CCSB Resolution on Assessment & Accountability

Each day as I visit our schools or talk with students, parents and educators, I hear the cry of help for what is happening to public education in Florida. (Follow this link to read a few of the comments teachers and parents have shared.) Our district has been a high- performing district for 8 years and an “A” district for 7 out of 8 years. Our students and teachers have met and exceeded each bar the state has set. However, for the first time in over 25 years of being involved in Florida public education teachers are expressing a feeling of defeat, and parents a feeling of helplessness,and they are looking to school boards and superintendents to provide leadership and representation during this challenging time.

The monumental difficulty we have is that “we” (teachers, superintendents, and school boards) DID NOT create this horrendous situation in public education; in fact, many of us have fought it. Now people are rightfully demanding solutions.

School Boards cannot fix what is not within our power or control, but we do have a responsibility to make the public and most importantly, our state leaders fully aware of the damage being done to our students, teachers and the public educational system. Therefore, at the November 12th, 2014, School Board meeting (on a Wednesday due to Veterans Day) the Citrus County School Board will hopefully adopt the Resolution below on Assessment & Accountability on our public schools, teachers and students.

I would love for parents, students, educators, and community members to attend to show their support and, if they are willing, voice their approval to adopt this Resolution. The meeting begins at 4:00pm and there is an opportunity to speak at either the 4:00pm or 5:15pm public input times.

The Resolution agenda item will likely be addressed sometime after the 5:15pm public input time. There will also be an opportunity for people to show additional support of the Resolution by signing a subsequent open letter of support of the Resolution.

Your voice is critical to the Resolution and its effect beyond the Board’s adoption. Law makers are most interested in how parents and the general community feel about these issues more than they are about hearing educators’ perspectives. At the meeting I will ask the Board for approval to send copies of the signed Resolution to our State and Federal Representatives, Governor of Florida, Florida Department of Education Board and the Florida Parent and Teacher Association.

Please attend this meeting and voice your support.

 

School Board of Citrus County

RESOLUTION on ASSESSMENT & ACCOUNTABILITY

REAFFIRMING, that the School Board of Citrus County Florida is committed to the success for all students, and the students and teachers of Citrus County Schools have demonstrated longstanding and recurring achievements as noted by the distinction as a “High Performing School District” for eight consecutive years; realizing that the future of our community, our state, and our nation relies on this high-quality public education that prepares students for college, careers, and life-long learning – all of which are essential for the state and nation’s social and economic well-being; and

WHEREAS, the State’s high-stakes standardized testing continues to grow in both scope and magnitude, resulting in numerous consequences that diminish the capacity of teachers to influence student learning including the loss of instructional time, the use of a single score to define successful teaching and learning, and the narrowing of curriculum which should instead focus on a broad range of learning experiences for students promoting creative and critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving; and

WHEREAS, the continuous revisions by Florida’s Legislators and the Florida State Board of Education to curriculum standards, assessments, accountability measures, cut scores, time frames, technology requirements, scoring criteria, and the required infrastructure needed for all mandated tests have drained district human and financial resources and have resulted in unreliable and inconsistent data that challenged the ability to accurately analyze trends in student achievement and the ability to confidently examine individual student learning gains or learning declines from one year to the next, thus defeating the original purpose of testing; and

WHEREAS, the Florida Legislature has not adequately funded enacted mandates that require school districts to develop, administer, and design measures for hundreds of end-of-course exams in addition to the multiple required new state assessments, and then use those assessments to measure student learning and teacher effectiveness; this mandate is requiring assessments for some students in classes and grade levels that do not benefit by an assessment; this mandate places an undue burden on a school district to sustain data management tools, systems, processes and statistical measures; and this mandate is creating an enormous amount of stress on students, teachers, staff, and parents; and

WHEREAS, the Florida Standards Assessments, based on the newly established Florida Standards, do not yet have the statistical credibility required for high-stakes standardized testing, have not had time to be properly implemented, vetted, or studied, and may lead to unnecessary retention, remediation, or inability of students to earn a high school diploma; and these assessments are not correlated to national or international assessment instruments, which prevents meaningful comparisons of both student achievement and progress in Florida, with student achievement and progress with other states and countries; and

BE IT RESOLVED, that the School Board of Citrus County Florida, calls upon the Governor of Florida, the Florida Legislature, the Florida Department of Education and the Florida State Board of Education to provide no less than a three-year transition to July 1, 2017 for the accountability and measurement of the full implementation of the Florida Standards. During this transition period, students, teachers, school administrators, schools, and districts would be held harmless. Furthermore, this must include a three-year delay in the use of Florida State Assessment results to determine student promotion, graduation, school grades, as well as teacher and administrator evaluation. Until then, school districts should have the flexibility to make their own decisions about standards for student promotion, graduation, and employee performance; and the State Board of Education should empower a representative panel of stakeholders including educators, parents, and community members, who represent Florida, and who would oversee implementation of the accountability system and validate that all segments are fair, reliable, accurate, and properly funded; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the School Board of Citrus County Florida, calls on the Florida Legislature to fully fund all elements of every state mandate including those that require school districts to further develop and sustain assessments, tools, processes, and related infrastructure needed to fairly and appropriately measure student learning and teacher effectiveness; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the School Board of Citrus County Florida, calls on the United States Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as “No Child Left Behind Act,” reduce the test mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.

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