Gov. Jeb Bush sold his school-grading plan -- with its almost total reliance on one test, the FCAT -- as a reliable way to judge schools on how well they teach students. But now the state has decided to discount the very portion of the FCAT that had the most potential for assessing the true extent of learning. Whatever validity the FCAT once had to measure school quality -- and many educators believe it had little to begin with -- it has even less now.

In a compromise aimed at getting test results back sooner, the state recently announced that the FCAT's "performance items" will no longer count toward the grade each school is assigned under Bush's A+

Education Plan. Unlike multiple-choice questions, those performance items require students to write an essay or draw a diagram explaining how they arrived at the answer -- i.e., to show their reasoning, not just their memory or test-taking prowess. It is precisely those questions that most distinguish the FCAT from other standardized tests and make its results more reliable for teachers, as well as politicians.

By taking those questions out of the grading equation, the state has moved the FCAT even further away from its original purpose. The FCAT was meant to gauge student progress, not to judge school quality.

As a high-stakes pawn of school accountability, the FCAT has arguably done more in its several years of use to distort education than to improve it. Across Florida, schools are cutting back on valuable courses not covered by the FCAT and wasting time in FCAT pep rallies that could otherwise be invested in instruction.

At the same time, education officials in Tallahassee keep changing the FCAT to fit it into a political scheme it was never designed to support.

Now they go and discount those portions of the test that offer the most educational value. Isn't it time for Bush and lawmakers to do what they demand of Florida's teachers and reassess their methods?

Back to Perspective

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page