Editorial: Swamped by standardized tests? Blame Jeb
By Jac Versteeg
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
In her Monday commentary in The Palm Beach Post, Patricia Levesque disingenuously blamed local school districts for all the standardized tests in Florida that are angering parents and frustrating students. Ms. Levesque, who as an adviser to former Gov. Jeb Bush saluted every “bold” education scheme from FCAT-based school grades to vouchers for religious schools, wrote, “Many districts require two to three times more tests than are required by the state.”
In fact, local districts have little or no choice. They know that everybody suffers if students do poorly on the late-spring FCAT. So they give at least two pre-FCAT tests, one in the fall and one in the winter, to identify areas where individual students need more help.
So a student will take two pre-FCAT tests before taking the reading FCAT and another two pre-FCAT tests before taking the math FCAT. Couldn’t the schools just bag those and take their