State should listen to school boards' concerns about FCAT | HeraldTribune.com:

FCAT impasse

Published: Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, June 15, 2012 at 6:24 p.m.

School boards and the state Department of Education are not having a healthy conversation about Florida's student-testing regime.

The boards and the department are communicating -- through stilted resolutions by the Florida School Board Association and defensive statements by the education commissioner -- but they are not engaged in productive dialogue. That is not good for students, teachers, parents or the state.

Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson is on the record as stating that Florida's stakeholders in education "need to have a very healthy conversation about why assessments matter."

Yet on Thursday, Robinson criticized school boards and their associations for questioning the state's policies, including a heavy