Good grief! I knew that the anti-high-stakes testing movement was making headway, but this is unbelievable.
Governor Rick Scott of Florida now wonders if the state is testing too much.
Parents in Florida have been complaining for years that their children are over-tested, that too much instructional time is wasted on test prep, that too many millions are thrown away on testing instead of teaching.
And now the governor is wondering too.
Will wonders never cease?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have noticed slight, very slight changes to the narrative here and there. Duncan came to our state after our reform battle. Rhee spent tons of money (some was given to her by Bloomberg) to support the original bill (tv and print ads with fake teachers) and bash teachers. It was a war with teachers rallying, writing, calling etc.
Anyway, Duncan visits a city school and talks about how our reform got it right and we need to measure teachers not just by test scores, blah, blah, blah. There was no mention of how much the original bill had changed where they wanted to fire staff on turnaround schools, take away tenure, etc. They made is seem like a big kumbaya moment when in reality they were ready and willing to throw all the teachers under the bus. Now, they are designing an evalution system that will require more adminstrators to pull it off. One “leader” stated we will have to lay of teachers to hire more administrators to weed out the bad teachers. Layoff teachers to hire administrators to get rid of teachers…..and magically this will close the achievement gap. Hip hip hooray for reform!
I don’t trust any of them. As soon as our guard is down, they are ready for the next pounce.
Keep your guard up. You are right.
Wow! When did the light bulb turn on? Perhaps he is not getting the results he wants from his charter schools.
And then they will lower the standards (% correct needed to pass, more so than they have already) so they won’t have to classify the charters and close them. We wouldn’t want to hold the charters to the same high standards our public schools must achieve.
Is there a plan when you need to turn around a turn around.
I don’t live in FL but like most politicians, I am sure he is just saying what is politically expedient for him at this time. Maybe it is about the move to common core…now he will sell that as if it is a solution to this problem. Maybe it is about the stink over their test scores being poor this year. Parents are complaining so he needs to appease them. Doesn’t mean he will change. I was researching the writing assessment because our kids take one here that, like Fl, is artificial and produces bogus scores at times. A saw a post (I think on the answer sheet) about writing score in FL this year causing some uproar. Arne Duncan is particularly good at saying things that sound nice while doing the complete opposite. Can’t stand him.
The uproar over Florida’s writing scores involved a quick rise in the standards needing to pass. The Florida Writes (now FCAT Writes) exam was originally administered as a 45 minute, rough-draft essay. For the 2011-2012 school year, the standards were tightened, putting more weight on correct spelling and grammar. Despite making the test more than a rough draft, the completion time remained at 45 minutes.
Lots of students did poorly according to the new standards. The 3rd
grade test question asked the student to write about an adventure on a camel.
So true! Just like the State of the Union Address when–in one fell swoop–President Obama made statements about letting teachers–who are doing a great job, BTW, be creative, etc., & must stop teaching to the test. And WHO created RttT with MORE testing?
& WHO proclaimed National Teacher Week National Charter Schools Week? And WHO cheered at the Central Falls, R.I. debacle?
BUT–the good news is–if it’s “politically expedient” for Scott to now question testing, how did that come about? Could it be public pressure & expressed dissatisfaction? If so, then we are making a dent. EVERYONE–all you readers & your colleagues, families & friends, Keep UP the pressure out there! LET YOUR POLITICIANS KNOW that YOU WON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN!
Ed Schultz had it right on his TV show last year. During the campaign candidate Obama said he would walk a “picket” line in solidarity with workers. He had his chance in Wisconsin and did nothing. I get it, it is easier as a candidate than an actual office holder to say those things, but the President did nothing to overtly support those folks in Wisconsin. If he had sent folks and used the bully pulpit to support them, things would have had a chance to be different.
Yet let’s not forget that in terms of the education policy, there is no difference from Obama & Romney…words might be different, the actions are not.
FIRE ARNE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
It will be interesting how this turns out. Remember that he cut $1.3 billion from the education budget for the 2011-2012 school year. (A chunk of that was simply not replacing federal stimulus funds, which I can kind of understand). He then came out as an ardent supporter of public education by saying that he would not sign a budget that didn’t increase education funding by $1 billion for the 2012-2013 school year. There is still a $300 million hole. His policy solution on testing may be something like making a mandate for districts to cut the diagnostic exams they provide to predict student performance on the FCAT.
Like the Scathing Purple Musings blog states, Scott having a turnaround on testing would be difficult inasmuch as his signature piece of education legislation makes districts base 50% of their teachers’ evaluations on student test scores.
Things are getting very interesting down here in the Sunshine State. At least 13 county boards of education and the state Schools Boards Association (along with several other statewide groups) have passed resolutions against the high-stakes FCAT testing regime implemented under Jeb Bush, including my own very Republican, conservative district. Florida is a “right to work” state and the teacher unions here are only allowed to negotiate salary and benefits and a very limited scope of work conditions. They are prohibited by law from taking any actions whatsoever, such as strikes, sick-outs, and work to rule.
Jeb Bush has never forgiven the FEA (which usually endorses the democratic candidate for governor) for joining with parents and twice passing the Class Size amendment to the state constitution, which he strongly opposed. The first time around he tried to prevent implementation by claiming it would cost too much and by delaying implementation. The state Supreme Court shut him down. Voters passed a stronger amendment the 2nd time around and it became law. Bush vowed vengeance.
Teachers and parents again united and helped defeat the first attempt at tying teacher evaluation to test results and convinced then governor Charlie Christ to veto the measure, SB6. Bush vowed vengeance.
Rick Scott is elected governor, immediately appoints a Bush-dominated Education Transition Team headed by Michelle Rhee and Patricia Levesque, a close Bush associate during his 2 terms as governor. They achieve passage of the teacher evaluation bill but experience strong pushback from teachers and parents on the Parent Trigger bill which is defeated. Bush vows revenge.
Rick Scott is the least popular governor in the country. He rode into office on the 2010 Tea Party express despite his felonious business background but only won by around 68,000 votes, around 1.5%. His popularity rating has remained in the 30’s and occasionally dipped down into the 20’s and once up into the 40’s during his two years in office. He is talking constantly about re-election now and that, more than anything, seems to account for his sudden “reasonableness”.
His education commissioner, Gerard Robinson, a Bush flunky, has been touring the state and facing hostile audiences of parents, community members, and teachers, as he tries to evangelize the ALEC-produced reforms (ALEC gave FL a B+ on their ratings survey for reform efforts) that are very unpopular with the voters. His response has been to fire off imperious letters and to beat the company drum incessantly, ticking off school boards and parents even more.
The concerted attack on higher education has been a PR disaster and made the governor even more political enemies. I think he’s realized that the Tea Party, while electing him and a supermajority in the term-limited state legislature, is not a majority power in the state and that voters are getting madder and more vocal every day. So he pivots. With near-highest in the nation unemployment, number of home foreclosures, and draconian budget cutting Scott is wondering about his legacy and his future. He doesn’t seem to have much choice in listening, or at least pretending to, if he wants to retain power.
When we see it actually happen, reduction in testing, we will believe it.
Hmmm… you think Jeb will call us ‘a massive campaign of misinformed’ now 🙂
Kudos to Florida parents, teachers, FEA, Dr. Ravitch, Parents Across America, Fair Test and all others who have kept the heat on high stakes testing!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is but a small chink in the armor and we must redouble our efforts to widen it more every day. Rest assured, this revolution (for lack of a better word) can fail if we think it’s over now.
Governor Scott realizes which way the political wind is blowing and, like his “one billion dollars for education” (after TAKING 1.3 billion the year before) is politically motivated. Corporate donors who are pushing this effort will do anything to get their hands on the massive amount of money spent on education annually and will not let go of the ground they have gained easily.