I received this comment from a teacher in Manatee County:
Diane – I wanted to give you an update on yesterday’s story and some context about what teachers have been doing. The Florida Department of Education’s attorney has clarified that the portfolio option is available and must be allowed based on state statute. I suspect that the districts involved were encouraged to take the hardline position, particularly based on parts of an email from a DOE official (that the Manatee Superintendent released) which did imply that a test was required or the student would have to go to summer reading camp to build a portfolio. Now the DOE has “clarified” their position, stating that a district may not exclude any of the good cause exemptions (specified in statute) in their local policy.
The FEA Delegate Assembly recently passed a New Business Item advocating for a parent’s right to Opt Out, and the union has used that in lobbying efforts. At our latest Governance Board Meeting, President McCall hosted a panel discussion on Opt Out which included one of our attorneys, Cindy Hamilton from Opt Out Florida (https://www.facebook.com/TheOptOutFloridaNetwork/posts/1075887432465602) and Luke Flynt, our Secretary-Treasurer talking about the Opt-out movement and how complicated it is to be a teacher in this political environment. The FEA website has a statement about opt out with both warnings and information including links to the Opt-out groups. (https://feaweb.org/
The union has been consistent in warning teachers not to encourage opting out for the students and parents inside their classrooms because of state law, but we have also shared the complete statutes including all of the good cause exemptions to the required passing score on FSA. We have suggested that, as parents and citizens, teachers do not lose their first amendment rights, but they should be very careful about how and when they choose to exercise them. There is real concern that the department could go after teachers’ certificates if they advocate for opting out on school time or while acting in their employment capacity.
We have also had union leaders sharing the information provided by opt-out groups in their area, but they have also provided warnings about potential consequences particularly for 3rd grade students and for meeting graduation and scholarship requirements. The commissioner has stated several times that the state assessments are required by law, and that opting out is not allowed. She has also stated that parents who do not want to take assessments should find another place to educate their children.
Clearly, the great puzzle is why the Florida legislature is all for parent choice when it comes to “choosing” a school, but opposed to parent choice when it comes to complying with an order to take tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
” included one of our attorneys, Cindy Hamilton from Opt Out Florida ” SHOULD READ, included one of our attorneys and Cindy Hamilton from Opt Out Florida . I am not an attorney.
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“There is real concern that the department could go after teachers’ certificates if they advocate for opting out on school time or while acting in their employment capacity.”
This one reason why retired educators, parents, concerned citizens and the press need to take up the cause.
I am trying to get a mental picture of “a portfolio” to demonstrate proficiency in grade-level reading.” Would that be a folio of worksheets completed? Video recordings of the kid reading from several books? Who would be judging portfolios, by what criteria, and how could these items be checked for “grade-level alignment?”
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“She has also stated that parents who do not want to take assessments should find another place to educate their children.”
“Clearly, the great puzzle is why the Florida legislature is all for parent choice when it comes to “choosing” a school, but opposed to parent choice when it comes to complying with an order to take tests.”
These two statements show what the crux of the matter is. They want compliant citizens so that when we have a fully privatized system we will simply obey whatever system we are willing to be compliant to. If the citizens learn to be compliant then they (.01%) can control the nation. Those that control the education of the nation control the nation.
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So true!
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They forget students are entitled to free public education. It is the state’s job to provide it. Mandating tests with punitive consequences will backfire on them. Parents need to protect their children from what they consider is abuse.
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Nicely said. So long as you have the stability and wherewithall, you can “choose” a school — but don’t think about choosing anything else.
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Totally consistent. Both opting out of public school, and requiring a test rigged to show half the students or more being taught in public schools are “not proficient,” harm the future of public education by making it look like public schools are failing. Where is the inconsistency? TPTB have decided that after dodging their taxes so the states have no money to spend on education, a free public education is something we can no longer “afford” to provide. They only need a few highly educated managers and technicians to look after the robot farms or overseas sweatshops, so education is a waste of money, anyway.
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We had a district administrator who left our district last year to go down to Florida and become a superintendent. It was his plan to be a supe for the last 5 or so years of his career, then retire down there in the sun. We just heard he has applied for supe jobs back up here. His one comment to a staff member who talked to him – Florida education is f***ed up.
He was a decent enough administrator, still interested in actual student learning, not just the data, and used to make it a habit to spend a day in a school building once or twice a month & not just hide out in the district office. I was surprised to hear he’d gone to Florida, less surprised he is coming back.
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You-all should read The 74. It’s important to get an idea of the echo chamber since these are now national policies and there’s no real debate so they’ll inevitably be reaching your kids.
Here’s one in their continuing series – “hooray for charter schools!”
https://www.the74million.org/article/as-charter-schools-turn-25-five-ways-to-share-their-success-with-traditional-schools
What is notably absent from ed reform sites is any mention of strong public schools, or really much mention of public schools at all, other than comparing them unfavorably to charters.
DC has set up some other funding streams for charters, by the way:
“As a part of their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) school turnaround plans, states must identify evidence-based interventions for turning around low-performing schools, and will receive $1 billion in funding to support those efforts. District and state leaders should highlight the practices Fryer identified to suggest strategies for turnaround that take advantage of these options. in addition to using the funds to grow high-performing charters themselves.”
None of that will go to public schools. It’s another 1 billion towards opening charter schools in addition to the dedicated (and exclusive) funding DC is already pouring into that “sector”.
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Florida piloted a similar “turnaround” program using Race to the Top funds. The FLDOE created the Differentiated Accountability office that subsequently hired teams of people desperate to escape the classroom and further their careers to go around, Inquisition-style, to ‘failing’ schools to produce magical “turnarounds”.
Just like the school grade system, it was an utter failure and waste of millions of dollars. Luckily, when the grant money ran out the DA teams were let go since the Florida legislature’s ALEC members have no taste for funding anything that might help public schools.
The DA team that monitored my school was horrific. They came in grim-faced, unfriendly and cold, and dropped into classrooms for quick drive-by data collection. The children feared them, rightly, and we teachers developed anxiety problems from their monthly visits. I ended up in counseling and then in the hospital. One teacher died after a visit from a stress-induced heart attack.
A claim was made that the team did not see one single instance of higher order thinking in a classroom in 3 days of visits after observing my math lesson on synthesizing prior learning and applying it to a new context and I knew then that they had an agenda and it wasn’t to help me or my kids. They never smiled, engaged in conversation, and never had a single positive thing to say to any teacher in my school.
All the ‘evidence-based’ interventions had not the slightest effect on the poverty and lack of English language skills of the 18 schools they took control of for 2 years in my district and not a single school improved their school grade or test scores in the slightest. Several actually went down in their grades and test scores after following the DA team’s prescriptions.
They controlled every single thing we did from our scheduling to our lesson planning, what resources we were allowed to use, how we delivered lessons, how we assessed, how we used data to ‘drive’ instruction, extended our school days, put in place ‘evidence-based intervention’ programs, placed controls on our budget (working alongside district counterparts), threatened us, called us child abusers for “failing to educate these children to lift them up from poverty”, and otherwise acted as total asses.
Utter. Failure. Waste of time and money. No surprise that the Trojan Horse ESSA (told you so!) is going to fund this monstrosity of failure and help it go nationwide.
Good luck DC Schools on the list. You are going to need it!
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This is how I tell people to approach the “portfolio.”
Demand they count real work! You know – the other 179 days of Third Grade…
For those of you who wonder what is a “real” Teacher Created Portfolio
(Not a district mandated series of tests which is just called a portfolio.)
YOUR TEACHER HAS PROBABLY ALREADY COMPLETED A REAL PORTFOLIO.
When making the case to anyone – administrators, the press, or other parents, keep this in mind. A school district should not be prescribing what’s in a student portfolio other than giving specific examples for guidance as to what MIGHT be included. They are micromanaging the classroom and we need to inform teachers that they are in control as long as they follow state statute. We’re working on that within the FaceBook community. As long as the teacher uses a required textbook (for example in Reading) and takes down information from the child using the textbook in their documented grade book (that translates into a grade on a report card) they are fulfilling their obligation and so is the student. It is the type of reading “portfolio” that is required by statute. Teachers are overwhelmed with many various, often conflicting, DISTRICT requirements. We, as advocates, need to help them by emphasizing the state statute, because that’s our ultimate aim – put the teacher back in control of their classroom. They should be the most important voice in a decision about whether a child should be retained or not.
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School choice is a lie, nothing more than a sales pitch. Parents have never had a seat at the table where what was going to be made available to chose from is decided upon. Their subsequent choice is illusory at best, coerced at worst. This is why deformers are for school choice but no other choice, because it’s not a choice netween anything other than differently flavored snake oils.
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