Education Commissioner Tony Bennett will ask the State Board of Education next week to prevent schools from dropping by more than one letter grade on the state report card in an effort to counter what superintendents say could be an alarming drop in grades.
standardized testing
What an Ode to Farting, Drug-Dealing’s Benefits and the FCAT Have in Common
A Matanzas High School student who wrote a humorous essay on the health benefits of drug-dealing was threatened with a referral, though his teacher gave him a near-top grade: Jo Ann Nahirny explains how FCAT rewards dull, stupid and bad writing at the expense of creativity.
Education Department Shrugs Off Major Errors in Florida’s Science FCAT Test Guidelines
Scientist Robert Krampf’s analysis of FCAT science test guidelines to be a collection of poorly written examples, multiple-choice questions where one or more of the wrong responses were actually scientifically correct answers, and definitions that ranged from misleading to totally wrong. State officials seemed unconcerned.
Flagler’s SAT Scores Tumble to Lowest Level in at Least 8 Years as Florida’s Improve
The declines some of them steep, took place in all categories–reading, math, writing–at both Flagler Palm Coast High School and Matanzas High School, with one exception in reading at Matanzas.
Flagler Students’ ACT Scores, Reflecting College Readiness, Fall for 4th Year in a Row
If Flagler County were a state, its composite score of 18.6 would rank at the very bottom of the table, below Mississippi’s 18.7, well below the national average of 21.1, and a universe away from the scores of students in New England and the Northeast.
Bucking State Trend, Flagler School Grades Stay Strong, But So Does Criticism
All but one Flagler County public or charter school scored an A or a B. The exception was Palm Harbor Academy, a charter, which scored an F. The state’s teachers union cautioned against making much of the results absent a more reliable testing system.
With Few Flagler Exceptions, Reading, Math and Science FCAT Scores Drop for Most Schools
As reading and math scores improved statewide in most grades, despite tougher standards, Flagler County students lost ground over last year’s results, and struggled to keep up with state averages.
The Joy of Writing, Strangled by FCAT
Testing, Is Revived One Page at a Time
Most students hate to write. Jo Ann Nahirny can’t blame them. Schools have snuffed the joy out of writing, all in the name of standardized testing, she writes, as describes how she empowers them to claim their voice back.
Flagler Third Graders Rank 19th in Reading, 23rd in Math, in Latest FCAT Batch
Out of 988 students who took the test in Flagler County, 130, or 13 percent, scored only a 1 on a scale of 5, and will be held back, absent improvements in summer reading school, which the district offers free.
FCAT Flack: Gov. Rick Scott Grades Up PR
As the Florida Department of Education tries to handle the fallout of the collapse in FCAT writing scores, the office of Gov. Rick Scott has been intimately involved in efforts to roll out the test scores, according to staff emails.