Florida School Boards Association
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…
The advent of new Florida academic standards and tests has created an opportunity for the Department of Education to revise school grading rules at the same time it sets test cut scores. Some of the changes int the proposed rule are fairly significant. For the first time, a school’s grade would be based only on…
The senior member of Florida’s State Board of Education called for more honesty in test score reporting Wednesday, just hours after the release of new nationwide data showing student performance had slipped in key areas. Fourth- and eighth-grade scores in the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress slid in Florida, after years of steady improvement.…
TALLAHASSEE — Members of the Florida Board of Education want Education Commissioner Pam Stewart to provide them with more data to help them set passing marks for the new statewide assessment, which continues to attract backlash from superintendents, teachers and parents statewide. Standing by the Florida Standards Assessments and in an effort to prove the…
Parent reports for the first administration of the Florida Standards Assessment went home Tuesday, but don’t expect to be able to make much sense of them. The reports don’t say whether a student passed or failed, as the bar hasn’t been set. Education Commissioner Pam Stewart has said that information won’t be available until at…
When the Education Department releases its biennial scorecard of reading and math scores for all 50 states this week, Florida and Texas are likely to look pretty mediocre. In 2013, the last time that scores were released, Florida ranked 30th on the tests, which are given to fourth and eighth graders, and Texas ranked 32nd.…
BOULDER, CO (October 25, 2015) – Yesterday, the Obama Administration acknowledged its own role in escalating the nation’s over-reliance on high-stakes, test-based accountability policies. It issued a Testing Action Plan for states, including a section on “reducing the reliance on student test scores through our rules and executive actions,” backing away somewhat from the Administration’s…
MIAMI — When protests from parents and teachers erupted against the new Common Core tests here, Florida thought it had a solution: It dropped the tests. But it abruptly switched sources for the exams, hoping the substitute would be more palatable. Now, nearly six months after students finished taking their exams, Florida faces an even…