asked for it, you got it.
PCparent says
I agree with the fact that not all children demonstrate their true potential in a test. Tests can be very stressful and not everyone is made for that kind of pressure even if they are great students.
On other hand, most parents do rely on the school and teachers to give at least good basic education for their children. Who will be accountable for the results and assessment without the testing? I feel that these decisions will put more pressure on the teacher to determine the level of understanding.
That all being said, I can’t decide what I think is best because I see plusses and minuses in both. From a personal perspective I love the idea of not going through the anxiety and sleepless nights of the pre-testing jiggers just hoping that the kid will be in a good physical and mental state that one day of the test to be able to show their true abilities.
Same time, we must keep up the expectations with tests or no tests.
TR says
So, I guess all the talk that I have heard about the board members being Republicans and taking away from education wasn’t really true. Here we have a Democrat that wants to lower the standard because little Johnny or little Jane doesn’t want to do the work so they can pass and move to the next grade. Then they want to have parents decide? Of course parents most of the time are thinking that their child is the best and they should be allowed to move up with their friends so they don’t get made fun of. Kinda falls back to “Everyone gets a trophy just for participating”. It might even go with the parents rights taken away a long time ago where the parents weren’t allowed to smack their little bundle of joy on the butt when they did something wrong.
So here we are with a bunch of lazy kids that think they are entitled to get whatever they want and now the education leaders what to lower the standards. Nice going. Hell these kids today can’t even sign their names which makes it harder to get a house, but a car or sign anything of a legal documents for anything. The kids of today are our future and if the standards in education keeps be lowered, PEOPLE WE’RE SCREWED!
Stacey Smith says
I am thinking these ‘bill writers’ need to come in to schools during conference week and see how many ‘parents’ attend, listen and help follow up at home. Schools need to go back to EDUCATION. They are not meant to be a place to get your teeth sealed, get counseling, get your vaccinations, stay for day care.
These are wonderful services that need to be done OUTSIDE of the day. They take away academic time. Teachers are always portrayed as the problem, but we didn’t birth your angel who comes to elementary school in press on nails too long to function in, texting on class (parents say children need their phones), and tell teachers ” I was too tired after (fill in the blank of activity) to study.”
We have a serious problem and no one seems to want to be held accountable.
If parents want so many rights, use your right to homeschooling. Oh…that’s right, we did that at Covid and now we are REALLY behind!
Lynne says
We saw something similar while traveling in the Caribbean: one of the islands could not attract enough qualified nurses to meet needs, so they lowered the standards! Great – just what I want is someone unqualified to tend to me – or, in the case of Florida schools, unqualified to graduate high school. Numbnuts!
Steve Smith says
And so America’s decent into third world status continues. Is this the Republican strategy to retain power? By making the population unable to think or perform everyday functions in a job, we will end up with a population unable to survive in the work force or in academic pursuits. If this kind of logic continues we will quickly be supassed by other countries some of whom do not have our best interests at heart. We became the greatest country in the world by holding ourselves to the highest standards not by just getting by. Time to rethink who we have been voting for and what they stand for.
The Geode says
So… Instead of requiring students to meet the ALREADY lowered bar of expectations, we want to lower it further to accommodate students who come from environments disinterested in education. It’s bad enough that the teachers are hamstrung and powerless against students who are borderline feral, but you want to place the “academic standards” with people devoid of discipline and order and have no vested interest past the entitlements these kids provide.
Yeah. This is really gonna work out well…
Awful Idea says
To be honest, many parents didn’t retain much from their educational days so is it really in the best interest to have someone that cannot do basic math or grammar, make decisions about someone’s education, even if it’s their child? What I’m seeing with this is making children and teenagers property rather than autonomous individuals capable of determining what they find interesting and instead are being groomed and indoctrinated to the beliefs of an overreaching adult with less knowledge and common sense than a fruit fly.
A study was completed not long ago. That study indicated that 54% of US adults read below 6th-grade, 20% of those read below 5th-grade, and 21% are illiterate. I know math skills aren’t much better, but that means 75% of US citizens have no business influencing educational decisions. Why aren’t we competitive with Asian nations or Euro nations? This is why. We devalue education and allow uneducated zealots in charge of curriculum instead of those who actually undergo specific education and training in order to teach. It’s embarrassing but then again, Republicans love the poorly educated and those that blame others for their lack of success, like illegal immigrants, women, and LGBTQ people, because yes, they absolutely are keeping you poor and miserable. Wrong. The crooks you keep voting into office here in FL are keeping you that way but to go on about how a man in a skirt keeps you from working.
I digress…this is a horrible idea and will be the final nail in Florida’s education. Good luck. Remember who to blame when you do fail—meddling parents that think they know better than an education specialist and republican leadership for holding you down until you drown.
Bob B. says
Since they did away with Driver’s Ed in school, drivers have gotten ignorant of the rules of the road. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the number of accidents verses the lack of driver’s ed courses. While we are on the subject, why aren’t kids being taught had to read and write cursive? Is it because texting and computers taken the place of the written word? Lets not stop there, how about the life skills courses they use to teach in school like how to fill out a check, balance a budget or even just make a budget? And why is the solution always seems to be reduce the standards so the poor child doesn’t suffer from social stigmatism of having to be set back a grade or two because they didn’t care to learn, spending too much time on the cell phone texting, or have parents that don’t have the time to spend with their child to help them read or do their homework? Granted, there are parents that care and do get involved in the PTA and Teacher Meetings, etc. But for all the others, they let their child struggle or have someone else politically be their proxy – even if that someone supports segregation and secular teaching.
Tony Mack says
So, parents can decide if their child will “move up” to the next grade? Seriously??? Does this not presume that these “parents” have some educational background, some kind of specialized knowledge that gives the gravitas to make those decisions? Have any of these legislators ever visited a Wal-Mart? A Publix?
A CVS? I’ve seen adults who can’t read a food label let alone a history book. They still do teach history, don’t they? Geography? Spelling, English grammar, etc.
Well then, let’s get all these well-schooled “parents” together (I presume legislators believe there are only two-parent homes) and just eliminate the teachers. Can’t wait to see what these slugs do when two gay “parents” walk in the room. Good grief!