“Once again the Citrus County Chronicle Editorial Board “gets it” when it comes to public education! Please read today’s editorial  below. ~Thomas”

Chronicle Editorial Board: State needs to consider testing reform

“When all educational systems, parents, state legislators and journalists unanimously call for reform of education accountability, it’s time for change.”

Sunday, October 4, 2015
http://www.chronicleonline.com/content/state-needs-consider-testing-reform

THE ISSUE: Senate committee casts new doubts on test study, state’s superintendents join fray.

OUR OPINION: When all educational systems, parents, state legislators and journalists unanimously call for reform of education accountability, it’s time for change.

For the Florida Department of Education, September proved the cruelest month — and October’s not looking much better.

Two weeks after the release of a disputed validity study analyzing the inaugural rollout of the Florida Standards Assessment — the predecessor to the much-maligned Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT — Education Commissioner Pam Stewart sat before a Senate education committee in mid-September and faced even more uncomfortable questioning about the study, its conclusions and her department’s interpretation of those conclusions.

Andrew Wiley, Stewart’s companion at the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee hearing, didn’t help soften the blows. Wiley is director of testing services for Alpine Testing Solutions, the firm which conducted the $600,000 validity study.

In addition to being grilled on the study’s conclusions, Wiley faced questions about when the Florida Department of Education first received the report. His response was revelatory and ugly: Wiley told senators Florida Department of Education (FDOE) employees were sent two draft versions of the study and suggested changes to a table therein, but did not have input on the report’s conclusions. Stewart told committee members FDOE only saw the final report the day before its release, and attempted to assure them no tampering occurred.

The responses didn’t inspire confidence in the senators, who continued the line of questioning, and we don’t think they should inspire confidence in students or their parents. They certainly didn’t inspire confidence in us. Even the faintest appearance of the potential for tampering on a monumentally important study which was supposed to be independent will call its results into question, and the FDOE should have known that when accepting the study before it was complete.

They also didn’t inspire confidence in the state’s superintendents. A week after the committee hearing and after a three-day conference with Stewart, the Florida Association of District School Super­intendents released a statement which read, in part, “Florida district school superintendents have lost confidence in the current accountability system for the students of the state of Florida.” If the enormity of that statement doesn’t widen your eyes, read it again. The superintendents continued by recommending, as critics across Florida have, that the state throw out the results for the time being and reform the accountability system.

On Thursday, the Florida School Boards Association released a similar statement, but further called for the federal government to overhaul what’s come to be known as the No Child Left Behind Act, the piece of legislation which ushered in the current era of test-based accountability standards.

High-stakes tests and the school grades they inform aren’t serving students, teachers or schools. As it stands, the state’s accountability system better serves the politicians who legislated it and the bureaucrats charged with deflecting any criticism, no matter how valid, of the irreparably broken apparatus. The time for change has arrived, forced not by the desire to improve, but by the need for the state to eliminate the possibility of systemic failure. When the chorus of people calling for an overhaul of the system grows to include the state’s superintendents and school board members in addition to students, parents and well-informed citizens, it’s time for the state Legislature and executive branch to listen and act.

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