For one student, last bit of FCAT news is the worst
One third-grader finds out he missed his final chance for promotion: passing a test at the end of reading camp.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published July 13, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - For nearly a week, Tanya Bunch went home at lunchtime to check her mail. On Wednesday, the letter she was dreading was there.
She took the mail inside and set it on the kitchen table. Then she took a deep breath and opened it.
Her nephew Ernest Jones had exhausted his hopes for promotion to fourth grade. He hadn't scored high enough on a final examination after reading camp.
How would she break the bad news to him this time?
In May, she told him that he wouldn't be going to fourth grade with his cousin Brianna, that he had failed the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
A few weeks later, she told him there might be a chance to pass, by attending a summer camp.
When Ernest got home from Roberts Recreation Center on Wednesday afternoon, Bunch pulled him onto her lap and whispered a quick prayer that she would say the right thing.
"I said to him, "Do you know what this is about?'
"He said, "I didn't pass.'
"I said, "How do you know you didn't pass?'
"He said, "The look on your face.' "
Ernest started crying. Bunch suggested he go sit in a warm tub of water. She made tacos, his favorite dinner.
At bedtime, before she tucked him in, she told him everything would be okay. But hours later, she was still fuming.
"He's good about his work, but when you tell him, "Hurry, hurry, hurry,' he can't do it," she said.
Bunch explained that when Ernest gets nervous, his ears break out in a rash. They were so inflamed when he took the FCAT in March that she had to take him to the doctor.
Bunch admits that Ernest always has struggled with reading, but he earns B's and C's in his other classes and straight A's in social studies. She can't understand why he has to repeat the entire grade.
"I'm very hurt because I think they're basing these kids' futures on an exam that is too much for them," she said. "It's stressing them out."
Ernest is among nearly 500 students who learned last week that despite their willingness to attend a monthlong reading camp to earn promotion to fourth grade, they still will be held back.
The camp was one of several "good cause" alternatives that legislators proposed to allow some of the state's 43,000 third-graders to be promoted even though they had failed the reading portion of the FCAT.
This was the first year promotion was dependent on a child's FCAT performance. The "no social promotion" law grew out of legislators' frustration that although 27 percent of Florida third-graders scored substantially below grade level on the reading test in 2002, only 3 percent were retained.
In Pinellas County, 1,826 students were slated to repeat third grade in 2003-04. With all but one "good cause" exemption taken into consideration - about 50 students will take a national test in August that could allow them to be promoted - more than 1,000 children have run out of options, barring additional exemptions being offered.
About 600 students signed up to attend one of 13 reading camps the district ran between May 27 and June 27. Only 55 of the 521 who took the test on June 26 passed. Carol Thomas, assistant superintendent of elementary education, was disappointed but not surprised.
"I think many of our kids need much more intense remediation than a four-week camp could provide," she said. "There was just not the time."
More important, she added, there wasn't the money. The state had hoped that districts would offer the camps for six to eight weeks, but it made no provision for funding. Many districts, including Pinellas, had to scramble to find money to pay teachers to run the camps, Thomas said.
Diane Guzman, a first-grade teacher at Bay Point Elementary who taught at the reading camp that Ernest attended at Lakewood Elementary, said more time would have mattered little. The majority of the students in her group were too far behind.
After administering a short assessment called the Harris Word List on the first day of camp, she realized that most of the children assigned to her were reading at the first- or second-grade level.
Using techniques she employs as a teacher of struggling students in the Early Success Program at Bay Point, she spent the first 20 minutes of each one-hour session on small group instruction.
The students read aloud to her, then answered questions so she could measure their comprehension skills and reading ability. When one of them stumbled on a word, she suggested a strategy, such as finding smaller words the child already knew inside the bigger word.
"They were still very dependent on the teacher," Guzman said. "I gave them some ways to figure out things for themselves because when they take the FCAT, they're on their own."
The children spent an additional 20 minutes on the computer working with a self-guided program on phonics and vowel sounds.
Then they had 20 minutes for independent silent reading. They recorded comments about each book they read in a log and then wrote essays, explaining their favorite characters or discussing what they would change about the story.
The students worked hard, Guzman said, but she saw little progress.
Tanya Bunch admits she saw little change in Ernest over the four weeks, but she doesn't regret sending him to camp.
"I thought they gave him a great chance, but he just didn't make it," she said.
Ernest, 8, has lived with her since he was a baby. Soon, she will take him shopping so he'll be ready to begin a new chapter at Lakewood Elementary.
"He'll have new surroundings and he's going to be just fine," she said. "I told him, "You're going to be smarter. We're just going to work very, very hard.' "
By the numbers
According to the state Department of Education, 1,826 Pinellas third-graders failed the reading portion of the FCAT in March and were in danger of being held back. More than 600 have been promoted thanks to a number of alternatives for promotion the state calls "good cause."
Here's how those students advanced and how many will repeat third grade:Special education students promoted because they already have been retained once.General education students promoted because they already have been retained twice.Students promoted because they have been enrolled in English as a second language programs for less than two years.Students promoted because they demonstrated through portfolios that they can read at grade level.Students promoted after passing a national reading test called the SAT-9 in May.Students promoted because they passed the SAT-9 after attending a reading camp in June.Students eligible to take the SAT-9 in August and who will be promoted if they pass.Students now slated for retention.
