The FCAT statistics indicate that the test scores vary from class to class as the students move through the Escambia County Public School District. Teachers don’t have the same impact year to year.
Edgewater (percent below 3)
2007 Third grade 41%
2008 Fourth grade 38% …3% improvement
2008 Third grade 30%
2009 Fourth grade 46%…16% decline
Navy Point
2007 Third grade 48%
2008 Fourth grade 60%…28% decline
2008 Third grade 44%
2009 Fourth grade 28%…16% improvement
OJ Semmes
2007 Third grade 59%
2008 Fourth grade 52%…7% improvement
2008 Third grade 40%
2009 Fourth grade 62%…22% decline
Spencer Bibbs
2007 Third grade 64%
2008 Fourth grade 63%…1% improvement
2008 Third grade 59%
2009 Fourth grade 63%…4% improvement
Allie Yniestra
2007 Third grade 51%
2008 Fourth grade 63%…12% improvement
2008 Third grade 36%
2009 Fourth grade 27%…9% decline
Lincoln Park
2007 Third grade 47%
2008 Fourth grade 43%…4% decline
2008 Third grade 69%
2009 Fourth grade 53%…16% decline
If FCAT preparation, tutoring and teachers are so critical, then classes would have the same measure of improvement or decline every year. According to FCAT supporters, good teachers will get better FCAT scores. That isn’t happening. The scores vary from class to class. The teachers are the scapegoats and aren’t being properly evaluated, if FCAT scores are used.
The Lincoln Park third class of 2008 reads better that the class of 2007. When these classes moved to fourth grade, the Class of 2008 still scored better than its predecessor, but experienced a bigger decline than the class of 2007.
At Allie Yniestra, the opposite is true. The Class of 2007 has the better readers. Same teachers different results.
FCAT is a shame and spending hours, days and months force-feeding students on the exam kills the joy of learning. It definitely isn’t creating a generation of better readers. When a school promotes a weak class on to middle and high schools, its scores and school grade goes up —if the incoming class performs better.
In a tight state budget year, it’s time the Legislature drop the FCAT.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Greg:
Valid points all – the FCAT is but one tool, but a greatly under-utilized one; many valid inferences could be drawn from the results if individualized scores were examined, but they aren’t. The point is that it is the only tool available and absent this, how would we assign or determine accountability ?
As to local school officials abdicating responsibility … I wouldn’t use the word ‘abdicate’ which has an implicit connotation of willing acquiescence – it was forced upon them because they were unwilling to do what was necessary.
I’ll try to answer your question, Jake. I certainly understand the analogy and will respond with one of my own. I think if the FCAT were perhaps used as one tool in a teacher’s toolbox to judge performance of students, then it is probably somewhat valid. However, the make or break system is flawed at best. I know lots of people who score wonderfully on standardized tests, but seem to have rocks in their heads and vice versa.
Nothing substitutes for the day-to-day time that teachers put in with students. A good teacher knows his students, knows if they are grasping the concepts and should be trusted to determine if they pass or fail without a standardized test mandated by any state or federal government. Obviously, not all teachers are good teachers, but that is a whole other animal.
Finally, my main point was that judging teachers by how their students do on the FCAT is really just an abdication of any responsbility by the administrators at local schools to figure out which teachers are good and which are not. Student quality, attentiveness, intelligence, etc. varies wildly, year to year, even in the IB Program or other “strong” schools. I can only imagine how it varies in some of the “weak” schools around the state.
Rick, As long as Education is dictated from Washington and Tallahassee you will find failure after failure. Both entities spend billions just dreaming garbage up, issueing unfunded mandate after another and saddling our kids with mediocracy.
The best thing that could ever happen to Education is that the government gives each parent a schooling voucher whereas families can take them to what ever school they want. Forcing them to compete. I can promise you that failing schools will be empty and broke while successful ones will thrive.
Public schools as they are today is the ultimate communistic environment.
Rick:
A valid point to some extent that I can only counter with another question; if, and that is a big IF, the FCAT measures the ability to read, write and do math, then doesn’t it follow that ‘teaching’ the FCAT is teaching the ability to read, write and do math ? Isn’t that what the students are there to learn ? Isn’t that the basic skill set that we want for our children ?
Back to my pilot analogy – don’t we want our pilot to have a mastery of at least the basic skills, and by the instructor teaching what the pilot will be asked to demonstrate, isn’t he being taught the skills that he needs for his job ?
I understand the concern that there is a certain tunnel vision associated with the test, but a high school graduate that can quote Nietzsche, perform in a play and march at the high school homecoming, yet can not balance his checkbook, does not a successful adult make.
To pose another question, if the FCAT demonstrates a lack of mastery of the basic skills already, what would you prefer the teachers be emphasizing instead of bringing those skills up to snuff ? There are only limited hours in the day,
The test is not perfect; indeed, it is a blunt instrument, but at present the only one politically acceptable. I only took exception to the statistical inferences that you drew – I know your background and I know that you know that while statisticians may quibble about the efficacy or randomness or size of a sample, regressions/trend line analyses always presume a consistent population and we do not have that as the students are not ‘classed’ together through the grades – research design in psych also tells us that the major diverse stimuli presented through part of the population being presented with different interim teachers in the second grade (or whatever sample we’re talking about) will have unknown and unpredictable effects on the final non-homogenized population under study.
Jake: Does teaching to the test make more educated students and with better “basic skill sets”? The FCAT test scores tells us that they don’t. I suspect it burns them out and turns them off. FCAT doesn’t equal better education.
Greg R:
A question – in a student’s life is not the FCAT a ‘real situation’ that requires ‘critical thinking’ ? It would seem to me to be an analogue to a carpenter being paid for the finished house frame he erected. The student’s job is demonstrating proficiency at a certain kind of problem solving, as is the carpenter’s…the student’s ‘real life’ is academic testing.
IMHO
I believe that your analysis is fundamentally flawed, Rick; the only way to draw the inference cited above would require that Teacher A teach 20 first grade students, Teacher B teach the very same 20 second grade students the following year and then Teacher C teach the very same 20 students in the third grade…this is not the case in any public school in Escambia County. In fact Teacher A teaches the first grade to 20 students and 6 of them go to Teacher C for the second grade, another 6 go to Teacher D, and the remainder go to Teacher E for the second grade…repeated for the third grade. This is an effort to minimize the mis-teaching of Teacher A and Teacher B to suit the NEA and the FEA so that the results are hopelessly muddled. The NEA and the FEA try to spin this as ‘leveling’, but that is the purest BS. If in fact we moved the same class through the grades the bad teachers would immediately become obvious…but to what end ? The union would never allow retention based upon this. The reality is that the individual student scores ARE available to the Superintendent and such an analysis COULD be made by tracking those students but it would be too costly…not the study, but fighting the law suits from the union.
Additionally , if the FCAT truly measures the comprehension of a basic skill set, what’s the objection ? Would you want your airliner piloted by a pilot who has passed every part of the flight test but landing ? Do you really want to return to the days of ‘social promotions’ ?
My dad was a high school history teacher, mostly to AP students. All the IB’ers used to tell me how great he was and his students from Tate before that as well. My dad thought the FCAT was a terrible measure of not only the quality of the teacher, but also the quality of the student. Almost anyone can memorize concepts but the true measure of a quality education (and educator) is being able to apply concepts to real situations, think critically and hopefully still manage to be creative on occassion.
FCAT = BIG FAIL