State: State to lift FCAT's shroud of secrecy

You can get loads of information about the FCAT, including how schools and districts performed on the critical assessment test. You can even peek at a few sample questions.

But the complete set of actual questions that confound students each year and the answers are kept under lock and key.

Look for that to change.

Florida Education Commissioner Charlie Crist, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan and the state's top testing official say they want the test opened to the public soon. They envision a time when students and parents can look at the test and the answers together, perhaps a few weeks after the test is given.

Was that math section really tough this year? See for yourself. Did the reading section make sense? Look and see.

It won't happen in the coming school year, but could happen soon afterward.

"Ultimately, that's where we're headed," said Brogan, who served as state education commissioner when groundwork was laid for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

There will be a price for openness.

For one thing, testing officials can expect to be second-guessed by critics and students searching for mistakes in the test. Beyond that, it costs millions to create a new test each year. For instance, the state is in the middle of an $11.4-million contract to develop FCAT questions between 1999 and 2002.

But school officials say it would be money well spent.

"I believe the cost (of creating a new test each year) is worth it," Brogan said.

If and when Florida opens its test to the public, it will join a growing number of states that have opted for openness. Some -- Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia -- voluntarily chose openness. Others -- Arizona, Texas and Ohio -- were forced into the sunshine with lawsuits and challenges.

The trend nationally is that as the tests gain in importance, the clamor for openness increases.

"The higher the stakes, the more important it is that the test be open. Especially in a state like Florida," said Mark Musick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which puts out the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national test known as the Nation's Report Card.

Said Musick: "I can't imagine the Sunshine State -- with Sunshine laws, and Sunshine State Standards -- doesn't have a Sunshine test."

President John Madison?

After years of testing secrecy, Florida has been gradually stepping into the sunshine.

If you go to the state's FCAT Web site (http://www.firn.edu/doe/sas/fcat.htm) you can see some sample questions. Many of have been used in the test.

And in the coming school year, students' handwritten work on the writing test will be sent to school districts. Teachers and parents will be able to look at a child's writing to see why they did so well, or so poorly.

That's a first for Florida.

But it's nothing like what happens in other states.

Every year in Massachusetts, a few weeks after students struggle through the state test, Education Commissioner David Driscoll holds a news conference and releases the test questions. Not sample questions. And not just some questions. The real thing. Everything.

Students throughout Massachusetts go to the Internet or grab paper versions of the test and see how they did. Teachers and parents do the same.

"With our system we try to be as open as possible, and that means we release the test," said Driscoll, a former high school math teacher with 30 years in the public schools. "It helps to demystify the test. If you have any questions, you can go look at it yourself."

Massachusetts has made its statewide test (the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Test) public since 1998. The downside is that it adds to the cost of the exam, and it occasionally results in embarrassment for testing officials.

Driscoll believes the upside makes it worthwhile.

"Can we really expect people to have confidence in the whole system if we keep the test a secret?" Driscoll said.

About that downside: Driscoll is the first to admit that a mistake or two is discovered in the test every year. Teachers find them. Parents find them. Worse, students find them.

This year, on Massachusetts' eighth-grade English test, President James Madison was referred to as "John" Madison. A few eighth-graders caught that one right off and let everyone know. Testing officials were red-faced.

A question on the 10th-grade math test asked for the number of geometric shapes that could be made out of an equilateral triangle. A 10th-grader discovered a few more shapes and proved the official answer wrong. Driscoll wasn't happy. But in retelling the story, the former math teacher seemed downright tickled by the 10th-grader's gumption and geometric insight.

"It's always a big headline when they find one," Driscoll sighed. "But in the long run, it's a good thing. It's healthy."

Sometimes openness causes more than temporary embarrassment. In Minnesota, after his daughter failed the math test, a student's father insisted he be allowed to look over the questions.

His request was rejected. Eventually though, he persuaded a state official to allow him to examine the test under secure conditions. He found a mistake in the scoring. Then another. It turns out that his daughter didn't fail. Scores were adjusted, and 47,000 students who were told they had failed were told they passed after all.

"Yes, there will be mistakes," said Musick of the National Assessment Board. "You will stub your toe. There will be something silly. But do you hide it? Better to be open about it, fix it and move on."

'Less resistance'

Florida had its reasons for keeping the test secret all these years.

To create a test you have to write and rewrite questions, and then try them out on kids. When the FCAT was still new, the state just didn't have enough good questions ready to be able to toss some questions out by making them public.

The state now has a sizeable "item bank" -- a series of solid questions that can be swapped in and out each year. That's why the state can afford to make the test public soon, said Tom Fisher, director of testing for Florida.

Secrecy, though, has costs too.

For teachers and parents the test remains shrouded in mystery, and that does not help inspire confidence.

"We teachers can't even peek at the test," said Ernestine Warren, a high school math teacher in Panama City. "It'd be nice to see it."

Warren was part of a statewide committee that examined a series of test questions last year. She said the exercise was a real eye-opener.

"To see a few sample questions is one thing," Warren said. "To see the whole thing together is a different matter. I was exhausted."

"I've heard so many teachers say their best writers got a terrible score on the writing test," said FCAT critic Gloria Pipkin, founder of the group Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform. "They just have to wonder what happened."

Driscoll of Massachusetts said that he has had parents complain about the test because their son or daughter didn't pass it. He has happily directed them to look at the test themselves and see if they don't agree that their child should know the material.

"Not all the time, but a lot of times, they look at it and they have to agree -- they should know this," Driscoll said. "They're not trick questions. They're not unreasonable. Parents can see that."

Brogan is counting on those benefits when Florida opens the test to the public, which might require approval by the state Legislature.

"Once we open it up and people get a chance to see the test," Brogan said, "I believe there will be a lot less resistance."

Resistance to the FCAT has been synonymous with resistance to Florida's entire school accountability system because they are so intertwined. Florida's test determines a school's A-through-F grade. It determines who is eligible for vouchers, whether a high school student gets a diploma, and whether a teacher gets a little extra pay.

All those initiatives are on shaky ground if the public doesn't believe they rest on a solid foundation. And the test is the foundation.

Perhaps the biggest anticipated benefit is that teachers and parents will be able to get real feedback telling them how a student is doing. Now, they get very little, and some have seen that as a major drawback to the FCAT.

"The teacher gets no standard-by-standard feedback," said James Popham, professor emeritus at UCLA and a frequent critic of Florida's testing program. "If you don't get that feedback, the concept of standards-based reform falls on its fanny."

Musick of the National Assessment Board is an outspoken advocate for openness in testing, but he warns that there will be trying times ahead.

Critics like Popham and Pipkin might simply have more ammunition. (Pipkin applauded the state for moving toward openness, but quickly pointed out that her review of former test questions on the Department of Education Web site simply reinforced her belief that "it isn't a very good test.")

Openness is unlikely to result in a sudden consensus on the wisdom and beauty of the test, Musick said. But it will result in increased and informed discussion from all sides.

"That could be a real pain," he said, "but you end up with a better test, a fairer test."

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Lucy Morgan

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