Florida PTA has Serious Concerns Regarding the Use of the FSA Results
From the beginning, Florida PTA has been concerned with the educational accountability system and the constant state of change. The rush to implement the FSA assessment along with numerous glitches that occurred during the administering of the FSA have caused students, parents, teachers, and community members to lose confidence in the reliability of the FSA assessment.
Florida PTA strongly believes that valid assessment does not consist of only a single test score, and that at no time should a single test be considered the sole determinant of a student's academic or work future.
Florida PTA has repeatedly recommended that the Florida Department of Education and the State:
- Allow for proper field-testing and test development in areas with similar demographics to Florida's diverse demographics;
- Use multiple years of a new exam as a baseline for generating school grades and teacher evaluations;
- Allow additional testing and calculation flexibility to students with disabilities and students who speak limited English.
We also urge the State Board of Education to respect the process of determining the FSA cut scores and encourage them to trust the expertise of the Educator and Reactor Panel and use their recommendations for the FSA cut scores.
Florida PTA stands alongside the Florida Association of District School Superintendents (FADSS) in recommending that the state suspend the use of the 2015 FSA results in determining school grades and teacher evaluations.
The FADSS recommendation of issuing an "I "as an incomplete school grade is a good suggestion. We can then create a baseline for future school grades. The fact that the school districts have lost faith in the decisions of the Department of Education must be rectified. Parents and community stakeholders will not continue to tolerate this mess. Public education is already being questioned across the Nation. Let's not give those that question it any more reason to eliminate it.
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