Bill to ban FCAT prep gains key vote

The House Schools and Learning Council has unanimously approved a proposal that would make several changes to Florida's curriculum standards, including a prohibition on scrapping the curriculum to teach kids test-taking skills.

PCB SLC 08-01 would move the state toward end-of-course exams for high school students. It would require a social studies FCAT test. It would require that curriculum goals be aligned by subject and by grade level.

And it would require school districts to stop "teaching to the test," something that many people have argued can't be done because the FCAT only tests knowledge. But many districts have become ensconced in "FCAT frenzy," so much so that the Broward school superintendent recently banned the practice.

Council members spoke in full support, although Rep. Shelley Vana, D-Lantana, urged her colleagues to hash out a better definition of "teaching to the test" as the bill moves to the floor. After all, she noted, there might be a set of skills that a student needs to succeed in school and life, as well as the FCAT, and the schools should not deny that information.

Comments

[me]

And while the're at it they can make sure to restructure the No Child Left Behind Act which can cause a school to be restructured and teachers/administrators reassigned.

So if the Fl DOE wants teachers to stop teaching to the test , then they should remove the heavy penalties linked to low scores.

Teachers will continue to do what they think will benefit their students and themselves.

If they don't call it FCAT PREP they will call it something else and then continue to prepare their students to pass the test so the kids can feel successful and they can stay employed.

All the Einsteins in Tally are doing is providing the Kaplan Test Prep company by now helping them add one more money maker...."enroll in FCAT prep for only $300", since the teacher won't be able to do it.

The Ensteins in Tally are politicians and mostly ex-lawyers who think they have a handle on the classroom, but as usual they are clueless.

[No Way]

The legislature can pass all the bills it wants, but there is no way teachers will stop teaching to that god-forsaken test. FCAT scores determine the quality of the school, the school grade, whether or not teachers get incentive pay, and a myriad of other "quality control" issues. It weighs to heavily. If they want teachers to teach their subjects (and not to the test), the FCAT needs to be made less influential.

[DMJ]

No good teacher teaches to any test. That is a myth. It is impossible to teach to the reading test. When you teach kids how to read and comprehend and enjoy reading, they can pass the test.

[dixi.teacher]

DMJ

Are you currently a teacher?

I think that the Legislature should ban the use of FCAT under punishment of death. That would end "FCAT frenzy."

[dmj and dixi]

As I'd guess dixi knows, it's pretty obvious that DMJ isn't teaching here and now. Effective or not 'right' or not), teachers are required to use specific, FCAT-format materials to prep students for the test. This is happening at all levels. Yes, there are better ways to teach and learn (a more comprehensive and higher level of curriculum), but that's not really the point, is it?

[Lisa]

Can we just get rid of grades altogether. No one seems to care about those anymore. My daughter is a 3.5 grade point honors student at a five star school. She also has dyslexia and short term memory loss and works hard for every grade. She failed the fcat math by one point(math is her only C subject) and so now she won't get a diploma? Florida says she qualifies for bright futures, she is being recruited by no less than 3 ivy league schools for her writing talent, and now the state tells me she can't have her diploma? You justify the system for me, for her. This is not a child who was ever going to be left behind, this is not a student that needed anyone to tell her what she had to overcome to excell in this world, she is also not unique in her situation.

You see, teaching to the test does not work for my daughter because of her short term memory problem she cannot cram. The only way studying works for her is by repetitive rote instruction, and since different math and science feilds are taught in different years it is not possible for her to have studied everything by the time the test rolls around, dooming her to failure. A freshman or sophomore is simply not prepared for all science and math questions unless the teachers teach to the test, which as I have stated dooms my daughter to failure.

Add to this that my daughter's school does block scheduling which only allows her 4 classes a semester and she goes to military high so one of those classes is only ROTC brings us down to 3 classes a semester and the state requires 4 years each of math and science but also to declare a major your freshman year of which x amount of the classes must be in that field-well I guess you get the picture.

When exactly did grades become a minor tool in accessing or children's abilities. Think of the millions of dollars we could save if we just used our children's grades to determine if our students should graduate. Think of the millions of dollars we could save if we let parents determine which were the best schools. I don't know if anyone remembers when it was a parent's responsibility to make sure their area school was up to a exceptable standard. That was back in the days when school boards listened to parents.

[Lisa]

Yadada Yadada-
How much money did we spend to "update FCAT implimentation?

Get focused people- Why do they print workbooks on FCat preparidness and hand them out to students if they don't plan on studying for the test?
and please- Why is my daughter's ROTC instructor teaching grammer if schools aren't teaching to the test? I mean when was the last time you met an army sargeant that was a grammer expert? Teaching to the test will always go on it cannot be stopped and we all know this. What a waste of time to try to control it.

The issue is not FCAT reform it is school readiness. FCAT should strictly be used to access whether a schools cirriculm is up to standards not whether a student has learned anything. There will always be students that don't get good grades and will not pass tests, and there will be students that always pass. They should be judged on their grades. FCat is a school grade not a student one. It should not be a pass-fail test. I'm not trying to ban FCAT; just ban it from being a pass-fail standard.

[elem teacher]

Well, we can throw out all our textbook series. Every last one of them: math, reading, science, social studies includes student books titled FCAT this or that.