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 Civic Concern notes:  Legislative leaders and members of the state board of education traveled last week to New York for an in-depth look at that state's Regents exams. For months now, there have been high-level discussions of shifting Florida's accountability system toward end-of-course exams, which some experts say would be a more useful tool than the FCAT.
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And yet the myth that FCAT results provide an adequate evaluative benchmark to determine academic progress and individual excellence is perpetuated.  Take Saint Johns public schools as an illustration.  My comment relates to the unswerving loyalty of the Superintendent and the present School Board to the FCAT as adequate evaluation device providing credible results of academic achievement and progress.

At present all four Saint Johns high schools are classified as Grade B by the state results.  Somehow the Grade A status of Nease and Bartram, the Grade C of Menendez and Grade D of St. Augustine High a year before have been magically transformed to straight B's in 2007.   What happened?  Could it be the change in private corporate testing companies, the lingering end to the Jeb Bush era of inertia, the adding of the 'science' dimension to secondary evaluation or simply another reflection of a truly BAD standardized test with little hope of rectifying its methodological jumble?  

Or maybe you believe the kids in four different settings just rose or settled to a happy medium in one year?  

Whatever the true reason, it is past time that Florida citizens and taxpayers demand their public schools address their  standard testing images within the community,state and nation.   Yes, I know that Saint Johns Staff are well aware of the methodological and conceptual issues in the test
( as are a majority of the Board I suspect) but that does not change the fact that Saint Johns refuses to be a proactive leader within Florida districts, demanding 'more and better' education progress alternatives than FCAT profiles.  

The state of Florida now seems to recognize they need help from somewhere else with an adequate evaluative process.  At least the New York State PEP and Regents tests have Standards that differentiate 'beginning' from 'commencement' progress. See math and language arts illustrations below.

http://www.albany.edu/~dkw42/math.html

http://www.albany.edu/~dkw42/english.html

And New York Regents offers a spectrum of Subject driven tests for secondary profiles that are a 'tad' better than the generics of Reading, Writing, Math and Science collected on 10 and 11th graders.

And the bottom line is that Professor Dorn's assessment of Florida's  FCAT is correct;
no prop up by SAT or NAEP (or even Stanford 11) will mitigate the fundamental FCAT methodological flaws apparent since its inception in 1999...with or without A+ obligations.

Saint Johns k12 has been performing in the Top Five of the state since the FCAT inception. A half decade as a Grade A district.  This is just the type of k12 jurisdiction that should help all of Florida public education move from its comfortable niche of being about 30th nationally and lead the way in promoting top flight student evaluation and  continuous assessment integrity.  Demand something better than FCAT.