{"id":8647,"date":"2012-06-13T12:31:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T16:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=8647"},"modified":"2012-06-13T12:31:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T16:31:24","slug":"pop-quiz-will-the-florida-school-boards-association-support-an-anti-testing-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/13\/pop-quiz-will-the-florida-school-boards-association-support-an-anti-testing-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Pop Quiz: Will The Florida School Boards Association Support An Anti-Testing Resolution?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6325\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 225px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/04\/16\/new-fcat-brings-new-complaints\/fcatadvice\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6325\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-6325\" title=\"FCATAdvice\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/04\/FCATAdvice-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/04\/FCATAdvice-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/04\/FCATAdvice.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Adam Deb \/ Flickr<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">School boards representing 1 in 4 Florida public school students have asked for less emphasis on FCAT results..<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Schools boards representing more than one out of every four Florida students have approved a resolution asking state education leaders put less emphasis on standardized tests.<\/p>\n<p>And the Florida School Boards Association <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fsba.org\/userfiles\/File\/2012SpringConference.TentativeAgenda.pdf\">could take up a similar resolution at a Tampa meeting tomorrow<\/a>, giving the national effort another boost.<\/p>\n<p>A dozen Florida districts have approved a national anti-testing resolution. Those districts include large counties such as Broward and Palm Beach &#8212; the nation&#8217;s 6th and 11th largest. Pinellas County joined the list earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>Those districts educate more than 750,000 Florida public school students in total.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s according to an analysis by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairtest.org\/about\">FairTest<\/a>, a national group which opposes the misuse of standardized tests to assess students.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are big, big districts that are standing up and saying &#8216;enough is enough&#8217; in terms of the overtesting that has taken over our schools and has not improved educational quality,&#8221; said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/tag\/fcat\/\">Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test<\/a> and other standardized exams have come under fire as the federal No Child Left Behind law, which emphasized the tests, eclipsed its 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of Texas school districts have approved the anti-testing resolution (<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/05\/read-the-hernando-county-school-boards-fcat-resolution\/\">read a version here<\/a>), most of which <a href=\"http:\/\/parentsacrossamerica.org\/2012\/04\/national-resolution-against-high-stakes-testing\/\">ask that less emphasis be placed on the test results<\/a>. The resolutions also ask state leaders to emphasize other ways to evaluate students.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/01\/one-orlando-charter-school-was-happy-to-take-the-fcat-this-year\/\">One Orlando Charter School Was Happy To Take The FCAT This\u00a0Year<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/04\/inside-a-scoring-center-in-the-standardized-testing-industry\/\">Inside a \u2018Scoring Center\u2019 in the Standardized Testing Industry<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/12\/the-problem-with-the-fcat-is-the-frenzy\/\">The Problem With The FCAT Is The \u2018Frenzy\u2019<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/07\/fcat-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/topic\/fcat\/\">Your Guide To Florida\u2019s Ever-Changing FCAT<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Florida supporters found more fuel when the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/05\/15\/explaining-how-the-fcat-writing-test-changed-in-2012\/\">passage rate on a state writing test plunged<\/a> this spring following changes to the exam.<\/p>\n<p>Advocates argue the tests <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tallahassee.com\/article\/20120607\/OPINION05\/206070326\/John-Winn-not-FCAT-then-what-\">provide valuable data<\/a> and force schools and districts to confront their shortcomings &#8212; or face consequences for failing to do so. Florida supporters, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/11\/a-qa-with-former-florida-gov-jeb-bush\/\">such as former Gov. Jeb Bush<\/a>, point to the Sunshine State climbing national education rankings and improved student performance &#8212; particularly minorities.<\/p>\n<p>Schaeffer said he and others who support the anti-testing resolution still don&#8217;t know when a vote might come up at the Florida School Boards Association meeting. Some school boards have<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/blogs\/gradebook\/content\/not-so-fast-anti-testing-resolution-florida-school-boards-say\"> balked at the idea<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems likely that the state school boards association will take a stand against the overuse of high-stakes tests,&#8221; Schaeffer said. &#8220;The precise language of that is unknown&#8230;We recognize that it will need to be adapted in some places to respect local concerns and issues.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have no way to forecast what the votes will be if it come up for the vote.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Schools boards representing more than one out of every four Florida students have approved a resolution asking state education leaders put less emphasis on standardized tests. And the Florida School Boards Association could take up a similar resolution at a Tampa meeting tomorrow, giving the national effort another boost. A dozen Florida districts have approved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1164,1019,1006,495],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647"}],"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=8647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8661,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647\/revisions\/8661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}