The Florida House Education Committee gave the green light to a bill limiting statewide standardized testing on Monday, furthering lawmakers commitment to accountability and education reform in the Sunshine State.
The committee voted unanimously to pass PCB EDC 15-04, which tackles a number of the most pressing issues facing Floridas education system.
Among the issues: limiting the number of standardized tests that could be given in schools and allowing school districts to move up school start dates as early as Aug. 10.
The bill would repeal the statewide standardized 11th-grade English-Language Arts assessment and the required administration of the Postsecondary Education Readiness Test (PSAT) to high school students. The legislation would also prohibit schools from administering final exams on top of end-of-course statewide assessment tests.
Teacher evaluations would also be impacted by the legislation -- under the bill, student performance and instructional practice evaluation components would be limited to one-third each.
The legislation received praise from several of the states largest and most prominent education groups. Andy Ford of the Florida Education Association applauded the bill, but not without some caveats.
"This bill has several features that show that you're truly listening, he told the committee.
Ford expressed hesitation, however, on moving forward with the states new assessment test.
We are still concerned about the total amount of time testing consumes in a school year," he explained.
Legislators were particularly concerned with how student performance on the FSA will affect school grades this year. Several committee members said they didnt support assigning letter grades while the state adjusts to the new test.
"I think the school grades are going to stay, but I disagree, said Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville. I think it sets a false bar and we need to be careful with that."
Ford isnt the only one who had concerns over the implementation of the states new assessment test. After students experienced issues with the writing portion of the Florida Standards Assessment last week, criticisms over the test abounded, prompting legislators to call for a complete pause on the test.
On Monday, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was investigating the technical errors as a cyber attack on the American Institutes for Researchs server, which is responsible for the computer administration of the FSA.
Whether or not cyber attacks were a source of the problems, the Florida Department of Education and its contractor are still responsible, said Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. Either they failed to build a sufficiently secure testing system or they are fabricating an explanation for their technical fiasco.
