John O'Connor is the Miami-based education reporter for StateImpact Florida. John previously covered politics, the budget and taxes for The (Columbia, S.C) State. He is a graduate of Allegheny College and the University of Maryland.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett said Florida could choose another test tied to Common Core standards -- despite managing the money for the group designing PARCC.
Update: The headline of this post has been changed for clarity.
Despite Florida handling the money for one of two new exams tied to new education standards, Education Commissioner Tony Bennett said the state is not committed to adopting the test.
States are scheduled to start using PARCC in the spring of 2015. The test is intended to measure how well students are meeting Common Core State Standards. The two consortia received $330 million in federal money to design the tests.
But experts are questioning support for the new exams after Alabama withdrew from the consortium and will use a test from ACT, better known for its college entrance exam. Bennett said Florida could make a similar choice.
“I believe that’s a discussion we should have had in 2009 and ’10,” Bennett said. “We should have had that discussion in every state in the country: ‘Here is what an exam must do for us.’
“While I believe there will be a PARCC exam I will also be honest and open enough to tell you that we will evaluate the PARCC exam as well as any other exam.”
Virginia-based K12 is the nation’s largest operator of online schools. K12 operates in 43 Florida school districts, including in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Orange and Duval counties.
The company teaches everything from art to algebra to students in kindergarten through high school.
According to Florida law, teachers must pass three exams to earn state certification as well as be certified for the subject and grades they teach. The state investigation, sparked by a complaint from the Seminole County School District, found at least three middle-school K12 teachers in Seminole County who did not have proper subject certification. The investigation, however, did not find teachers without general certification, which was among the allegations in the original complaint from Seminole County.
In Florida, school districts must notify parents if a teacher is not subject-certified. Teachers then have three years to earn certification before the school district is penalized. Seminole County schools said they had no evidence that parents of K12 students were notified that the teachers did not have subject certification.
K12 has refunded the Seminole County school district the $12,800 cost for the 16 courses taught by teachers without subject certification.
A series of emails led Seminole County school officials to question K12's teachers.
Below is the draft report from the Florida Department of Education inspector general. The agency was asked to investigate whether K12, Inc. was using properly certified teachers in Seminole County.
The report finds no evidence that the company used teachers lacking Florida certification. But the report found the company did use three teachers who were not certified for the subject they were teaching.
Both K12 and the Seminole County schools district have disputed the report (read their responses here). the inspector general will consider those responses and could alter the conclusions or recommendations before issuing a final report.
Attorneys for K12, Inc. and Seminole County schools have responded to a preliminary report by a Florida Department of Education investigator.
The Florida Department of Education inspector general has released a draft report in its investigation of online education firm K12, Inc. The agency was asked to investigate whether K12, Inc. was using properly certified teachers in Seminole County.
The report (read it here) finds no evidence that the company used teachers lacking Florida certification. But the report found the company did use three teachers who were not certified for the subject they were teaching.
Both K12 and the Seminole County schools district have disputed the report. The inspector general will consider those responses and could alter the conclusions or recommendations before issuing a final report.
Read K12’s and Seminole County schools’ responses, after the jump:
The most significant change is to high school graduation requirements. For students beginning high school in the 2013-2014 school year, the bill will eliminate some required math and science courses while allowing students to substitute career training for math and science requirements.
No longer required: Algebra II, Chemistry and Physics. Students would only have to pass an Algebra I end-of-course exam. In other classes, end-of-course exams will count for 30 percent of the total grade but passage is not required to graduate.
New York students say they are having trouble finishing new tests tied to the Common Core in the allowed time.
New York students are struggling with redesigned tests tied to new education standards adopted by Florida and 44 other states, according to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
New York schools are giving the new tests for the first time this week. A common complaint? Not enough time:
Initial reports from around the state suggested a common struggle: Some children couldn’t complete the exam within the allotted time. Diana Chen, a sixth-grade teacher at Public School 126 in Manhattan, said her students could have used at least a half-hour more.
“The kids were exhausted,” she said after school on Thursday. “It was the first time where I had kids break down during the test.”
Kristen Huff, a research fellow at the state Education Department, said the department believed it had given students “ample time” to complete the exams after weighing field tests and research from the testmaker, Pearson PLC, and then adding more time on top of the company’s estimates. For the English test, third- and fourth-graders were given 70 minutes on each of three days; fifth- through eighth-graders had 90 minutes.
The error rates of test score-based teacher evaluations is "quite high" according to a new report. But the evaluation may still be better than traditional performance measures.
But evaluations based on test scores may still be more accurate, the study argues, than traditional reviews based on certifications, years experience or observations.
“More accurate measures of teacher effectiveness can lead to better decisions by school and district leaders,” the authors write. “But the actions we take based on those measures can have both beneficial and harmful consequences. Clearly, we need a better understanding of the consequences of different systems on teacher development, teacher collaboration, and the desirability of teaching as a profession.”
The agency based its request on a dated school district survey from 2011, and districts have upgraded their bandwidth and available computers since then. In addition, the groups designing new online standardized tests said school districts would need fewer computers or tablets than expected.
Instead of the $442 million the agency requested in the budget beginning July 1, agency staff now believes $100 million will be sufficient. Agency staff said they will ask for more money next year, and so were also spreading the initial request over two years.
“Our (Legislative Budget Request) was $400 and whatever million dollars and we’re now changing that to $100 million dollars,” said board member Kathleen Shanahan. “I understand new data and we correct stuff…but that is an egregious miss. And it’s embarrassing.”
Alabama, Kentucky and New York have gone their own way in designing tests for new Common Core State Standards.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett will update State Board of Education members today on Florida’s progress toward meeting 2014 deadlines for new standards and testing.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett will update the State Board of Education on how much progress Florida districts have made toward meeting a 2014 deadline for new education standards.
Will Florida need a ‘Plan B’ test for new standards set to hit state schools in 2014? And if not, will school have the computers and bandwidth necessary for the online tests?
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