Florida School Boards Association
TAMPA — With students already preparing for the first round of standardized tests for 2016, state officials are set to finally decide what to do with 2015’s test scores. Despite calls from the state’s superintendents to do without schools grades for 2015, the Florida Board of Education is poised to vote Wednesday in Tallahassee on…
High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some big caution signs and unanswered questions. The questions are hanging over a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act that lets states…
As Florida’s 2016 legislative session fast approaches, lawmakers keep filing education-related bills even during the holiday lull. The latest: Rep. Reggie Fullwood’s proposal to create a social services oriented pilot program for the state’s poorest, most academically struggling schools. One highly anticipated measure, though, remains conspicuously absent. On the heels of spring testing troubles, and amid calls to…
TALLAHASSEE — The Scott administration’s plan to evaluate schools’ performance in 2014-15 without taking into consideration the year-to-year improvement of students is based on an esoteric provision in the state’s education accountability law that lawmakers and school district leaders say is being misused. In 2013, the Legislature amended the state’s law that directs the Department…
Less than a year after lawmakers overhauled public-school testing following the botched rollout of the new Florida Standards Assessments, the debate over how to measure student learning is far from over. A leading senator on education issues is working on legislation that would allow schools to use tests other than the statewide standardized exams, which…
For the past quarter century, federal education policy has been moving in one direction: toward standards-based education redesign, a greater reliance on standardized tests, and bigger role for Washington when it comes to holding schools accountable for student results. President Barack Obama reversed course with the stroke of a pen Thursday, putting states and districts…
Florida education commissioner Pam Stewart’s school grading simulation showed the state would see a similar distribution of A through F marks for 2015 as it saw in 2014. That simple fact led some observers to question how that could be, given the state’s tests and standards were supposed to be more difficult. Since the numbers were…
Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is gearing up for the next round of a months-long battle with the state over flawed standardized student tests that will also determine school grades and measure teacher performance. The controversy centers on the state’s Department of Education’s plan to use scores from the new state tests given this spring —…
If the Florida Board of Education wants to increase state test cut scores to reflect NAEP proficiency, state education commissioner Pam Stewart isn’t offering any cover. Stewart has no plans to alter her Florida Standards Assessments cut score recommendations, which she issued in September, a Department of Education spokeswoman told the Gradebook. Stewart conducted a thorough…
The lines have been clearly drawn in Florida’s approach to setting the “cut” scores for the Florida Standards Assessments five achievement levels. Some State Board of Education members have called for connecting the scores to NAEP proficiency levels, a position forcefully promoted by state business interests and former Gov. Jeb Bush’s education foundation. Education Commissioner…