Two major Florida newspapers highly critical of high stakes state test, the FCAT.

[antigop]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/19/1093143/-Two-major-Florida-newspapers-highly-critical-of-high-stakes-state-test-the-FCAT-

The FCAT is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The writing section scores came out last week. The scores were shockingly low on this new version. The state lowered the requirements quickly, but not before it turned out that only about 30% would have passed otherwise.

The Orlando Sentinel pointed out just how high stakes this test has become.

Too much is riding on testing data that cannot be trusted

The Sentinel points out that student promotion, graduation, the evaluation of teachers and administrators, the letter grade assigned to schools--are all dependent on this test.

The company, NCS Pearson, that develops the test is able to do so secretly and without much oversight. Many honors students in advanced classes have been assigned to remedial reading classes if they failed it. That's a lot of power for one company to have.

[mbperrin]

1. Yes, it's a lot of power. This is a British company that once owned a wax museum, but now

they're a testing powerhouse in the US, along with another British company, a French one, and a New York one.

To think that it all started with Ross Perot in Texas at the invite of then-governor Mark White in 1984.

[knitter4democracy]

2. They have the worst textbooks, too.

I never use anything by them when I can avoid it. Crappy, crappy textbooks.

[ellenfl]

3. the palm beach post noted that the scores for writing were higher than the scores for

reading . . . signifying that the students could not read what they wrote! the method of scoring the tests produced these mind-boggling results.

it's about time these tests were retired. let neil bush find another line of work.

ellen fl