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House Unanimously Approves Testing Bill – With Fewer Tests
March 19, 2015
The House unanimously approved legislation Wednesday aimed at lowering the number and importance of tests administered to Florida public-school students, shifting debate on this year’s highest-profile education issue to the Senate.
Lawmakers voted 115-0 to pass the bill (HB 7069), which would eliminate an 11th-grade language arts test, bar final exams in classes for which the state or a local school district has end-of-course tests and make a college-readiness test given to some students optional.
The measure would also reduce how much of a teacher’s evaluation is tied to student performance, from 50 percent to a third, and provide local districts more flexibility when it comes to testing.
“With the passage of this legislation, we have addressed legitimate concerns about student testing while maintaining a strong accountability system that promotes quality instruction in the classroom, increasing transparency to provide clear and consistent information, and maximizing flexibility for our local school districts,” House Education Chairwoman Marlene O’Toole, R-Lady Lake, said in a statement issued after the vote.
Lawmakers were already discussing scaling back the amount of time spent on state and local exams before the botched rollout of the Florida Standards Assessment, a new online standardized test used by the state.
But the technology issues that plagued the Florida Standards Assessment — which included slow log-in times earlier this month when the platform debuted and a later announcement by state officials that there had been a cyber-attack on the program — have drawn new questions about state tests.
Groups that have traditionally taken opposite sides in education debates have agreed that the state’s testing regime needs to be rolled back, though they disagree on the specifics. The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has said the House proposal is better than similar Senate legislation but hasn’t wholeheartedly endorsed either bill.
The Foundation for Florida’s Future, an organization founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush that strongly backs education accountability, praised the House vote.
“Testing and cultivating a love of learning are not mutually exclusive,” said Patricia Levesque, the foundation’s executive director, in a statement. “Testing that supports students, our hardworking teachers and the information, time and creativity they need in the classroom is a good thing. We’re thankful for the House’s work to prioritize measurement that matters while making thoughtful adjustments on Florida’s student-centered course to ensure student achievement continues to rise.”
But Democrats used the final debate on the bill to highlight what they saw as shortcomings, a day after the House rejected a pair of Democratic amendments. Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, criticized the bill for not suspending the state’s school-grading system for at least a year, given the new tests.
An amendment offered by Jones that would have done so was easily defeated Tuesday.
“We have a responsibility not to cause harm to our young people, not to cause harm to our communities. … Today, I ask you to recognize the fact that we had an opportunity to do more, and we failed to do that,” Jones said Wednesday.
The Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee is set to take up that chamber’s version of the bill (SB 616) on Thursday.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Comments
4 Responses to “House Unanimously Approves Testing Bill – With Fewer Tests”
The school system needs total remaking. High performing students are students with the family culture that fosters school success. Low performing students are in family situations that do not know how or cannot support school success. Here is the bottom line:
The lower 10 to 20 percent students are performing poorly on tests for reasons that cannot be fixed in the classroom. These need family counseling and sadly in high schools drug testing would help.
Teachers are either assigned to teach higher performing or lower performing students. The teachers with lower, are working 12 hr days and often get lower performance evals due to exhaustion and their students’ lack of “expected growth.” Teachers assigned proficient students always eval as highly effective and work only an hour or so over contract. For example, studies show that adolescent sleep times are a huge factor in test and school performance. In high schools (sarasota example) they do not change start times by one hour because that would upset some administrators and teachers and parent drop off. Really?! The state is driving students and teachers to exhaustion and mediocore performance and then adding more tests to fix performance. How lame is that!
Big deal!! There’s a NEW test now amd with the FCAT also, our kids are under too much stress!!!!! I am tired of education aimed to teach kids to pass these ridiculous standardized tests. I’ve heard the FCAT is optional and if it is, we’re opting out!
I applaud the legislature for this move, it’s about time. When they rolled out the stupidest test ever- the FCAT- I was in High School. All of a sudden, teachers started freaking out because of it, and all that mattered was doing good on the FCAT.
Why have an FCAT when we have an ACT and SAT?
I recommend we emulate Germany’s system with their Abitur and England with their A-Level exams. It’s ridiculous to test the crap out of kids who should be focusing on learning the material and gaining an education, instead of learning how to test well. Real life isn’t multiple choice tests. Neither are careers.
Why is there always so much more concern to the penalty the schools will get with these tests than with the penalties the kids get? If you suspend schools evaluation then suspend student evaluation. The real issue is what is going on in our classrooms and schools. Here is the tale of 2 4th graders – Student one is in a classroom where there is a read it on your own, I will give you the correct answers, correct your papers, and maybe we will have a grade this week on the topic maybe not. Student 1 will have maybe 5-6 grades for the Qtr in Math, Science, and Social Studies (with Test only being given in the latter 2 subjects 1 out of 3 Qtrs). There is only 1 math page of HW a night in avg and 1 spelling or vocab exercise a night. Student 2 has book reports on alternating weeks, ~ 1 1/2 hr HW a night in addition to reading time, has at least 5 grades per subject a week. Teacher of student 1 doesn’t see a problem. The information is there and they get the right answers to record if it is wrong. Student 1 should just study more. Principles off hand comment is well maybe math should have more grades but science and social studies are not subject we are required to test so it is OK. These classrooms are next to each other at the same school. Where is the oversight here? What are we worrying about? We need to put our focus on what is happening in our classrooms from K-12