BREAKING NEWS: Florida Superintendents Announce They Have Lost Confidence in the State Accountability System

By dianeravitch

September 26, 2015 //

Florida superintendents issued a statement saying that they have lost confidence in the state’s accountability system.

Read it here.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Florida, Standardized Testing

35 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

flos56 says:

September 26, 2015 at 2:34 am

“Special attention needs to be given to learning gains so that a year’s growth in a year’s time is considered a learning gain.”

This is a good point. It seems that teachers are expected to achieve multiple years growth for their students at each grade level in order to prove they are highly effective. This is a rare achievement that has more to do with the individual child than the teacher.
It appears that teachers are expected to do the impossible, with their hands tied behind their back and hopping on one foot.

Kudos to these Florida Superintendents for bringing some sanity back into education.

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- Chris in Florida says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 5:20 am
  
  While there is still far too much support for reformy nonsense and testing ‘accountability’ (and they entirely miss the NAEP cut score debacle) I applaud them for taking a dangerous stand from a political standpoint. Politicians here are vindictive and don’t hesitate to take revenge against any who cross them.
  
  In my ‘bottom 300 in reading’ school the goals have been handed down as a year and a half. Period. A year’s growth is to be judged as falling short. It is just raising the bar ever higher while the kids remain the same height.
  
  Our administrators continue to cheerlead that it is quite possible to do the impossible because their jobs depend on it happening, not because it actually is possible.
  
  As the disruption churns, these are the days of our lives . . . .
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 8:22 am
  
  “Kudos to these Florida Superintendents. . . ”
  
  Horse manure, they’re not “bringing sanity back into education, they’re a main part of the problem. This letter is just a way for them to appear to go with the flow of being against this. When a supe walks the walk and refuses to participate in the nonsense that is Florida’s evaluation system they we can hand out some kudos.
  
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- West coast teacher says:
  
  September 27, 2015 at 2:46 pm
  
  My students once gained a year in six weeks on a standardized type test.. I gave the test two weeks later. (This before such things as tests were sacred.) Everyone returned to the starting point. Test won’t show you anything. Better to know what the student can really do.
  
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Diane Hanfmann says:

September 26, 2015 at 6:19 am

The question remains, “Why did it take 16 years for the Superintendents to take this stance?” It has been their duty since Day One of the ironically titled A+ Plan.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 11:17 am
  
  YEP!
  
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- rsolnet says:
  
  September 27, 2015 at 4:51 am
  
  Truly, Diane H., this is cause for celebration but I understand your tremendous frustration. You were a part of helping to get us to this victory, too!
  
  This happened as a result of pressure parents & teachers placed on school boards and they, in turn, on superintendents and on the FL DOE. What happened Thursday was initiated and worked on feverishly for over five months now after years of trying to work within the system to fix the system, It’s been an uphill battle with a tone deaf legislature for many years.
  
  Nevertheless it’s quite amazing to get an entire state of superintendents to say they’ve had enough. (64 of 67 – and only because the remaining three weren’t present)
  
  Yes, it’s frustrating that it took so long but look at the money and power we’ve been up against! I hope you celebrate this progress with your fellow PBC (& Martin County & other FL) public school activists! You’ve been there throughout the duration.
  
  You were there when we -PBC- led the charge against high stakes testing. You helped us as we fought to turn over board seats to ensure we elected those who’d put children over profits. It was a long time coming but it’s an incredible hard-fought victory.
  
  I don’t know of another state where superintendents united in opposition to the will of the governor. The supt’s are quite aware of potential consequences. Politically speaking – this is even more significant that sup’ts revolted at the same time Jeb touts Florida as his “national model of accountability.”
  
  For the FL public school activists and lobbyists who gave up their spring and summer to get to this point, this is huge. A letter was already hand delivered by the superintendents to Gov Scott on Friday. They’ll need our help (parents, teachers, business partners) to back them up. We’re organizing those actions now. I’ll be out of the country but will post with other colleagues some actions we can take before I leave. Smile, Diane H., the sun came back out on 9/24/15! And thank you, for all you’ve done in the last decade and a half for all of Florida’s children not only as a teacher but as a relentless advocate.
  
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  - schoolgal says:
    
    September 27, 2015 at 10:22 am
    
    Thank you Ms. Solnet and people like Diane. This is a big step considering what’s happening around the country. NYS for instance is taking 10 steps backwards and no parent organization is helping us the way you guys do!! Florida rocks!!!
    
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    September 27, 2015 at 11:54 am
    
    School gal,
    
    New York State has NYSAPE, which has led the way to an opt out of 220,000 children. That is historic!
    
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  - West coast teacher says:
    
    September 27, 2015 at 3:03 pm
    
    My experience tells me that school administrators are ultimately politicians. That is why, in Arne’s words parents were lied to. He wants parents to understand how little background knowledge their children have in comparison with his who have an enormous amount in comparison. Yes, some kids have so little they are limited at graduation. But how much background one really needs to be career and college ready is not known. That is why colleges are looking at effort rather than comparative knowledge.
    
    And it is why parents and others protest when too many are labled failing. Teachers are not lying to kids. They are pressed to keep the pass rate up even when they feel it is phony so parents will not complain.
    
    These superintendents are reacting politically. They sense the reaction coming.
    
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  - rsolnet says:
    
    September 27, 2015 at 9:46 pm
    
    What NY accomplished with regards to the numbers of those opting out was nothing short of astounding. This didn’t go unnoticed by many states, especially Florida. The comprehensive coverage of NY parents’ actions resisting high stakes tests — both in print and on the air — helped us tremendously during legislative session. Not a week went by when we didn’t print out articles about NY (or about the federal rewrite of NCLB) and hand deliver them to senate and house education committee members. We applaud the many NY parent & teacher activists who helped propel us – and other states – to this point.
    
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  - schoolgal says:
    
    September 28, 2015 at 9:11 am
    
    I agree and support the efforts of the NY opt out movement. My concern is for NYC where we don’t see the numbers as high as we do upstate. We don’t see parents in NYC organizing in large numbers to travel to Albany nor do we see NYC teachers mobilizing the way they do in other cities like Seattle and Chicago.
    Ms. Burris started a revolution that for some reason got Long Island and upstate on board, but never really touched NYC. deBlasio can’t do this. His legs have been cut off. But parents can.
    
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Becky McCullough says:

September 26, 2015 at 7:11 am

I just gotta say it: Go figure.

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retired teacher says:

September 26, 2015 at 7:39 am

At least they are refusing to stay silent about the errors of Florida’s ways.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 8:25 am
  
  Whoop de doo doo on that refusal!
  
  OH!, They are sooo Boooold!
  
  (sorry rt, but I just don’t see it that way)
  
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Andy Goldstein says:

September 26, 2015 at 7:50 am

“Conduct an extensive review of the accountability system, including the multiple changes that have been implemented over the last several years.”

Perhaps our legislators should be part of that accountability system. They keep passing legislation that: ignores our Constitution’s Class Size Reduction Amendment passed by our citizens; favors Charter Schools at the expense of our public schools; and designates as “public enemies” those who decide to go into the teaching profession (with annual contracts) or have committed their lives and careers to teaching our children. Where is the support for our public schools, our children, our teachers and our communities?

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 8:32 am
  
  No need to conduct “an extensive review”. It’s already been done in 1997 by Noel Wilson who has proven the complete invalidity of any accountability system so far devised. The sooner folks realize one can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ears, nor turn metal into gold the better off public education will be.
  
  To understand why the magical alchemical process of measuring student achievement is “vain and illusory” read and comprehend Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
  
  Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
  
  1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
  
  2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
  
  3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
  
  4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
  
  In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
  
  5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
  
  6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
  
  7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
  
  In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
  
  My answer is NO!!!!!
  
  One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
  
  “So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
  
  In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
  
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  - West coast teacher says:
    
    September 27, 2015 at 3:05 pm
    
    Keep it up Duane. I think you are getting through to someone out there!
    
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Brad says:

September 26, 2015 at 8:02 am

Finally a joint announcement by superintendents… What took so long? It’s the question I’ve been asking supts here in ny… Why have the vast majority ignored the high stakes testing and flawed standards???

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Allan R. Bonilla, Ed.D says:

September 26, 2015 at 8:06 am

Very significant indeed. Might this be the beginning of the end?

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 8:33 am
  
  If I may adjust your first sentence “Very INsignificant indeed.”
  
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Duane Swacker says:

September 26, 2015 at 8:14 am

“Florida superintendents have consistently defended and supported accountability, the new Florida Standards, and the need to accurately measure student performance.”

YEP! GAGAers through and through. The supes have consistently been totally wrong in believing that there is or even can be (there can’t be) way to “accurately measure student performance”. Wilson has proven the complete invalidity of the educational standards and standardized testing regime but the supes continue to believe in fairies, unicorns and their own self importance.

“. . . the results of a flawed assessment will impact teacher evaluations (VAM) and be used to judge the quality of schools.”

Refuse to be a part of the process you cojonesless supes.

“It is important to note that when faced with similar challenges at least seven other states have modified their accountability system for the baseline year to mitigate negative consequences. . . ”

Modified crap is still excrement, maybe it just doesn’t reek as bad (maybe we need to measure that “reekness”?)

“Special attention needs to be given to learning gains so that a year’s growth in a year’s time is considered a learning gain.”

Okay, supes, define “a year’s growth” (I wonder if they can define a “year’s time”?) What about learning losses or are there only gains? I’m waiting for that definition of a year’s growth but that may be asking to much of most supes.

“We have witnessed the erosion of public support for an accountability system that was once a model for the nation.”

Yeah, the problem is “erosion of public support” not the fact that that supposed “model for the nation” was and is a false meme, causes much harm and is based on bullshit VAM. And you supes are worried about the “erosion of public support” not that it was a shitty model to begin with. Ay ay ay ay ay!

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 8:18 am
  
  In other words another mealy mouthed self absorbed paean to the supes who have been the ones instituting the idiotic accountability system with nary a word, or more importantly any act of defiance or opposition.
  
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SomeDAM Poet says:

September 26, 2015 at 8:23 am

What’s this?

Lost confidence in the anti-gravity boots that Jeb Bush, David Coleman, Bill Gates and Arne Duncan sold them?

What was the clincher? When they stepped off the cliff and found themselves falling?

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Sad Teacher says:

September 26, 2015 at 9:06 am

The accountability system has been designed to wear down, exhaust, and discourage classroom teachers to the point of making them want to leave the profession by this coming Monday morning.

I have worked nonstop the past three school weeks and the past three weekends on 2 SLO’s. We were informed that we now have to do SLO’s because the PARCC would not be providing VAM for the value added teachers. The 2 SLO’s have taken incredible amounts of time in paperwork, data collection, narrative reports, graphs, etc. and the sad thing is…..these SLO’s have nothing to do with what my students and I are doing in the classroom right now.

I arrive in my classroom at 6:40 AM in the morning, and I do not leave usually until after 7 in the evenings ..or even later. The sad thing is that there are not enough hours to complete all of this paperwork while you are trying to teach your students. This past week I had to juggle my 2 SLO’s with doing progress reports. I am beyond exhausted, and it is not even October yet. As soon as the 2 SLOs are done, I have to start into a ton of new paperwork with my teacher evaluation in October. I have to answer endless pages of questions and then create a Marzano based lesson “dog and pony” show.

I yearn to just teach my students again. I yearn to teach, grade their papers, hand back their papers, …and give formative assessments along the way. Instead, the state of Ohio has me so bogged down with meaningless paperwork that I am exhausted as I go about my day to day teaching duties. I told my husband that I could keep a secretary busy just assisting me in the classroom. It has gotten ridiculous!!!!

Someone with guts is going to have to step forward and say, “Enough is enough!” I retire next year, but the young teachers are not going to make it to 60 years old in this exhausting, abusive career. I would have never made it when my children were little. Add to all of this….. there is now a stigma that everyone wants to fire teachers. I say…. You know what? The poor teachers would be relieved of a lot of misery if they were fired. It is all so sad.

I will now go back to my 2 SLO’s. I will be lucky to be done by Sunday evening at midnight.

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- flos56 says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 9:15 am
  
  I have two thoughts –
  
  What about the beginning teachers who need a second job to make ends meet? Where will they find the time?
  
  Imagine the special area teacher who sees hundreds of students? My music teacher friend working in two schools has a terrible time when the SLO’s come around.
  
  Do you have to do the Artifacts in your state? That’s another one of the NYS busywork assignments.
  
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- Christine Langhoff says:
  
  September 26, 2015 at 10:10 pm
  
  Serious question, Sad Teacher –
  
  What would happen if you just didn’t do all the mindless paperwork and taught instead?
  
  How long would it take them to document and then fire or suspend or punish you somehow? Can you outlast them until retirement?
  
  Your chosen nom de plume is so terrible; I’m so sorry it is apt.
  
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- West coast teacher says:
  
  September 27, 2015 at 3:13 pm
  
  And I thought it was a waste when I had to describe what I was already doing by putting everything into objectives and goals. I hanged nothing but the semantics of my lessons.
  
  The only real change I saw in forty-four years of teaching that really meant something was the introduction of graphic organizers across.the curriculum.
  
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SomeDAM Poet says:

September 26, 2015 at 9:22 am

“Reasoning with the Unreasonable”

Reason only works
With reasonable folks
It doesn’t work with jerks
And doesn’t work with jokes

It doesn’t work on those
With evil moneyvations
Unreasonable to suppose
That reason rules relations

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NY Teacher says:

September 26, 2015 at 11:52 am

I’ll believe them when they REFUSE to fire teachers based on test accountability.
After all, Florida is a “stand your ground” state.

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Robert Rich says:

September 26, 2015 at 12:25 pm

From a few years ago–check this out: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/03/why_i_decided_to_become_a_private_school_teacher.html

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Special Educator in NY says:

September 26, 2015 at 3:53 pm

Pffffffftt.

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Gordon Wilder says:

September 26, 2015 at 3:55 pm

Maybe the superintendents should have seen, as some have mentioned above. that the people making up the accountability tests were no account people. Should have been seen from the beginning.

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schoolgal says:

September 27, 2015 at 10:13 am

Once again this proves grassroots activism is needed—Don’t wait for union leadership or some politician. Under Jeb and then Rick Scott, the Bush education agenda was a disaster. Parents and teachers working together to get all these superintendents on board is a cause to celebrate!!! It will send ripples through the legislature. And I am sure this is just the beginning of this campaign.

Look how hard Carol Burris tried to unite all the principals in NY to sign a letter to the governor to stop the testing madness. She got a lot of support from Long Island and few from NYC. Why?? Because NYC teachers and parents are either complacent or not well-informed. NYC teachers think the union will do something, when in fact they are behind the knife in the back. And less parents opted out in NYC than around the state. NYC teachers need to start organizing parents and teachers in their own schools. Then it will spread like wild fire.

Look at how Seattle parents and teachers bonded over the strike. This is why what’s happening in Florida is huge!!!

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Diane Hanfmann says:

September 27, 2015 at 12:15 pm

I am reminded of the Florida Coalition of Assessment Reform who addressed this stuff starting way back about the year 2000 for years, It is about 16 years later and , rather than clapping, my motivation is stronger for asking the question why it took so long for a group of district heads to do as their job always had been..to act in the best interest of children. Would I clap if I knew the cops let a child molester continue to molest for 16 years and then decided to arrest that person or would I be more curious how the decision to allow this behavior to continue for 16 years came to be? I guess I am just crabby.

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