Community Conversation on Education

The Citrus County Retired Teachers presented the third in a series of “Conversation on Education”.  Kathy Thrumston, former Florida PTA Vice President & Legislative Liaison; Kenny Blocker, Citrus County Schools Assistant Superintendent of Business Services; and I were the panelist at the event.  The event provided information on the Citrus Schools Referendum to Maintain the .25 Millage Rate and Proposed State Amendments on the election ballot for Nov. 6^th., and information on High Stakes Testing.

Proposed State Amendments for Nov. 6^th

Ms. Thrumston discussed information regarding the proposed amendments for this November 6^th elections.  Appropriately the amendment Ms. Thrumston had the most concern about was Amendment 8, “Religious Freedom”.  Perhaps wrongfully named, this proposed amendment would repeal the Florida Constitution’s prohibition on state funding of religious organizations. If it passed it could provide, or even require, that public funds be used for the operation of religious institutions and schools, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Wiccan, etc.  This has many obvious concerns.

Amendment 8

There shall be no law respecting the establishment or prohibition of religion or the penalization of the free exercise thereof. Religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace, or safety. No individual or entity may be discriminated against or barred from receiving funding on the basis of religious identity or belief. No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.

Maintaining the Citrus Schools Referendum on .25 Millage Rate

Mr. Blocker shared that prior to 2008, and for decades before, the local required school district millage rates was set by the Florida State Legislation at 2.00 mills and was restricted to capital outlays only. (One mill is 1/10 of a cent and 1/$1,000 of a dollar) Since 2008 the Florida Legislature has played a political “shell game” by passing the responsibility for adequately funding school construction and maintenance to local school boards and then to the local ad valorem tax payers.  The State, in 2008, reduced the local required school district millage rate to 1.5 mills with the option for local school boards to restore it to 1.75 mills with voter approval.  As you can see this is still .25 mills less than it was in 2008 even with voter approval.

Our district has seen a reduction of approximately $16 million since the 2007-2008 fiscal year, with annual facilities maintenance costs of $10 million and a $47 million renovation project for its very aged Crystal River Primary and Crystal River High School. The Citrus County School Board voted to putt eh .25 millage rant referendum on the ballot for voters to restore/maintain the millage rate to 1.75 in 2010.  I supported that decision during my campaign in 2010 as I do today.

The voters in 2010 chose, by over 65%, to improve our schools by approving the referendum.  It is my hope that the voters will see the present needs and once again approve to continue this funding.

High Stakes Testing

The essential question I asked the audience was: “IS THERE TOO MUCH TESTING?”

The State of Florida requires that students be in school l80 days each school year. Of those days almost 65 days must be set aside for standardized testing. That also doesn’t include the necessary internal assessments that our educators use to be most effective in their teaching. It also does not include days for SAT or ACT tests. Currently, in a regular school year approximately 60 standardized tests are given to students.

Some have said that we must compete internationally and our test scores are demonstrating   that the present system is helping us to better achieve that. I am not sure that I agree with that personally. I believe that what makes America so great is that we educate all of our students in a system that fits each one of them.  We measure ALL of our students. Many developing nations separate their students into academic programs or work programs at the elementary age. We believe that any students have the ability to be anything they desire. Since the 1960s America has never been at the very top of the rankings but yet somehow we found a way to put a man on the moon, become one of the most powerful economic nations in the world, beat communism and develop the iPhone 5.  Why? Because America has been developing risk takers and entrepreneurs. In our country you have a right to success and a right to failure.

If we must compare our educational system, then lets look at one of the worlds’ finest school systems. The Finland School System, for the past decade, have consistently been at, or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. Finnish students are able to get a good education in virtually any school in their nation. That’s equality of educational opportunity, a good public school in every neighborhood.

What makes the Finn school system so amazing is that Finnish students never take a standardized test until their last year of high school, when they take an examination for college admission.

Their own teachers design their tests, so teachers know how their students are doing and what they need. There is a national curriculum with broad guidelines to assure that all students have a full education but it is not prescriptive. Teachers have an extensive responsibility for designing curriculum. Their teachers have a large degree of autonomy, because they are viewed as professionals.

We should ask if the testing is addressing accurate information within their testing program?  During the 2011-2012 school year, the Florida Department of Education decided to change the interpretation of the scoring of the Florida FCAT Writing Assessment. One might ask why? Well, in 2009/2010 Citrus testing results showed an 80% proficiency and Florida State was 76%. In 2010/2011 Citrus was 88% and the state 82%.  In 2011/2012, after the new change, Citrus scored 46% and the state 33%.  As you can see this change resulted in a drop in scores of almost 50% statewide.  The Florida DOE convened an emergency meeting and modified the passing benchmark to compensate for the dropped scores and changed the bell curve. Was there a problem that required ever needing to change the test?  Why did the FL DOE even change the test?

So then, why are we testing? Over the last decade, and longer, Florida has gone from a single, simple evaluation test called The Florida Writes to now an almost unlimited number of high stakes tests.  In 2010 the Florida legislation passed, and the governor signed into law SB4, that which stated it would remove FCAT testing from the Florida Educational System. Sounds good, but what most people outside of education did not understand was that this meant, its’ students must take and pass Florida DOE approved standardized tests “End of Course Exams” (known as an EOC) in order to pass high school.  It also increased the graduation requirements.  Now, beginning with next year’s 9th graders, students will have to pass by 10th grade Reading, FCAT, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Biology, Chemistry and/or Physics. They also must pass another science course that is equally as rigorous as chemistry or physics. and pass at least one online high school course. But, here is the kicker, none of the students daily work counts towards their passing requirement only the score on the EOC.  This is forcing our schools to simply become PASS or FAIL education programs!

In 2011 the Florida legislature passed SB736 known now as the “Student Success Act”. This is what is now the law for FCAT and EOC testing results to also be used in evaluating a teacher’s performance or determining their salary and/or bonuses.  This is known as performance based pay.  50% of a teacher’s evaluation is required to be based on student test scores.  Now some might say that this is not fair.  The state mandated the test but not all subject areas are tested and therefore available to be used for evaluation, ie:  PE, Art, music, geometry teacher for 2012 and others, so the reading test will be used.

A recent Vanderbilt University’s National Center for Performance Incentives Study found that after a three-year trial, the researchers concluded that the teachers that had performance based pay did not obtain better student results than those that did not, or those who were not in line to get a bonus. Dr. Diane Ravitch, George Bush’s former educational policy analyst, author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” says“Merit pay made no difference. Teachers were working as hard as they knew how, whether for a bonus or not”.

Because of these and many more reasons On July 10th, 2012 the Citrus County School Board unanimously passed a resolution opposing overemphasis on high-stakes testing.  I was proud to vote in favor of this resolution. The Florida School Board Assoc. also passed nearly the same resolution which I also voted for as a FSBA member.

What We Propose

In our resolution we ask for:

• The Governor, the Florida Department of Education and the State Legislature to re-examine public school accountability systems in the State of Florida
• We asked to be allowed to develop a system based on multiple forms of assessment which does not require extensive standardized testing, which more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools
• U.S. Congress and Executive Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act”
• We ask to reduce the testing 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.

I end with this from Marc S. Tucker’s book, “Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems”.

“No country that leads the world’s education performance has implemented any of the major agenda items that dominate the education reform agenda in the U.S., such as Charter schools and Voucher schools or the support of privatizing educational, neither has student performance data to reward or punish teachers and principals.”

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