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Editorial: Testing failure points to bigger problems

 
Published Sept. 18, 2014

Florida Education Secretary Pam Stewart made the right call in suspending a problem-ridden reading assessment for the state's youngest schoolchildren. But it will be a hollow victory if this election year maneuver doesn't lead to broader re-examination of the state's entire testing scheme, which takes too much time from instruction and has been fraught with administrative problems.

Conducting the Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading has proven a daunting task for the state's primary school teachers. Given in one-on-one sessions between teacher and pupil, the tests are supposed to take place three times a year, with the first one coming for kindergarteners within the first 30 days of the school year. Each individual test can take up to 40 minutes, according to the Department of Education, but teachers report some last up to an hour. The FAIR tests don't figure into the state's school grading system but are designed to help instructors pinpoint which children may need extra help and ultimately increase the odds of better performance on high-stakes tests such as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, FCAT.

But this fall, teachers have been unable to administer the online exams because of computer problems similar to the glitches that confronted school districts during the spring FCAT tests. Teachers reported an inability to link to the system, or were getting knocked off in the middle of an assessment with no way of retrieving a half-completed test.

Disappointingly, Tallahassee didn't respond until Alachua County kindergarten teacher Susan Bowles publicly refused to administer the test. Stewart on Monday said teachers can use personal observations and classroom work to replace the FAIR test in determining school readiness.

None of this bodes well for the vast changes Florida lawmakers have demanded this year in the state's school accountability system. Stewart's Education Department is overseeing the rushed writing of dozens of end-of-course examinations aligned with the Florida Standards, Florida's version of Common Core State Standards. The Republican-led Legislature refused to listen to educators earlier this year who sought to delay the tests' implementation to allow for more field testing. Instead, it insisted the tests be used immediately this spring in lieu of the FCAT.

Stewart skirted one controversy this week, but the bigger challenge is to come in a state where education reform has been adopted too often without concern for how it will actually work in the classroom. Gov. Rick Scott has pledged on the campaign trail he will look at all the state's standardized testing. It's about time.