{"id":22659,"date":"2014-08-26T06:54:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T10:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=22659"},"modified":"2014-08-26T07:03:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T11:03:40","slug":"22659","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/08\/26\/22659\/","title":{"rendered":"Opting Out Of Testing Would Come At A Cost For Florida School Districts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Some<\/a>

sboneham \/ Flickr<\/p>

Some Florida school boards are considering opting the entire district out of state testing to send a message.<\/p><\/div>\n

A handful of Florida districts are talking about skipping state-required tests this year, including the new Florida Standards Assessment replacing most of the FCAT.<\/p>\n

Last week, Palm Beach County school board members<\/a> said they wanted to send a message to state leaders by skipping the new exam. Earlier this month, Lee County school board members<\/a> said they wanted to study the idea.<\/p>\n

But the district better be prepared to pay the price of skipping the new exam — quite literally. Skip the exam and the state is likely to withhold money.<\/p>\n

“The ramifications could be pretty dramatic for a district that wanted to do this,” says Florida Department of Education spokesman Joe Follick. “This is uncharted waters. No districts have done this.”<\/p>\n

Follick\u00a0added the state could withhold state funds, grants and lottery money. Lawmakers could decide on additional sanctions, he said. Most K-12 public school operations<\/a> are funded through the state.<\/p>\n

School board members say opting out an entire school district is unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in assessment,” Palm Beach school board member Karen Brill said last week. “I believe in testing that\u2019s used for measurement, not punishment. I believe that we as a district need to research opting out from the new Florida Standard Assessments.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes it takes an act of civil disobedience to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brill and other school leaders, teachers, parents and students have complained Florida has attached too many consequences to the results of state tests.<\/p>\n

Results from Florida’s statewide test form the basis for the A-through-F grades issued to most public schools each year. Teachers are rated — and paid — based on the test results of their students. And some students are not allowed to advance a grade or graduate from high school unless they pass state tests.<\/p>\n

Florida parents have organized and taught other parents how to opt their children out of testing<\/a>, denying the use of those test results.<\/p>\n

But Follick says many educators find the statewide test results valuable. He noted school districts trumpet positive results on the test.<\/p>\n

“Students who are not having the opportunity to show what they have gained in a year of school are going to be at a disadvantage,” Follick says. “It’s going to be difficult for parents to know how well their student has done that year.<\/p>\n

“I think when they weigh the pros and the cons I think they will understand this is definitely to the benefit of the students.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A handful of Florida districts are talking about skipping state-required tests this year, including the new Florida Standards Assessment replacing most of the FCAT. Last week, Palm Beach County school board members said they wanted to send a message to state leaders by skipping the new exam. Earlier this month, Lee County school board members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":22657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[962,1052,1006],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22661,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22659\/revisions\/22661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}