2015 was a year of adjustment -- and readjustment -- for Florida’s education system. It marked the end of the state’s long running standardized test, the FCAT, and was the first full year of the Florida Standards.
Here's what made headlines in education this year:
Testing, Testing …. Or Not?
A significant portion of this year’s education headlines centered around the FSA, which was riddled with problems from the start. 2015 was the first year Florida’s students sat for the Florida Standards Assessment, the state’s new standardized test.
In March, technical malfunctions left many students unable to complete the FSA writing test, with many unable to login to the test at all. Many school districts canceled testing until the server issues were resolved.
The Florida Department of Education blamed the problem on a cyber attack on AIR's server, but it wasn't long after the first round of technical failures that the FSA saw yet another technical glitch.
A month later, middle and high school students were yet again unable to login to the FSA English/language arts test, this time due to what the department called an ‘unauthorized’ technical change with the testing vendor, American Institutes for Research.
The FSA’s technical problems set off a chain of events which carried throughout the remainder of 2015.
Legislators Set Limits
State lawmakers vowed to fight back against over-testing during this year’s regular legislative session. A law spearheaded by Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, came on the heels of significant public outcry over the controversial Common Core State Standards.
Legg’s legislation, which sailed through both the Senate and the House, set limits on standardized testing. It prohibited school districts from devoting more than 5 percent of total class time to standardized testing. If a school district required more than 5 percent of school hours to administer tests, it would have to receive written permission from parents. Legg’s bill also completely eliminated the required 11th-grade Florida Standards Assessment English-language arts examination.
State lawmakers piled on in the anti-testing sentiment, with some of Florida’s top legislators expressing their concerns over what they saw as an overcomplicated education system.
"It seems to me that we have to have a system that serves the needs of students, not students serving the need of a testing system, said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville. "We've reached a point now ... where we need to have a simple system that can restore credibility to accountability."
The new bill also required an independent contractor to review the validity of the FSA to determine if the test was an accurate way to measure student achievement.
Alpine Testing Puts FSA to the Test
In May, the Florida Department of Education contracted with Utah-based Alpine Testing to complete the validity test for the FSA.
Beginning in June, the company, partnering with Washington, D.C.-based edCounts, conducted a summerlong investigation on the ins and outs of the FSA, from the test’s content to its scoring methods.
At the end of the investigation, Alpine Testing determined the FSA was a valid assessment test, meaning the key components of the FSA all followed the “best practice” standards. These included test items, field testing and psychometric validity questions, among other aspects of the test which made the grade compared to other standardized tests in the industry.
Politicians Fight Back Against Common Core
The controversial Common Core State Standards gathered some high-profile opponents in 2015. With the advent of the 2016 presidential election, Common Core quickly became an issue for conservative candidates, a majority of whom have been vocal about their opposition to federal intrusion on national education.
A group of Florida parents opposed to Common Core asked each Republican presidential candidate to pledge their support to eradicate the standards should they be elected president. U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex. and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., quickly added their names to FPACC’s pledge, along with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.
