Faced with unfunded mandates by the Legislature that require the creation and use of hundreds of new tests, deployed primarily to evaluate teachers, the Palm Beach County school board passed a resolution that basically says “Whoa!”
The PBC school board will be sharing its resolution with other members of the Greater Florida School Board Consortium, which includes the state’s largest districts and represents nearly half the students in Florida.
This is the original resolution:
THE SCHOOL BOARD OF PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA
RESOLUTION on ACCOUNTABILITY
WHEREAS, our nation’s future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that
prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship, and lifelong learning; and strengthens the
nation’s social and economic well-being; and
WHEREAS, our nation’s school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money, and
instructional time on high-stakes standardized testing for the purpose of using student performance
on standardized tests to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators, and schools;
and
WHEREAS, the over-reliance and lack of consistent data on high-stakes standardized testing in state
and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public
schools by limiting educators’ ability to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that
promote creativity, problem solving, collaboration, critical thinking, and deep subject-matter
knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and
economy; and
WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate, limited, and
often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness; and
WHEREAS, the increasing over-emphasis on standardized testing has resulted in numerous
consequences in many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing
creative thinking, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession,
and undermining school climate; and
WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects for students from all
backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of
color, and those with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, Florida’s high-stakes testing instruments are not correlated to any national or
international assessment instruments to allow for a comparison of both student
achievement and progress in Florida, with student achievement and progress with other
states and countries; and
WHEREAS, in the absence of state funding, school districts do not have the fiscal or human
resources to meet the state requirement to develop end-of-course exams for the 800+
courses above and beyond the five courses—algebra, algebra II, geometry, biology and U.S.
History—that the state has developed; and
WHEREAS, districts currently have to stop classroom instruction that requires use of
technology during state testing days in order to accommodate on-line assessment without
the funding for an adequate information technology infrastructure to conduct both
assessment and classroom instruction at the same time; and
WHEREAS, the over-reliance on Florida’s high-stakes standardized testing is undermining
Article IX, Section 1 of the Constitution of Florida which declares that it is “a paramount
duty of the state to make adequate provision . . . for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and
high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality
education” particularly with regard to adequate provision, uniformity, efficiency, and high
quality; therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, that the School Board of Palm Beach County, Florida, calls on Governor Scott, the
Florida Department of Education, and the state legislature to provide a three-year transition to July 1,
2017 for full implementation of Florida standards and accountability, with no impact on students,
teachers, school administrators, and school district assessment and evaluation changes. Further, the
Legislature should delay the use of Florida State Assessment results in determining student
promotion, graduation or for teacher evaluation until July 1, 2017. Districts should be given flexibility
in the interim to set their own criteria by which to determine student promotion and teacher
evaluation. Further, use of state student assessment data in the interim should be used solely for
diagnostic purposes in order to assure that the state’s system is valid, reliable, and fair and to create a
baseline for FY18; that the State Board of Education should empower a truly representative panel of
stakeholders—especially educators and parents—who represent all of Florida to validate that all
segments of the accountability system are fair, reliable, accurate, and funded; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the School Board of Palm Beach County, Florida, calls on the
United States Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act,” reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple
forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed
role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.
Done the 17th day of September, two thousand fourteen, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
I hope all 50 plus counties in Florida follow this lead.
The legislative mandates and efforts to micromange the work of schoolboards, administrators, teachers and even parents is out of control in this and other states.
But. but. but….what about Jeb Bush’s miracle work in Florida. One of his cronies is going to come out of the woodwork against this stance, and they will likely reverse it. Has this not happened before? Lee County?
Donna,
The Lee County vote was 3-2. One person rescinded her vote.
As I understand it, the PBC vote was unanimous.
“Value Our Teachers – We’ve Earned Our Step, Now Pay It!”
A talk given by Andy Goldstein and Ellen Baker to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL. September 17, 2014.
It’s a great step….but what does a resolution actually do? Is it binding?
Alison,
A resolution shows growing public sentiment against high-stakes testing. Other districts should do the same. The legislators will hear the change and see it. That’s how political movements begin.
Diane, I tend to be a cynic and a realist. I like that you are optimistic. You have been fighting this for a long time. I am a new comer. I hope some of you will rub off on me. I wanted to email you today and don’t know where. Do you provide an email?
Go to dianeravitch.com and hit the contact button
thank u
At contact, I found invitation to speak and her agent. Other is snail mail. Do I email the agent when there is an article I find may be of interest? I cannot seem to find a direct email there.
I was a minority whip in Model Legislature in High School, so I was merely being rhetorical. Do you really think legislators care? In NY everything is controlled by a political machine that starts with King Andy. Albany politicians are beholden to the political machine, especially democrats. While it was great that Teachout got a significant portion of the vote in the primary, the November election will be a rout. And more discouraging yet, the majority of suburban parents around the capital ( unlike those around Long Island) are still woefully uninformed and worse yet, STILL seemingly uninterested. I see FB posts by the same faithful activists, but the majority of parents around me else just continue to “go along.to get along….” Sorry, but I am just as depressed as i was last year, maybe more so because it seems like PARCC and big data mining( OF INDIVIDUAL STUDENT DATA) are going ahead right on schedule….
Column from the Orlando Sentinel (paywall): http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-florida-school-testing-scott-maxwell-20140918-column.html
“Unfortunately, Florida politicians aren’t like most people. They want to drive families away from traditional public schools and to steer tax dollars to private, for-profit schools.
“They make schools miserable and then say: ‘See how miserable things are? You should go elsewhere.’
I’ve always thought that was the plan all along. They don’t want the public schools to get better. They want to make the experience so unbearable that more parents fight for vouchers. The Orlando area’s WFTV did a report about kindergarten standardized tests in all subjects, and most of the negative comments on the station’s Facebook post were directed at public schools and not the politicians who created the circumstances.
“They make schools miserable and then say: “See how miserable things are? You should go elsewhere”
Yes. That’s what they are doing. They are making the public schools miserable for teachers, for students and for parents as part of a process of privatizing the schools to make money. It’s all about making money.
What a great development!
It’s about time. Someone needs to look out for our children.
Finally a school system with guts!
all of Common Core needs to go, not just the state testing. Notice the very last paragraph, PB County from what we’ve been told by the school board, did not take any Race to the Top funds but they still are taking “No Child Left Behind” funds, but they state now that teachers should not be evaluated in any way by their students’ tests! …”not mandate any fixed role for the use of student tests in evaluating educators”. How do they then evaluate educators? Is that what teachers hated most about “No Child Left Behind”? Just wondering if anyone has an answer, how will teachers be evaluated?
Get educated! The tests aren’t even made yet. How can you prepare students for a new and more rigorous test without knowing what is on it? Do you want to be graded on the unknown? Do you get graded at your job? Do you sit home and work with your child on their school work or are you one of the MOST who do nothing to prepare your child for school? It is not the teachers job to teach manners, but most come to school without. Children are not coming to school anymore with the basics which were taught at home; their colors, shapes, counting, the ABC song, how to tie their shoes AND knowing their last name! Parents used to work with and sing songs with their children before they were 2 years old so their children would know these basics before they got to school. Parents used to read every night to their children, gave them the love of books and background knowledge. This is not happening in a high percentage of homes anymore and school has added more and more to the plate of every child and every teacher. If you would actually know what is going on in schools these days, you might have a lot more compassion for teachers. We are not whiners, but extremely hard workers and very tired by the end of the day, doing both our work and the work of the parent.