Florida education officials recently posted a frank internal report about what led to the standardized testing flop that has consumed the ed reform debate for the past two months and sparked the biggest backlash yet against the state’s accountability system. Unfortunately, it received virtually no media coverage (one exception here), which is a bit head-scratching considering both the context and contents.
It essentially says, “We messed up.”
“The decision to make a significant change in scoring FCAT Writing in one year was flawed,” the report says. “Throughout the lifetime of the FCAT, there has never been such a dramatic change in scoring criteria in such a short time.”
Led by former Education Commissioner John Winn (pictured here), the just-the-facts review contrasts sharply with the bomb throwing from critics who fought change every step of the way and now deny progress, particularly for low-income and minority students. It is also, in a way, a good sign for the future – a reflection of leadership that is willing to admit mistakes and find remedies.
The report is humbling. It says the state moved too far, too fast in ramping up scoring criteria. External communication with school districts wasn’t strong enough. Internal communication with new Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson was lacking. Also, department staff didn’t move soon enough to determine potential impact of raising the bar: “Had this been done, perhaps the committee members and the Department would have changed the decision to move forward in less than a year.”
Robinson and other education officials have acknowledged some of these mistakes in general terms. But the report goes into more detail. It references confusion in a key July 5, 2011 memo to superintendents, and a year-long span in which the state Board of Education did not receive briefings about the changes. It points out that budget cuts forced the state to whittle away at a more optimal test design, and says transition at the top may have contributed to the communication problems. (After Gov. Rick Scott forced out former Commissioner Eric J. Smith, Winn stepped in as interim until the board hired Robinson.)
There’s no doubt the mistakes have undermined confidence in the state’s education system. It will require time and care to repair that. But it’s also true that many critics have gone beyond the kind of legitimate beefs soberly recounted in the report to flirt with demagoguery. (more…)
Florida’s public schools were handed another solid but overlooked report card this week from another respected, independent source.
The 27-page, data-stuffed, “Decade of Progress” progress report from the Southern Regional Education Board is yet more evidence that Florida’s public schools are making steady progress despite the claims of some critics. The trend lines are often especially strong for low-income and minority students.
For example, between 2003 and 2011, the percentage of low-income eighth-graders scoring at the basic level or above on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose from 55 to 65 percent in Florida – a 10-point gain. Over the same period, the percentage of more affluent eighth-graders who reached the bar rose 5 percentage points, from 78 to 83 percent.
For each of its 16 member states, the SREB looked at a wide array of academic indicators to see how much the needle moved over the past decade, and how those gains or losses compared nationally and regionally. Besides commonly cited indicators like NAEP scores, graduation rates and AP results, the board looked at less-publicized statistics like college enrollment rates, ninth-grade “enrollment bulges” and grade-level progression in high school.
According to the report, the percentage of recent high school graduates enrolling in college in Florida increased from 57 to 71 percent between 2000 and 2010. Nationally, the numbers rose from 56 to 67 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of college freshmen in Florida who returned for a second year remained steady at 86 percent.
The SREB report comes as Florida faces mounting criticism for its testing and accountability regimen, which many critics, including local school board members and parent groups, say has been ineffective. Despite that backdrop, the report was all but ignored by Florida media (an exception here), as was this recent report that found Florida’s graduation rates are among the fastest-rising in the nation.
Discussions about how best to improve student learning often get contentious, so at redefinED we try to make a positive contribution by identifying areas of possible common ground and clarifying the historical record when we see errors or omissions. Rita M. Solnet’s recent Huffington Post column on how Florida might better utilize its standardized testing data gives us an opportunity to do both.
Rita is a founder of Parents Across America, a group that opposes excessive reliance on high-stakes standardized tests. And since Rita lives in Florida, she is particularly unhappy with how Florida uses – or, she would say, abuses - its state testing data. Rita ends her column with some ideas that provide the basis for common ground, but her piece also includes some erroneous Florida history, which I want to correct.
In 1991, the Florida Legislature passed the Education Reform and Accountability Act, commonly known as Blueprint 2000. Florida had experimented with giving teachers and schools more decision-making power in the late 1980s, and Blueprint 2000 was intended to accelerate this effort. The grand bargain was that state and local government would stop micromanaging schools in exchange for individual schools being held accountable for results.
While the legislation passed with strong bipartisan support, the primary advocates were all Democrats. They included Gov. Lawton Chiles, Lt. Gov. Buddy McKay, Commissioner of Education Betty Castor, Rep. Doug “Tim” Jamerson and Sen. George Kirkpatrick.
Two months after the legislation passed, the Florida Commission on Education Reform and Accountability was convened to create the legislatively mandated standards, assessments and accountability system. I was the teachers union president in Pinellas County in 1991, and Commissioner Castor appointed me to be one of three teacher representatives on the commission.
The U.S. Department of Labor released the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report in June 1991, outlining the knowledge and skills students would need to succeed in the 21st Century. Our commission was impressed and decided to base Florida’s standards on the SCANS recommendations, which included literacy skills (reading, writing, mathematics), thinking skills (problem solving, decision making), personal qualities (honesty/integrity), resource management (time, money), information management (organizing, processing, interpreting), and technological competence.
Several commissioners argued that we could measure the SCANS standards using an International Baccalaureate-type assessment system that included multiple internal and external assessments, but the Florida Department of Education’s student testing staff strongly disagreed. Its concerns were legal and operational. (more…)
