{"id":9193,"date":"2012-06-24T12:48:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T16:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=9193"},"modified":"2012-06-24T14:57:10","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T18:57:10","slug":"fcat-grows-up-or-out-of-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/24\/fcat-grows-up-or-out-of-control\/","title":{"rendered":"FCAT Grows Up…Or Out of Control?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is all grown up. But has it grown into a monster?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Holtsman \/ Flickr<\/p>

The FCAT is under increasing scrutiny from parents, teachers and school boards.<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s the question raised by a Tampa Bay Times article<\/a> recounting the birth and adolescence of the FCAT:<\/p>\n

Florida has tested students for decades, but since its inception 14 years ago the FCAT has evolved from a simple measure of student learning to an all-encompassing arbiter of student, teacher and school performance. The test factors into third-grade promotion, high school graduation, class placement, teacher pay and evaluations, even whether a school stays open.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even though one teacher tries to downplay the FCAT to her students by calling it the F-Kitty, the story includes lots of examples of little kids experiencing insomnia and, let’s just say, intestinal distress because of test anxiety.<\/p>\n

There’s a growing drumbeat<\/a> from parents and county school board to de-emphasize the test.<\/p>\n

The actual FCAT appears to be on its way out, replaced by new tests based on the national Common Curriculum.<\/p>\n

But even though the names may change, the desire to test remains the same.<\/p>\n

A sidebar story in the Times profiles Tampa lawyer John G. Brady, who failed an early precursor<\/a> to the FCAT in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

His father fought that test in court and lost, establishing the state’s right to develop high-stakes tests.<\/p>\n

But Brady went on to have success at St. Leo University and Stetson College of Law.<\/p>\n

The lesson, according to Brady: “I know you can’t always trust standardized tests to give an accurate picture of a student’s abilities.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is all grown up. But has it grown into a monster? That’s the question raised by a Tampa Bay Times article recounting the birth and adolescence of the FCAT: Florida has tested students for decades, but since its inception 14 years ago the FCAT has evolved from a simple measure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,16],"tags":[1019],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193"}],"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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9200,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions\/9200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}