The “Deceit Behind Raising the Bar” in Florida
College english professor and newspaperman John Young unpacks the flawed rhetoric of Florida’s education policy-makers by using a letter-to-the-editor from Florida student Alyssa Sturgeon. The Vero Beach fourth-grader wrote the Vero Beach Press Journal to ask how the state could flunk 73 percent of students in her grade across the state in FCAT Writes. She reasonably asserted that something must be wrong. Was there ever. Professor Young explains that debacle ccurred because Florida “bought into the folly of “raising the bar” on standardized tests.” From Hays Free Press:
Almost nothing is good when policies are driven by the belief that standardization is education and competence is excellence.
The cult of standardization serves almost no one, except for companies like Pearson that make the tests.
Overemphasis on testing narrows the curriculum. Students above grade level are dragged into the
