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State will rescore 2006 FCAT 3rd-grade reading tests
by Bill Kaczor
TALLAHASSEE -- The disclosure that part of Florida's standardized assessment test was too easy last year overshadowed the release today of 2007 results showing continued improvement at almost every grade level.
The third-grade reading issue rekindled a smoldering debate over placing so much emphasis on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which is used to grade students, their schools and their teachers.
The problems with last year's FCAT resulted in inflated grades for many students and their schools and the promotion of some third graders who should have been held back. Just how many were affected will not be known until the 2006 tests are rescored.
Education officials also announced that starting next year all FCAT results will be independently audited before they are released.
House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach credited officials with "coming clean" on the 2006 test problem but said it "confirms the danger of overemphasizing a single test."
"Imagine if instead of inflating grades the mistake had reduced them and we had retained students because of it," Gelber said. "What about the mistakes we don't know?"
Broward Teachers Union President Pat Santeramo in Fort Lauderdale had a similar complaint about the test and also downplayed the significance of the results.
"They don't mean anything because it's not a reliable measurement," Santeramo said.
Gov. Charlie Crist said the problem with the 2006 FCAT "doesn't raise my confidence" but that he remained committed to making schools accountable for student achievement, the FCAT's overarching purpose.
"Accountability is paramount to me, but it has to be accurate," Crist said. "It's got to be fair and we'll do everything in our power, in this administration, to make sure it is."
Crist, as state education commissioner, supported efforts led by former Gov. Jeb Bush to grade the state's schools using the FCAT as the primary measuring stick.
Bush said in a statement that state education officials must be held accountable for ensuring the FCAT's validity just as schools are accountable for student achievement, but he added the long-term trend is what's important.
"Accountability is working," Bush said. "By any measure more students are successfully reading, writing and doing math than before accountability."
Acting Education Commissioner Jeanine Blomberg, though, said she is confident in the accuracy of this year's results and that the auditing will help avoid future problems.
She said the problem appeared to be with anchor questions that are designed to ensure tests have the same degree of difficulty from year to year although they are rewritten every year.
Harcourt Assessment Inc. of San Antonio, Texas, which administers and grades the FCAT under a state contract stands by "the validity and reliability of the FCAT," company spokesman Russell Schweiss said in an e-mail.
"We are currently reviewing many factors from the 2006 administration, including the selection of anchor items, to explain the increase in third grade reading proficiency," added Schweiss, who once served as Bush's press secretary when he was governor.
Statewide FCAT results rose at all levels in reading, math and science over last year, except for falling scores in third-grade reading and sixth-grade math and reading. Tenth grade math was unchanged. Writing scores, released last month, also were up slightly.
The third-grade reading drop, though, may turn out not to be a decline after all once last year's test is rescored.
Third is the only grade in which the FCAT -- although only the reading part -- is used to determine which students are promoted. High school students, though, must past the math and reading portions to receive a standard diploma.
The reading and math portions of the test, given in the third through 10th grades, traditionally have been used to grade, reward and penalize public schools. This year the science portion, given in the fifth, eighth and 11th grades, is being added. The test also is a factor in determining which teachers receive merit pay.
Blomberg said a panel of experts, including some from school districts, will meet next week to analyze last year's third-grade reading test and develop a procedure for rescoring the results.
Blomberg said Department of Education staffers have examined the tests for the last three years and that she has confidence in the 2005 and 2007 results.
"As we continued to investigate, it became clear that the anomaly in the third-grade reading result does not lie with this year's results, which fall in line with the trend of moderate and steady increases from year-to-year," Blomberg said in a statement.
In 2006, 75 percent of third graders scored at or above grade level, a dramatic increase from 67 percent the year before and the highest percentage for any grade level in any subject in any year.
This year's result was 69 percent, which still is an improvement over 2005 and better than any other statewide reading score in 2007 except the fifth grade's 72 percent.
Reading and math tests, given in grades three through 10, traditionally have been used to grade schools on a scale of A through F. The science test, given in the fifth, eighth and 11th grades, is being added to the mix for the first time this year.
Blomberg said no attempt would be made to change last year's school grades after the third-grade reading portion is rescored. It could delay the release of this year's school grades -- usually in mid-June -- by a week or two because they are based in part on year-to-year improvement, she said.
No individual student will be negatively impacted by the recalculation," Blomberg said.
The addition of science scores to the school grading process is expected to result in fewer A and B schools this year, said Juan Copa, director of evaluation and reporting for the department.
Copa said that should be a "momentary blip" because school grades typically drop every time such a change is made but then rebound in following years.
Although most overall FCAT scores for have continued on an upward trend, Blomberg said she was troubled by an increasing gap between minority and white students in reading. Minority students, though, have continued to close the gap in math.
— Bill Kaczor, Associated Press
Orlando Sentinel
2007-05-24
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