State: State revises FCAT system to chart students' gains

TAMPA -- For the six years that Florida has been holding schools accountable for their students' test scores, the real pressure has been applied at grades 4, 5, 8 and 10.

Scores from those grades have been used to assign an A-through-F grade to each school and to give schools financial rewards or penalties. Schools' budgets and reputations have rested with just those grades.

That's about to change.

In the coming school year, the pressure surrounding school grades will be shared by students in grades 3-10.

In the next months, the state will put the finishing touches on an entirely new system of school grading that measures not only what students know on testing day, but also how much progress they've made since they were tested the year before.

"The long-awaited annual learning gains? We're here," said Gerry Richardson, the man most responsible for designing and carrying out Florida's school accountability plans.

During a meeting of testing directors from around the state on Wednesday, Richardson gave educators a peek at what the system might look like. The path, as Richardson said, "is still under construction," but in short, the system promises to look very different from what we have now.

Richardson and others at the Florida Department of Education have been working on the redesign for months, and preparing for it for years. Like a cagey college professor who wants to get feedback from his class, Richardson put on a puzzled look and wondered aloud how such a system could work, how it could be designed.

"Write me a note; tell me how to do this," Richardson said, grinning as testing officials asked tough questions.

The system has been a long time coming. Teachers have been complaining for years that the current system of accountability is flawed because it compares different groups of children from year to year and purports to judge a school's progress.

The new system also has a long way to go. Richardson expects a plan to go to the Florida Board of Education for approval in December. That gives him less than five months to finish the job.

It would be used to grade schools at the end of the coming school year.

Among the changes:

School grades will be based on three factors: students' current performance, their annual learning gains and the improvement in test scores for the lowest performing students.

The standards for writing are likely to be raised, since the vast majority of Florida schools now meet the state standard.

High school students who have to pass the FCAT to graduate should learn later this month what the passing score is. Perhaps as early as September, 11th-graders who took the test last year should learn whether they passed or need to take it again in hopes of graduating on time.

The writing test will be changed in 2003 to include multiple-choice items in addition to the current single essay.

This coming school year, for the first time, parents will be able to see their child's writing test. The written papers will be sent back to school districts.

The imminent changes come at a confusing time for Florida's groundbreaking school accountability system. Test scores have been improving, but due to the changes every year, direct comparisons have been difficult at best.

A couple of years ago, the state made a slight change, deciding that scores from mobile students would not count toward school grades. Last school year, in an effort to get test scores returned on time, one category of reading and math test questions (those that required a written response) was left out of the school grading equation altogether.

In the coming year, comparisons will be even more difficult, as school grades will be based on numerous factors that didn't count before.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk