9486 in the collection  

Broward leads resistance to FCAT

Broward School Board members and some state lawmakers want to deemphasize the FCAT. You can vote in poll about whether there is to much emphasis on the FCAT. Here is the result from the fist 113 voters:

Web Vote
Should so much emphasis be placed on the FCAT?
Yes. It's a great way to measure school performance and it should be emphasized. 11 votes
10%

No. Teachers focus on the test too much because of state requirements. They should spend more time teaching. 94 votes
83%

Not sure. It might not be the ideal way, but I don't know if there's a better way. 8 votes
7%

BY Nirvi Shah

It started out a decade ago as a simple test, but the FCAT has become a high-stakes trial that determines a school's reputation -- and a frenzied academic culture has evolved to handle it.

Diplomas, grade-level promotions and teacher bonuses ride on the annual exams in reading, writing, math and science. Instructors lob practice questions at students all year long. Students are rewarded with parking spaces, pizzas and iPods -- or free passes on finals -- if they do well. Pep rallies, even songs, mark FCAT season.

It's called FCAT frenzy. Some state lawmakers, and Broward School Board members, want to change all that. But they have different ideas about how to do it.

A proposed House bill would prohibit schools from spending on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test preparation materials, and require future textbooks to come without FCAT references.

"We are seeking to decrease the focus on the exam while increasing the focus on learning," said Rep. Anitere Flores, R-Miami. "The sections of the bill that deal with the perceived FCAT frenzy seek to try to make teaching more fun again, so that teachers can feel free to go back to teaching the materials with the result being that their students will perform well on assessments."

The Broward School Board has been encouraging schools to pull back on FCAT-related activities. This year, Broward eliminated practice tests for about 57,000 students who scored well on the FCAT.

The district plans to survey parents, principals and teachers about the FCAT culture at their schools, administrators said at a workshop Thursday. Miami-Dade schools are not pursuing anti-frenzy policies, but its school board members have inquired about Broward's efforts.

Broward board member Stephanie Kraft, one of the district's biggest proponents of cutting back schools' emphasis on the FCAT, found the legislative bill "bizarre."

She said it doesn't address the repercussions schools face if students do poorly on the FCAT. Also, she added, while teachers should focus on teaching state standards, the bill in its current form wouldn't allow teachers to help students learn essential mechanics of test-taking.

Those skills include how to eliminate some multiple-choice answers, bubbling in answers correctly and budgeting time so students get through the whole test.

"I'm not really sure as a practical matter how you can teach just the curriculum without doing the test-prep part," Kraft said.

Flores said she was open to clarifying the bill to allow teaching some test-preparation skills.

"There are some students that will benefit from learning general test-taking skills, and that should still be permitted in limited circumstances," Flores said.

Broward also hopes to create its own system that rates schools by attendance, teacher retention, community involvement, the percentage of students taking algebra and the graduation rate as well as FCAT scores.

Administrators in Broward also want schools to experiment with going FCAT-free for a year to see if students can succeed on the test anyway.

While getting rid of what board members called 'the F-word' seems appealing, it isn't easy, said Linda McDaniel, principal of Sunset Lakes Elementary in Miramar. She tried to strip the FCAT label from her school this year.

"I'm not going to say it went away," she told School Board members Thursday. "It's just almost impossible in this culture we have."

— Nirvi Shah
Miami Herald
2008-03-21
http://www.miamiherald.com/519/story/464579.html

---

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380   
[1] 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>    Last >>