LWVeducation
There will be hearings in the legislature about reforms to Florida’s state-wide testing. The Seminole County school district is leading a movement to replace the FSA at least for high school graduation. Senators Gaetz and Legg have made public statements about the need for reform.
What can we realistically expect?
I have reviewed the FSA validity study and the response by the Florida Department of Education. It boils down to a few key issues:
Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart makes no mention of the FSA validity study qualifications regarding the validity of the FSA for different uses. She summarizes the study in three bullets. Then, she states that the FSA is an accurate way to measure student’s mastery of the standards. She announces that group level scores will be used to calculate teacher evaluations and student level cut scores.
The report says much more. The devil is in the details. Important details. This post compares the FSA report finding to the Commissioner’s statement. There are recommendations in the report that are not referenced in the statement. These could make a difference in what scores mean.
The State of New Jersey took over Newark’s public schools in 1995. Fifteen years later, Newark schools were still struggling. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, donated $100 million to the district in 2010. The Education Commissioner, Chris Cerf, had formerly served as deputy chancellor of New York’s schools. Prior to that he was president of Edison Schools Inc., a private for-profit management company that failed. He hired Cami Anderson, former head of Teach for America and New York’s District 79 at risk schools. What happened next is alarming. It could lead to something constructive.
There is a new FTC scholarship program evaluator this year. Florida State University’s Learning Systems Institute took over from Northwestern’s University’s David Figlio.
Are the results for the 2013-14 data different?
How can a school go from an ‘A’ to a ‘D’ in three years? Pinewood was an ‘A’ school serving over 1000 students for many years. About sixty percent of its students were economically disadvantaged. A higher than average number of students were English language learners or had learning disabilities. By any measure, Pinewood was a public school success story. The charter located across the street was half the size. It had 20 percent fewer economically disadvantaged students, and it earned only a ‘B’ grade from the State. Then, Pinewood’s world began to change.
by Margery Marcus, LWV of Broward
Margery’s compares two schools located across the street from one another, Pinewood traditional elementary and North Broward Academy charter school. Pinewood used to earn a ‘B’ school grade. The schools could be fraternal twins, but now one earned a ‘D’ and the other an ‘A’. I was intrigued. So, I went back through the data for the last three years to see if there were changes in the schools over time. There were.
Margery states that CSUSA is doing something right. What do you think it may be? Numbers do not always tell the whole story.
Back in the 90s, Sweden had free Pre K for all students. There was no selective admissions. Everyone went to public schools. The system thrived, and their first PISA achievement scores were very high.
Then the Swedes bought into school choice. They have the greatest decline in achievement of any OECD nation. What happened? We can learn from them.
Some of us believe in data. I usually do. They tell stories unless you read closely. Here is a story of two schools that seem to be the same, but one excelled in third grade reading and the other did not. None of the usual reasons apply.
It is time to read closely.
There is a bumble bee in the story that gives us hope. Hope matters.
Meredith Machen sent this link from Education Justice.
Reliable sources of information are not easy to find. Here is one I find very useful. It has state-by-state links with information about recent legal cases and publishes newsletters on education issues with legal implications.
The one that follows pinpoints misleading information that is published in the media. It breaks down achievement comparisons to show what scores tell us about how charters play the achievement game.