I think not. FCAT may measure the effectiveness of entire school district, but not a particular teacher. There are too many variables as School Board member Jeff Bergosh points out in his comments on my other pay. A student isn’t reading at a third grade level when he/she reaches third grade — the first year that they are tested by the FCAT. That is a failure of the school system – Kindergarten through Second grade. If that same student can’t write by 10th grade, how is that a failure of the 10th grade teacher?
However, because the teacher is to be judged – at least 50 percent- on her students’ FCAT scores, he/she is put in a position of having to drill FCAT in any hope of keeping their jobs and getting a pay raise, according to the bills in the state legislature.
FCAT is a joke and hasn’t made our schools better. And I would like to see the school district do a study of tenure teachers vs. those without tenure to see which classrooms do worse on the FCAT. I would bet tenure has nothing to do with low FCAT scores either.