Opinion: National tests are no way to help local schools

It's amazing that on one hand, President Bush says that our underfunded local school systems should have more local control and flexibility in spending the money allocated to them by the federal government while on the other hand he wants some sort of federal mandate expecting all schools to annually administer a national test measuring reading and math skills.

He says this is part of a national accountability program to which these supposedly more locally controlled schools must comply.

These national education tests would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to create and administer. In fact, national testing companies would become extremely wealthy from the hard-earned tax dollars that they collected from the federal and local education systems. At the same time, President Bush wants to give federal tax cuts to businesses and individuals. How much time would teachers spend actually teaching students to use critical thinking skills? How much more time would be spent on teaching the test? Community schools throughout the United States would be less autonomous from the federal government than they are today. There would be more national curriculum standards and more federal government mandates enforcing what subjects can be taught and how they are taught.

If President Bush wants the other states to live up to Florida as a model of education, he should keep in mind that Florida sadly has one of the highest high school drop-out rates in the nation. Florida's school districts spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours teaching students to be able to specifically pass the FCAT. In other states, there are usually fewer than 25 students to a classroom, but in Florida there are often more than 30 students in a classroom. Florida cannot keep people in the teaching profession, while in states such as Ohio or Michigan there are an overabundance of teachers who love to teach and would never dream of leaving a teaching career.

President Bush should have to take a national test in math and accountability. As part of this national test, he could mathematically calculate how he plans for the schools across the nation to fund this federal test and at the same time have enough money left over to allow schools to have more local control? I wonder if he'd meet the standards of his own federal guidelines?
-- Fawn Lerner-Gilli, Tampa

Test scorers are professionals

Re: Testing the limits, May 2.

I would like to take exception to several of the implications made in your stories which appeared concerning the educational scoring industry.

I am an employee of Measurement, Inc., an educational testing firm based in Durham, N.C., with offices in Tampa and throughout the United States. Our company scored the Florida Writes! writing tests before they were integrated into the FCAT tests and before the contract for those scoring projects were turned over to NCS Pearson. I am very proud to have been a part of those scoring projects, which were accomplished well within Measurement's high standards of accuracy and expediency.

Your stories seem to imply that scoring firms such as ours have a difficult time recruiting qualified personnel and must accept "bottom of the barrel" employees, that readers are confused about the scoring process and that our workers perform at a substandard level simply because of their rate of pay. I can assure you nothing is further from the truth. The people I work with on a daily basis, from the most senior managers to the rank-and-file readers, are intelligent, savvy and conscientious. They also care passionately about making sure that each student response they read receives the most accurate score possible. Many of these dedicated people have advanced degrees, and many of them have had highly successful careers in business, industry or the sciences. The states that contract with us have no trepidation about the quality of our work. In fact, my experience is that they are grateful that we have such a competent corps of readers evaluating their students' efforts.

I consider it very unfair that the Times writers chose to subtly paint our entire industry so negatively and with such a broad brush. It reminded me of old movies in which newspaper reporters are portrayed as brash, insensitive, hard-drinking cads -- a stereotype I'm sure is also untrue. Of course, stories about people doing a good job do not sell many newspapers.
-- John Lazo, Tampa

Why not try another company?

Re: Testing the limits, May 2.

If it isn't "easy hiring hundreds of college-educated people to read answer sheets day in and day out for modest pay," why not solve the problem by offering a salary that is commensurate with the education requirements of the position?

I guess the logic of the state of Florida is that as teachers are not paid what they're worth, why pay FCAT scorers a fair salary?

In Michigan, retired teachers are hired at a fair salary to score state tests, and that state has no problems. In Florida, officials are talking about changing the school calendar and making all sorts of drastic changes to accommodate a scoring company that doesn't want to pay a fair salary.

Why not try another company?
-- Bill Sutschek, New Port Richey

Cost of testing seems reasonable

Re: Testing the limits, May 2.

The article implys that the testing of the students will place a huge strain on the states that have to pay for it. From the chart accompanying the article, calculations show the cost to be about $12.50 per child over seven years of testing. That seems insignificant for determining how well the schooling is working.

Did I miss something?
-- John E. Russell, Clearwater

Vouchers aren't good for the disabled

Re: Private school vouchers for disabled students.

As the parent of a 3 year-old son in the Pre-K Varying Exceptionalities program at 74th Street Elementary, I want to commend Rep. Charles Justice for voting against vouchers to pay for "disabled" students to attend private school. Of course, all parents want the best education possible for their children.

But private school isn't a one-size-fits-all world. How does it empower me as a parent to have the Legislature divert funding (currently inadequate) from my son's program at public school? How does it empower me to send him to a private school that won't be able to offer him speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy or a teacher trained in teaching methods necessary for him to achieve the goals outlined in his individual education plan?

I would like to encourage Rep. Justice to work on obtaining adequate funding for the Pre-K/VE program in Florida. Until that happens, I wish more residents and businesses would adopt a classroom at a local school by making a monetary donation. Yes, they appreciate your tax dollars and lottery money, but public schools need your support.
-- Deanna Bishop, St. Petersburg

Cooperation aids U.S. 19 improvements

Re: For a safer U.S. 19, editorial, April 27.

There has been a tremendous amount of effort between local officials in Pinellas County and the Florida Department of Transportation to work toward a solution to the traffic issues on U.S. 19. The U.S. 19 Task Force chaired by county Commissioner Karen Seel worked very hard to identify solutions to the U.S. 19 corridor deficiencies. The task force, of which I was an active participant, concluded that there were many short-term improvements that could be implemented as well as recognizing the need to continue with the long-term interchange improvements.

Some of these improvements are already progressing toward implementation this calendar year. For example, the FDOT is scheduled to solicit bids this summer for median modifications from north of Enterprise Road to the Pasco County line consistent with the task force recommendations. In addition, we are currently working in cooperation with Pinellas County Metropolitan Organization staff to develop projects to construct sidewalks along U.S. 19. There are also projects in the Five Year Work Program to construct sidewalks from Tarpon Avenue to the Pasco County line in fiscal year 2002/03 and a project to add right-turn lanes continuously from Republic Drive to Tarpon Avenue to begin in early 2002. These projects were programmed prior to the task force efforts.

A clarification is needed regarding the estimates. In 1998, we provided preliminary planning level costs to the MPO for consideration in the Long Range Transportation Plan. Consistent with guidelines for building an LRTP, these costs do not include design or construction engineering inspection. It is unfortunate that these planning level estimates were used by others to represent total project costs in a request for additional funding toward completion of additional interchange projects on U.S. 19. It should also be noted that we have experienced significant increases in right of way costs over recent years along the corridor. This can be attributed to many things. The corridor's commercial character is certainly a factor. However, recent court decisions, jury verdicts and generally rising real estate costs have been the major contributors to the increases.

Regarding the issue of using funds immediately for construction, it should be understood that construction of the interchanges at Enterprise Road and 118th Avenue cannot begin before the designs have been completed and the necessary right-of-way purchased. The designs are currently scheduled to begin in September (Enterprise Road) and November (118th Avenue) of this year. The additional right of way, mostly needed for drainage ponds to meet permitting requirements, would need to be purchased before construction begins.

As stated in DOT Secretary Thomas Barry's letter to U.S. Reps. Bill Young and Mike Bilirakis, I am committed to working with the congressmen as well as local officials and the Task Force to spend the appropriated funds wisely and timely and to develop and implement a plan to address both the short term and the long-term needs for U.S. 19.

Unfortunately, the extraordinary efforts and cooperation between the congressmen, FDOT, local officials and the task force are being overshadowed by misunderstanding of the complex nature of planning, financing, producing and completing transportation projects.

I remain confident that through the spirit of cooperation that has been demonstrated in the past by federal, state and local officials, the necessary improvements to U.S. 19 can be realized.
-- Kenneth A. Hartmann, P.E., DOT District 7 secretary, Tampa

A troubling ruling on child support

Re: He's not the Dad, but court says: Pay, May 3.

Hopefully, this ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will be overturned. The court's decision left me dazed. I'm not sure which ingredient is missing more -- any degree of intelligence or any sense of justice. If this kind of "logic" were to spread, we would all be in serious trouble.
-- Russ Kelley, Largo

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