Republican, Democrat and independent candidates were unanimous Tuesday -- Florida schools test too much.
The candidates running for three South Dade state House seats — Republican, Democrat, independent — all agree that Florida students and schools spend too much time testing.
Candidates running for the Florida House of Representatives in the 112th, 114th and 115th districts gathered for an education forum Tuesday night at Palmetto Middle School.
“The biggest problem that the assessment process has right now,” said Rep. Erik Fresen, a Republican who represents the 114th district and is chairman of the House Education Appropriations subcommittee, “we have a completely twisted form of actually executing the assessments. Assessments end up drowning the school.”
His challengers, Democrat Daisy Baez and independent Ross Hancock both agreed: There’s too much testing and teachers must adjust their plans and lessons to prepare students for those exams.
In the 115th district, Republican incumbent Mike Bileca and Democratic opponent Kris Decossard agreed. So did Democratic Rep. Jose Javier Rodriquez, who represents the 112th district. His opponent did not participate.
Tuesday’s forum was the latest sign that the political tide has turned against the testing requirements of Florida education policy and local school school districts.
Althea Valle teaches a class of ELL's. She says of the new federal requirement, "I think it’s going to put a lot of pressure on the schools to get these kids where we think they should be."
A 10th grader born in Haiti struggles to read in his class at Godby High School in Tallahassee. The student is more comfortable with Haitian Creole than English. Teacher Althea Valle has students of various nationalities trying to master the language.
“It’s a challenge,” Valle says. “There’s a lot of gesturing, and you know sometimes I feel like I’m onstage and sometimes I have to be onstage to make myself understood.”
Valle is the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) coordinator for Leon County schools. Her developmental language class is offered as an elective for students who want the extra help, like Anas Al-Humiari from Yemen. His native language is Arabic, and he’s been studying English for 5 years.
“First of all, the words are the main things that get me down and the time, me trying to understand the sentence and what is the article or text actually means,” Al-Humiari says, trying to find the right words.
Florida A&M University is ranked number three and Florida International University is ranked seventh on the Social Mobility Index created by CollegeNET, a higher education technology firm, and Payscale, which tracks worker pay.
The rankings factor tuition, percentage of low income students, graduation rates, recent graduate earnings and school endowment. The rankings reward schools with low tuition or a high percentage of low-income students, in particular.
Florida State University ranked 29th, University of Florida 40th and the University of South Florida 48th.
Overall, the state of Florida ranked number four in the nation.
By comparison, Princeton ranked 360th, Harvard 438th and Yale 440th.
Hillsborough Community College students were more likely to visit tutors and complete remedial math courses with a $600 bonus on the line.
Hillsborough Community College students who were paid cash bonuses were more likely to complete remedial math courses and meet with math tutors, according to a new study from social science research firm MDRC.
The study looked at students in Hillsborough Community College’s Mathematics Access Performance Scholarship program, which pays students $600 per semester for three semesters, if they met goals. Those goals include visiting HCC’s Math Labs tutoring center at least five times and earning a ‘C’ grade or better on a college level math course or intermediate Algebra.
Gov. Rick Scott’s claim that 3,000 teachers lost their jobs while Charlie Crist was governor is “mostly false,” according to PolitiFact Florida. Scott repeated the claim at last night’s debate at Broward College, the second of three debates between the two candidates.
The claim omits some key points. The number was derived from media reports about possible layoffs; not all of them materialized. Also, the claim glosses over the fact that Crist accepted federal stimulus money that preserved thousands of teacher jobs. Finally, Crist was not solely responsible for teacher layoffs. Crist and the Republican-led Legislature signed off on budget cuts amid a national recession — something no single politician is personally responsible for.
Clearly, some teachers were laid off statewide, but there’s a lack of evidence that it amounted to 3,000 positions.
The leaders of two large, national school groups say they want to change the amount of testing in schools. The Council of Great City Schools and the Council of Chief State School Officers want to eliminate tests which aren’t essential — many of them local — and make sure it’s clear why the tests are given and how the results are used. But the groups say they are committed to annual testing.
In a document put out with the announcement, the CCSSO and the council wrote that they would work together to ensure “assessments are used in responsible ways.” They also affirmed their commitment to yearly testing, writing that “without assessments given at least once a year, educational leaders would not have the information they need to know about who is learning and who is not.”
The state schools chiefs vowed in that document to publish a list of all state assessments, help get rid of duplicative assessments, and “partner with school districts to review their benchmark and formative assessments.” The urban district leaders said they would review the assessments administered in their districts for alignment and quality, eliminate inappropriate assessments, “curtail counterproductive ‘test prep’ practices,” and make the results of their reviews public.
Veldreana Oliver has taught physical education for 28 years at Allapattah Middle School. More recently, her principal asked her to teach writing, speech and debate.
The school’s principal, Bridget McKinney majored in debate and thought the requirements for Florida’s new Common Core-based standards sounded a lot like her college classes. She needed a writing teacher for new speech and debate courses she wanted to create.
But like many Florida schools, Allapattah Middle has plenty of expectations but a limited budget.
She couldn’t hire a new teacher. It wasn’t in the budget. So she turned to what seems like an unusual place — physical education teacher Veldreana Oliver, who has been with the school for 28 years.
Volusia and Flagler County schools report fewer students are buying lunch at school because of new federal healthy food rules. The rules require students to take fruits and vegetables if they are buying lunch — and much of that ends up in the garbage.
Schools that participate in the federal program receive reimbursements for breakfasts and lunches served in their cafeterias, but they must adhere to strict rules, including an especially unpopular one. Students must take fruit and vegetable items with them as they leave the serving line. New this year: Items served in the a la carte line must adhere to the federal requirements as well.
That hurts the bottom line for local school districts. The food service programs here are self-sustaining, so they don’t have to draw from the pot that funds teachers’ salaries and textbooks. Joan Young, the director of Volusia’s School Way Cafe, said it’s too soon to tell how hard her cafeterias have been hit, but the school managers have told her their sales are down. Angela Torres, Flagler’s director of food service, estimates she’s bringing in $5,000 less weekly on a la carte sales compared with last year. That doesn’t mean her program is operating in the red, she stressed, but her staff needs to find another way to recoup those losses.
Florida students passed Advanced Placement exams at a rate higher than the national average, but but scored below the national average on the SAT college placement exam.
Florida high school students continue to succeed with Advanced Placement courses in ever greater numbers, but their SAT scores suggest many still graduate ill-prepared for college classes, according to a new report released today. Florida was ranked eighth nationally based on student performance on AP exams, with about 16 percent passing compared with 13 percent nationally, the College Board said in its report.
Bridget McKinney, principal at Miami’s Allapattah Middle School, says her students struggle to pass the state’s reading and writing tests.
So when McKinney first read the Common Core math and language arts standards used in Florida schools this year, what jumped out was the emphasis on answering questions and making arguments using examples and evidence from what students are reading.
John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida
Allapattah Middle School principal Bridget McKinney sits in on one of the speech and debate classes she's required her students to take. McKinney says the Common Core standards emphasis using evidence and making arguments.
It took McKinney back to college — she was a speech major. So she decided her sixth, seventh and eighth graders would have to take a speech and debate course each year.
McKinney says the goal is to improve reading and writing skills — and state test scores.
“It’s been our Achilles’ heel at Allapattah, meeting that minimum requirement for literacy,” McKinney says. “I have to be very, very innovative or an out-of-the-box thinker to make this connection for my students.”
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