Thomas, Other School Superintendents Push For New Florida Testing Rules

February 4, 2015

Escambia County School District Superintendent Malcolm Thomas joined eight of his counterparts to meet with Governor Rick Scott and Education Commissioner Pam Stewart last week in Tallahassee to share their concerns about challenges the districts are facing linked to this year’s state tests.

The Superintendents presented five recommendations:

  1. Support the administration of the Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) this year and use the results as a baseline for measuring progress. The State’s accountability system relies on both learning gains as well as performance.  In the first year of FSA administration, there will be no learning gains and therefore will compromise its ability to drive accountability.
  2. Freeze school grades through 2015-2016 to ensure two consecutive years of reliable and valid data.
  3. Eliminate the requirement for the 11th grade English and Language Arts Florida Standards  Assessment (ELA FSA) and all new End of Course Exams (EOC’s).
  4. Allow for the determination of teacher evaluations based on local data.
  5. Ensure adequate technology readiness for the statewide computer-based testing.

“The state of Florida is over testing our students and it is too soon to use the new Florida Standards Assessment as an accountability tool,” said Thomas. “The state needs to use common sense and not use an assessment system that has so many unknown aspects in a way that could hurt our students, our teachers, or our schools.”

Thomas was joined by Santa Rosa County Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick, as well as Superintendents Kurt Browning, Alberto Carvalho, MaryEllen Elia, Mike Grego, Barbara Jenkins, Joe Joyner, and John Ruis.

Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said that the Superintendents’ meeting with the governor was a step along the road to change. The real effort has to come on the legislative side of our state government.

“Parents and teachers who share our concerns should contact their State legislators and ask them to join us in asking for assessment decisions based on common sense,” Thomas concluded.

Comments

3 Responses to “Thomas, Other School Superintendents Push For New Florida Testing Rules”

  1. Thirty Years in Education on February 5th, 2015 5:15 pm

    Mr. Thomas is right on the money. We are sucking the fun out of school. The pressure and stress is UNREAL. I wonder if the discipline problems would go away if the students had more opportunities to express themselves without being tested.

  2. The DOER on February 4th, 2015 3:45 pm

    Thank you, Mr. Thomas. As a veteran educator in this county, I, for one, can verify that the testing has gotten out of control. Everything educators do is geared toward the test. We give the children practice tests, practice test assignments, practice writing tests. It is absolutely ridiculous. Then they have end-of-course exams, district exams, then federal and state exams. What has happened to allowing students to develop their creativity and actually ENJOY learning? Oh wait, that is not tested – is it?

  3. Alicia on February 4th, 2015 2:55 pm

    I agree that there is to much testing. I understand our system wanting our children to be smarter however, all of the testing has made it more stressful for our children. Who by the way, don’t have much time to be children. They want children to be healthy & exercise but when do they find the time to do it?

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News