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Blog: FCAR
Speakout
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The Folly of Using FCAT as the Sole
Measure of Ability
By Lara McKnight, Pensacola, FL
February 11, 2007
I believe that using a single test as
a sole measure of ability and accountability is harmful to children because of
what I have seen happen in my own home.
I homeschool a 7th grader who was labeled a failure at nine, but who is thriving
in grade-level courses at Florida Virtual School (www.flvs.net).
The school's answer was retention and remediation when all he needed was
attention and stimulation. . . and a refrain from being called "ignorant."
My daughter is the only freshman in her Geometry class and holds a strong B, but
scored at level 2 on FCAT math. Her teacher tells me that, despite her poor
performance on this single test administered in an environment rife with duress,
she has an excellent grasp of mathematics. In other words, the test results are
not indicative of my daughter's ability. Despite that, a number may prevent her
from graduating high school.
In order to accommodate FCAT prep in her Honors Biology class, the teacher had
to spend 20% (roughly seven weeks) of his class time covering material
un-related to Biology. This leaves him attempting to deliver the actual course
material at a break-neck pace and hoping his students can keep up. My daughter
eventually had to drop the class because she couldn't.
I am reluctant to send my youngest child to public school next year because of
the grip that FCAT has on our educational system. Right now, she loves to learn
and explore, but I fear she will quickly lapse into boredom with bubble-filling.
My children are living, breathing examples of what can go wrong when the FCAT is
the only criteria used to measure what they are learning. I hope that those who
blindly defend the use of FCAT as an infallible measure would recognize that it
is not perfect after hearing these types of stories over and over. The usual
response is a form letter that regurgitates meaningless statistics and thanks me
for my interest.
I simply do not understand how the Governor, the Legislature and the FLDOE can
continue to ignore the growing numbers of real people who are suffering a
multitude of negative consequences of an FCAT-centered system. The FCAT must be
de-fused: we must cease using a snapshot of a child's ability to determine how
we pay teachers, how we fund schools and whether a child passes to the next
grade or graduates. Any step in that direction is positive, but it needs to be a
HUGE leap if Governor Crist really wants to make a difference.
It's time for those in office to listen to the people they represent and stop
thinking that we are dumb enough to just keep going along with this insanity.
The wave of dissent continues to grow. . . our leaders had better to learn to
swim.
Lara McKnight
Pensacola, FL
February 11, 2007
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