An inside look at the rocky start to Florida’s standardized school test

The rollout of Florida’s standardized tests was so hampered by glitches that students “shut down” after having their answers lost over and over again, and others may have accidentally gotten a peek at questions a day before they had to answer them. A recently released survey of Florida school districts that use the controversial Florida…

DOE confirms Florida State Assessment is valid

Much to the chagrin of local school district officials, the Department of Education decreed that the Florida State Assessment is a valid standardized test – despite an independent review finding discrepancies in exam questions and the testing environment. Statewide setbacks during exam time last school year – glitches resulting from server crashes, cyber attacks and…

Test Review Raises Questions About Florida Standards Assessments Results

The superintendent of Florida’s largest district says an outside review of the state’s new test shows that Florida students weren’t being tested on what they were expected to know. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho says a review of the Florida Standards Assessments released today shows that on some exams as many as one in three questions…

Don Gaetz promises more testing reform in 2016

In 2016, expect standardized testing reform to be front and center among the Legislature’s education deliberations yet again. After an effort in the 2015 session eliminated some tests students have to take that lawmakers said were duplicates, state Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, the education budget chairman and former Senate president, says he’s going after even…

Florida Standards Assessments Get the Green Light

BAY COUNTY– Bay District School officials are still working their way through a report handed down from the Department of Education. The department contracted a third party group, Alpine Testing Solutions, to examine the validity of the Florida Standards Assessments which students are required to take each year. The almost 200-page report states that the tests are…

Lawmakers look to ditch state exams, adopt national tests

TALLAHASSEE — Some lawmakers hope to ditch Florida’s controversial new state exams by requiring the Department of Education to instead administer existing national exams, like the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills or the SAT college entrance exam. State education commissioner Pam Stewart rejected the idea when it was originally proposed by Seminole County Public Schools,…