Parents and taxpayers should be wary of drawing a conclusion about the value of the education in a school district based on one measurement alone. Still, this week’s release of the scores and rankings of the state’s 67 school districts based solely on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test from 2011 certainly indicates Manatee County must improve. The district’s 47th place is disappointing and, as School Board Chairman Harry Kinnan indicated, is unacceptable.
But some perspective is in order. The rankings do not factor in a district’s size, progress or demographics, or consider graduation rates, Advanced Placement outcomes or other educational benchmarks like overall student progress. School superintendents from around the state justifiably cried foul over the rankings, especially those districts with high numbers of children living in poverty. That includes Manatee.
This is the first year the state has ranked school districts based only on the FCAT. Gov. Rick Scott and Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson stated the goal in the release of the statistics is to start a conversation, but FCAT scores alone only serve to stigmatize districts with low rankings while failing to provide a complete picture of the state’s public schools.
Florida began administering comprehensive tests in reading and math in 2001 in order to gauge accountability, but in 2011 the state instituted a new version of FCAT -- rendering comparisons to previous years difficult.
And the Department of Education now proposes rule changes that would add 15 criteria to school letter grades, making it all but impossible to ascertain substantive changes over the past few years.
Plus, the tougher factors could result in quadruple the number of F schools and almost 500 fewer A and B schools, according to a report this week in the Florida Times-Union. The state Board of Education will vote on the rule proposals sometime over the next month.
Should those rules be adopted and school grades plunge, how would that improve education? While accountability and exacting standards are a must, could there be an ulterior motive here? The embarrassment from worsening grades could undermine public schools and result in the further expansion of charter and private schools. The Legislature and Gov. Scott continue to push for that very expansion.
Manatee County school officials did not need a poor statewide FCAT ranking to indicate the vital need for improvement. The district has already implemented strategies to boost student scores, via a core curriculum, student performance goals and a new teacher evaluation system.
Instead of evaluating districts on FCAT alone, parents would be wise to review graduation rates, advanced programs and annual school grades as determined by the state. The state’s annual school and district grades include those factors and more; Manatee County earned a B grade earlier this month in 2010-2011 scores.
With so much pressure on school administrators and teachers to raise student FCAT scores, the classroom focus has drifted away from a well-rounded education to teaching to the test. These new FCAT rankings only steer the conversation toward renewed criticism of this narrow measurement of an education.
