“A Misguided System of Accountability Which is Wildly Over-Weighted on the FCAT”
Frank Barbieri is on the first Florida school board which passed a resolution on high-stakes testing. The chairman of the Palm Beach board offers his own words in this morning’s Palm Beach Post:
…………..We oppose the over-reliance on the FCAT. One test given on one day does not define each child’s progress annually, nor can it be used to demonstrate a teacher’s mastery of skills.
Everyone agrees we must have sensible accountability that measures students’ proficiency and their progress the same year. The FCAT, with its troubled history of testing errors and scoring issues, does not measure what we need. In fact, it measures one part of the previous year and a portion of the current year, where most subjects are only covered up to 70 percent because of the