by Terry Gillam
Are there too many tests? Many leagues are gathering information. In this post, Terry Gillam from Orange County, Florida shares sources they have gathered about new Florida Standards Assessments. These are the Florida version of the Common Core assessments. Florida opted out of the national PARCC tests.
The Education Committee of the Orange County League is working on a PowerPoint about testing for our Speakers Bureau. The Senior Director of the OCPS Department of Accountability, Research and Assessment will speak at our next meeting, but we don’t want to waste his time asking questions for which answers are readily available.
Therefore, I’ve been searching the Internet for answers to our many questions, such as how long are the tests, which tests are required by the State, etc. Just today, I found a couple of sites that are quite informative, so I thought I would share them.
StateImpact Florida describes itself as a reporting project of NPR member stations. It has two education tabs, Learning and Teaching. StateImpact Florida journalist John O’Connor travels the state to report on how education issues affect you.
You will find many articles of interest, but there were two that I found answered many of our testing questions. One is a PPT slide show that you navigate by clicking to the sides of each slide. (If you click on the topics in the sliding banner, a chart of data pops up.)
The other explains how the new reading exam will impact third graders. I found these other sites by entering into Google: Length of FSA tests. If you try this, you will find a PowerPoint, evidently produced by Pasco County for their teachers and administrators, that has many details about the FSA. It’s about the 4th site down after the search.
The title is PPT Florida Standards Assessment. Under the title it says https://pasco.instructure.com/courses/846/files/…/download?… However, I wasn’t able to open the PPT directly. I had to go through the process described above.
The slide show gives many details about the tests and administering the tests. There is an update also. Click on FSA Update Webinar PPT 10/20/2014
I hope these sites will answer some of your questions. If you find other helpful sites, please post them.