Update on Florida Education State Standards

 “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” ~ Captain Renault from Casablanca

There have been times as both a school board member and public school parent that I have been frustrated with the educational decisions made by Florida’s policy makers and leaders. Most recently was about two week ago (October 15, 2013) when the Florida State Board of Education, at the urging of Gov. Rick Scott, voted 5-1 to reject the new state standard’s “Appendices”.  Why was this a big deal? Because the Language Arts appendices are supportive references that guide teachers on text complexity, move the teaching to higher levels of thinking, and model practices for English Language Arts and Literacy in history, social studies, science, and technical subjects.  In addition, the appendices provide exemplars of reading text complexity, text quality, and the range and sample of performance tasks related to the common core standards.  Another appendix provides the teacher and student with samples of student writing that have been annotated to illustrate the criteria required to meet the common core standards.  The appendices also include guidelines on how to structure math classes as well as provide sample units that help teachers create coherent groupings of content for Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II.  In short, this 5-1 rejection of the appendices means that  none of the work that the teachers and school leaders have been working on to implement usage of the legally required Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Math and ELA (English Language Arts) passed by the Florida legislators in 2010 and 2013, will now have Florida’s official support.  The only Florida State Board member to vote against the rejection of the Appendices was Board Member Kathleen Shanahan.  She said, “Isn’t that sad that we are sitting here voting on something that is going to have no integrity?” The Tampa Bay Times reported in their article, “Florida Board of Education rejects parts of Common Core associated with benchmarks”, that Shanahan voted against Gov. Scott’s suggestions, “saying the appendices were already in use.” Florida Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said that despite the Board’s rejections of the appendices, local school systems would still have the option to use the appendices.  I suppose this was meant to be our silver lining. However, it should be noted that the appendices were immediately removed from the Florida Department of Education’s web site and are no longer available for school districts to download.

So let’s recap on the Common Core issue.  In 2010 the Florida Legislators, at the behest of “educational reform” special interest groups, passed several educational laws including transitioning to Common Core State Standards. That meant that Florida would transition to the Common Core Standards and  move from the Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) to a new Common Core assessment, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College (PARCC).  Furthermore, because of these new laws, the Florida Department of Education mandated that school districts purchase curriculum and resources and provide professional development consistent with that transition. In 2011 legislation was passed overhauling Florida’s teacher evaluation system. Students’ scores from the FCAT and later, PARCC, must be used and counted towards 50% of a teacher’s evaluation.  On August 20, 2012, Governor Scott released a statement called, ‘Student Testing: “No More Teaching to the Test”’ expressing his support for Common Core and the PARCC.  In that statement Governor Scott says, “I’ve heard the frustrations teachers and parents have with the current FCAT system”. He references the PARCC was a test developed in part by Florida educators and says, “That’s why, next year, our schools will move to a ‘common core’ system, developed in part by Florida teachers, that emphasizes analytical problem solving over memorization and simple recitation of facts.”  Governor Scott continues, saying, “unlike the FCAT, PARCC will allow comparison of education performance across the country and will provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students need to learn to succeed in college and careers.  Teachers in Florida have been active in major parts of the development of this new system.” Then, last month (Sept. 23, 2013) Governor Scott seems to have done a 180 degree turn by signing an executive order and releasing a statement, ‘Path Forward for High Education Standards & Decision to Withdraw from PARCC’ where he outlines a six step process to, as Gov. Scott now says, “Remove the state from federal intrusion in education policy”.   He went on to say, “I (Scott) told the federal government we are rejecting their overreach into our state education system by withdrawing from PARCC”. Finally, on October 15, 2013 the Florida State Board of Education voted, at the urging of Gov. Rick Scott, to reject the new Common Core State Standard’s “Appendices”.  Is your head spinning now?

As the 2014 Legislation begins you will probably hear political leaders say that they want to give local school boards, “more control”, and “more options”.  They might say “Those concerns are local school board decisions.”  What you are not likely hear these political leaders and lawmakers say is “Give local school boards the autonomy to create our high stakes assessments.”  See, the bottom line is whoever controls the assessments truly controls the standards, appendices/ exemplars, and curriculum.  The state has put many penalties on ONLY public school districts, public schools, and their teachers and students.  As a district, we do not really have discretion over standards, appendices or curriculum until we have control over assessments.  It is time that those in our state that claim to believe in “local governing” remember that local governing does not stop in Tallahassee.

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