The pushback against too much standardized testing in Florida grew stronger Thursday after Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced the state's largest school district would be eliminating all elementary school end-of-course exams.
Carvalho said he would be making an announcement regarding testing Wednesday. By Thursday morning, the Miami-Dade School District had made a far-reaching announcement that it would be eliminating nearly all of the 300 District-Developed End-of-Course assessments originally scheduled for this spring.
Miami-Dade will leave 10 middle/senior high school subjects to be included in a small-scale field test to determine the "psychometric properties" of the assessments for administration in subsequent years. That way, the district can more accurately evaluate its teachers.
"Today's announcement should come as welcomed news to everyone who recognizes that too much testing deprives our students of valuable instruction time," said Carvalho. "In making these decisions, we've taken a logical and responsible approach to address the concerns of students, teachers and parents."
Many critical of the tests feel end-of-course assessments are detrimental for teacher evaluations. They say the assessments can result in teachers instructing solely to a test rather than allowing them to creatively teach their students.
Miami-Dade joins several other districts like Pasco, Orange and Seminole, all of whom have gotten rid of end-of-course assessments for elementary school students. Miami-Dade is the largest district statewide (and the fourth largest in the country) to eliminate elementary school end-of-course assessments to date.
The district's actions coincide with a newly-passed law in the state Legislature which would eliminate some end-of-course assessments for Florida students. Beyond that,Miami-Dades decision is a message to the Florida Department of Education that it wont be letting up on the pressure to fix excessive high-stakes testing in the Sunshine State.
The department said it encourages districts making their own decisions based on what's best for their students.
"All districts have the flexibility to test their students on the Florida Standards that aren't measured by statewide assessments in a way that best meets the needs of their students,"said FDOE Communications Director Meghan Collins."[Miami-Dade] wants to take a different approach and we are supportive of districts making those decisions. It's certainly within any district's rights [to get rid of EOC tests.]"
Collins said the department had no intentions of making any statewide elimination of end-of-course assessments. That decision, she explained, will be up to individual districts themselves.
"Flexibility within testing is critical," said Collins.
Carvalho's announcement also comes on the heels of a rocky few days for the Florida Department of Education.Earlier this week, the states newest standardized test, the Florida Standards Assessment, experienced a second technical malfunction when the test vendors servers crashed, making the test inaccessible to students.
The glitch resulted in outrage across the state, further casting doubt on the validity of the FSA. In March, thousands of middle and high school students were unable to complete their tests and some couldnt even log in at all.
The Florida Department of Education blamed the first round of problems on a cyber attack on the servers for American Institutes for Research, the test vendor responsible for the FSA. The department said the second round of testing problems was a result of unauthorized changes made by AIR over the weekend.
"This is unacceptable on the part of AIR, she said. We will hold AIR accountable for the disruption they have caused this state."
Carvalho in particular has been highly critical of the testing issues and of an oversaturation of tests.
"Getting [testing] right must trump getting it done, he wrote in March.
Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatemews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen
