There is no doubt Florida has been bold with its education
policies over the last 15 years, and we can all agree Florida’s students have
made tremendous strides in this same time period. For this, we are all thankful and proud.
Now our state is facing a huge choice with respect to the
way it measures and defines student subject-area proficiency.
If handled the wrong way, Florida will veer from its path of
progress for all students. And the time
to speak up about this problem is now!
The issue is how to set “cut scores”, which are the scores Florida
education officials establish to define student proficiency on state-administered
tests.
Currently, there is a troubling disconnect between what
Florida defines as proficient and what the Nation’s Report Card and dozens of
other states define as proficient.
The State of Florida is saying more students are proficient
than what is being reported on the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), considered the gold standard.
As a vivid example: recent comparisons of Florida’s 8th
grade reading scores and these same students’ national test scores showed
that 56% of Florida’s 8th
graders scored proficient in reading on the state’s assessment, whereas only 33% of these same students tested
proficient in reading upon completing the national assessment (NAEP).
This gap of 23 percentage points is troubling; it is strong
evidence that Florida has had too low a bar on setting of proficiency
standards.
If we don’t raise our proficiency expectations, many will
see this as a continuance of widespread social promotion, where students move
on from one grade to the next without mastering grade level material…only to
find out later – taking remedial courses in college, being unprepared for
workplace arithmetic, or not passing military entrance exams – that they were simply
shuffled along throughout their public school years.
Entrenched special interests, bureaucrats, administrators,
some politicians, and various other guardians of the system want to keep cut
scores artificially low so the general public won’t get
alarmed by falling
passing rates or school grades. But giving
students and schools artificially high passing grades for appearances’ sake
does no favors for anyone in our state--except maybe some adults satisfied with
the status quo!
Students’ futures are
worth the temporary discomfort of lower scores, so that we can provide honest,
transparent information sooner rather than later; having too low of a
proficiency standard sets students up for failure.
Once these students leave our schools and
enter college—our failure to set real-world expectations is quickly illustrated,
as 65,000 Florida community college freshmen require remediation yearly for
skills they should have mastered in high school.
This is unacceptable.
We must be honest up-front-- and set cut scores that align
with nationally accepted levels!
Citizens are invited to contact the Florida Department of
Education to advocate for alignment of state proficiency levels and national
proficiency levels. FDOE is accepting
comments now. Register your opinion by emailing assessment@fldoe.org .
I was encouraged to hear several members of Florida’s State
Board of Education recently advocate that the Florida DOE cut this proficiency
gap between state and national tests.
Our neighbors in Georgia should be commended for recently
setting cut scores on their own state assessments that produce closer alignment
with national assessments.
Florida should do
likewise------ because we owe it to our students to be honest with them!
No comments:
Post a Comment