This blogger wondered who was appointed to the Florida state board. This is a powerful board that selects the state commissioner of education and sets policy for the children, teachers, and schools of the state. The board has given the green light to charters, vouchers, online schools, for-profit schools, any alternative that anyone can dream of.
Who are these people? Read the post and you will understand.
Read it and you will see how Florida became a Mecca for privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Link?
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Here it is stsmith,
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Shanahan resigned as chair. Chartrand will become the new chair. Martinezn the only Hispanic, is term-limited and will be out by December. Shanahan and Desai hosted a fundraiser for Jeb’s Foundation at the Republican Convention in Tama.
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Oh just wait because Marc Tucker wants NO local school boards.
State Board members should be ELECTED. What is the purpose of an appointed school board?
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Florida’s Governor Rick Scott proudly announced this summer that the state was facing out the controversial FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) assuring that “change is on the way” from Pearson’s standardized tests the state had been using in 1998.
After almost 14 years and a ton of problems, FCAT will come to an end in the 2011-12 school year.
Scott’s claim—and promise—this past summer was that it was necessary to “begin improving our testing system” assuring Florida’s students there would be “No more teaching to the test. It’s time we get a better measure of our children’s progress.”
So the former critic of standardized tests (before he was in favor and then against) crafted an “education tour” which, according to Scott, “produced some discoveries.” Said discoveries just popped up in meetings with teachers in Boca Raton (Fl.), who showed him the lists of tests they had to give their students, which prompted the Governor to ask the “unexpected and naïve” question, “Should we get rid of the FCAT and just go with the ACT?”
Really, Governor? You had not even considered an alternative to FCAT and suddenly, from nowhere, ACT’s suite of tests popped up?
ACT (the American College Testing based in Iowa City, Iowa) has been courting Florida for more than a year, celebrating with gusto every time Pearson (who administers and scores FCAT) was smashed by the media because of a host of issues that, according to some measurement scientists, led to consider the test being invalid. But make no mistake; Pearson and ACT are “good” business partners (Pearson scores some of ACT tests). In Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays, Pearson (who has offices across ACT’s headquarters in Iowa City, Iowa) sends ACT’s offices boxes of apples, caramels, and all sorts of gifts to distribute among ACT’s employees. Nice.
But the benign “not-for-profit” (??) organization has made a fortune selling its suite of standardized tests (EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT ) to states, influencing the states’ education policies to make these tests mandated to all students. One way ACT has to achieve its goal of having its tests be mandated throughout the nation is by identifying key people in each state who are somehow connected to the education arena and making them members of ACT’s Board of Directors. That’s the case of John Barnhill, Florida State University’s Assistant VP for Enrollment Management.
As a PR-ish coverall (I’d rather call it “prepping” to use the “not-for-profit” business’ own lingo), last year’s winners of ACT’s student poster were two Floridians, which the Midwestern testing business did a media bliss. What a coincidence! In business that is called pandering.
So just a few days ago, a few months from Pearson’s end of its $250 million contract with Florida, lo and behold, ACT pops up at Scott’s meeting with Boca Raton’s teachers. This was the same meeting Scott filled his mouth saying, “We have done the right thing for education,” boasting the money his administration is going to “invest” in schools in the 2012 academic year, but where he didn’t want to address a critical funding issue: teacher pay.
Evidently, Scott is willing to pay millions for ACT-state mandated suite of tests, but not even consider improving teachers’ salary nor working conditions.
This Midwestern business claims that its mission is to “help people achieve education and workplace success. Now that their sales pitch has convinced Rick Scott to let go of Pearson and hire them to test every single 8-12 grader in Florida, where there are millions of Hispanic students, I wonder if the testing mogul is ready. As one of their mid managers once told me, “Messaging Hispanics is not an ACT business strategy.”
Unless helping Hispanic (and any other) students achieve success is the same as taking test after test (ACT-states only pay for one test) after tests, Florida’s students, especially Hispanics are on their way of falling ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks, as has been the trend in the last 8 years.
Don’t expect ACT to ask the same amount of money our state has been paying Pearson. And don’t expect this new contract to include just 8-12 high-stake tests. ACT also prepares and sells its suite of workforce tests called WorkKeys, which ACT claims are “a clear way [for workers] to demonstrate their abilities to future employers.” But these tests are only offered in English, at least in the US, thus clearly filtering out workers with limited English proficiency, such as Hispanics.
I thought you’d like to know.
Gracias!
Lourdes
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It is my understanding that after the FCAT is phased out, the PARC test is in…on Common Core, plus the umptymillion EOCs on each and every subject eventually. My course, 7th grade civics, has EOC field testing this year and then next year it is 30% while the following year it is pass/fail and students who do not pass the EOC for Civics by the end of 8th grade face staying in middle school until they do, no matter what they passed in other subjects.
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FYI: The latest on the K12 student-teacher ratio scandal: 275-to-1. (I’ll leave it to the reader to guess which is the teacher number.)
http://fcir.org/2012/09/16/read-k12s-confidential-student-teacher-ratio-document/
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You might want to publish who is on NY’s Education Commission as well. I believe the list is even worse and headed by the former CEO who bankrupted Citibank.
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