Voucher FCATs to stay private

The state says too few pupils attend private school on vouchers to report scores confidentially.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 26, 2000

Sometime in June, state education officials will get the first peek at test scores that will tell how well Florida's first-ever voucher kids are doing in private school.

But those results won't be made public.

When the number of students tested in a particular grade at a school is fewer than 30, the state does not report the scores and assign a grade based on those scores. In the case of the five private schools in Pensacola attended by 52 children courtesy of publicly funded vouchers, that means no one -- except their parents -- will know how they fared academically.

"For the children in those private schools, those test scores are for the parents," said Florida Department of Education spokeswoman JoAnn Carrin. "We have a responsibility to protect the students confidentiality, but also there aren't enough kids for it to be statistically reliable."

Holding schools accountable for the performance of students has been a centerpiece of Gov. Jeb Bush's approach to public schools. The decision not to let the public see how students attending private schools with state money are faring follows last year's decision to exempt 75 percent of charter schools from the kind of letter grading that every public school receives. The combination immediately drew fire from critics of Bush's policies.

"For people so driven by the need for accountability, it's remarkable that with the two biggest experiments -- charter schools and vouchers -- we have no accountability whatsoever," said Cathy Kelly, assistant executive director with the teachers union FTP-NEA. Most charter schools were not awarded A through F school grades last year because the number of children tested at the schools was below 30.

"Nobody is opposed to accountability," Kelly said, "but I don't think teachers like the idea that accountability seems to apply only to the public schools in a punitive way."

Seventeen of the 52 voucher students who left one of the two F-rated elementary schools in Escambia are in either fourth or fifth grade at a private school in Pensacola. Under the state's accountability rules, they took the state's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, just like any other student. The full FCAT test is given to students in fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth grades.

Those few voucher students who were tested are spread out among five private schools in the Pensacola area. State officials contend that to release the students' scores publicly would subject the students to an unusual degree of scrutiny.

For instance, there is only one fifth-grader attending St. Michael School on a state voucher; to publish the average fifth-grade FCAT scores from that school would be to publish that student's score.

"I guess I could understand why people would want to know," said Julia Johnson, whose son William is one of only four fourth-graders attending Sacred Heart Cathedral School with a publicly funded voucher. But she says she appreciates that the state doesn't want to put undue pressure on the children.

"I can tell you he's doing well as far as I know," she said. "I'm happy with the school."

State Board rules say that performance grades are awarded only when at least 30 students are in the grade level tested. Even if officials were inclined to package the voucher students' scores together somehow, there are only 13 fourth graders (at four schools) and only four fifth-graders (at three schools).

The school grades are based primarily on the students' scores on the FCAT. The FCAT test scores for this school year are expected to be released on or around June 19.

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