ALERT — Legislature Unexpectedly Passed Assessment & Accountability Bill

REVISED at 5:30am|4/10/2015

In an unexpected action, today the Florida House PASSED HB 7069 relating to Education Accountability.  The bill has now passed both chambers of the Legislature and is on its way to Governor Scott for his approval.  This decision to take up the bill today came as a surprise to most observers who had expected that it would be a week or more before the House took up the bill.

While I very much want legislation that reduces testing for our students, I have several reservations about the final bill’s version which I am still reviewing.

The bill Highlights:

• authorizes school to set the school starting date as no earlier than August 10;
• eliminates the 11th grade English Language Arts assessment;
• eliminates requirement for district-wide exams for non-state assessed courses and subjects;
• prohibits districts from giving finals in courses where statewide standardized exams already exist;
• eliminates requirement for progress monitoring;
• eliminates requirement remediation at the middle and high school levels;
• limits the amount of time for test administration to no more than 5% of total school hours per student, per year;
• requires that statewide assessment results be returned by the end of the year and district-wide assessment results to be returned within 30 days; eliminates requirement for intensive remedial courses for secondary students;
• reduces the weight given to student performance data used in teacher evaluations from 50% to 33%;
• requires an independent verification of the psychometric validity of statewide, standardized assessments before school grades may be published and before student performance data may be used for teacher and administrator evaluations; and
• provides identification and interventions for students at risk of retention.

One of the parts of the legislation I am most encouraged about is the elimination of mandated remediation at the middle and high school levels. This DOES NOT means we still won’t be providing remediation or assistance to students—it just means that we will have more flexibility for our students. I will be sharing more on this is the coming weeks.

Some parts of the bill bring up new questions and concerns; one of those is the 5% limit on testing, is it possible?

5% Limit on testing, is it possible?

The bill has a 5 percent maximum, “of a student’s total school hours in a school year to administer statewide, standardized assessments and district-required local assessments.” I totally agree with this in theory, in reality since the legislators have not changed that student’s assessment tests be used for teacher evaluations. I question whether it is realistic in reality to keep that under 5%, why?  The state is still “mandating” tests be given so that there is student test “data” directly tied to teacher evaluations. This includes “pre” and “post” tests of students’ learning. This is in addition to the necessary “typical” tests and quizzes teachers use to assess learning and give students grades. This is also in addition to necessary diagnostic tests that are given to students for teachers to know for special learning needs. (e.g. ESE students, remediation learners, etc.) In addition the bill requires that, “…district must secure written consent from a student’s parent before administering district-required local assessments that, after applicable statewide, standardized are scheduled, exceed the 5 percent test administration limit for that student.” While again this sounds good, since the state has mandated that teacher evaluations be tied to student tests, more tests are then forced onto students to meet this mandate. What happens if a parent says, “NO” to the tests over the 5% limit, but the tests must be given to obtain the data the state is requiring for teacher evaluations? Bet you can guess who the Legislators will point parents and the public to blame when districts are forced to go over the 5% to meet the evaluation mandates; School Boards, School Superintendents and teachers.

I am pleased that some common sense prevailed in this legislation, but the over testing of our students and tying their test results to their teacher’s evaluation issue and concerns is far from over. We must continue to share its negative effects to our legislators. We must continue to have decisions for our students and schools made at the local level, and not at the state and federal levels.

Governor Scott will now review the bill and will have to either sign the bill into law or veto it. It is my understanding that the bill will become law once the Governor signs it.

Follow this link to Tampa Bay’s Reporting of today’s passing of HB7069: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/bill-to-address-florida-testing-concerns-headed-to-gov-rick-scott/2224906

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