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[quote]
Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels.</p>
<p>The results came days after the Florida State Board of Education voted to lower the standards needed to pass the writing part of the test, known as FCAT. The test is administered in public elementary, middle and high schools.</p>
<p>The board took the action in an emergency meeting when preliminary results indicated only about one-third of Florida students would have passed this year.
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</p>
<p>Half</a> of Florida high school students fail reading test | Reuters</p>
<p>Kinda defeats the purpose of the standardized test doesn't it?</p>
<p>Having been through k-6th grade in the florida school system, this does not surprise me at all.</p>
<p>If you saw the material actually on the test that they are expected to pass, you would probably be even more alarmed. These state tests and NCLB are a complete joke.</p>
<p>It was because they added a punctuation and spelling… Apparently, they don’t think the 10th grades need to know syntax…</p>
<p>an easy solution is to lower the score required to pass… then magic! you have a much higher pass rate!</p>
<p>Same thing happened in Illinois a few years ago with 8th grade math tests. Too many kids were failing - voila! - massive improvement overnight.</p>
<p>It’s alright because students don’t need to know how to do well in writing!</p>
<p>I am pretty sure most states have this problem. We had people marching on the state capitol building because their kids were not passing the high school graduation reguirements. You know what happened. They just lowered the requirement. I think is terrible.</p>
<p>I laughed a bit when I read the article. This really isn’t news. In my state, Arizona, the board has been lowering standards for the AIMS (Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards) test annually for the past decade. Not-so-coincidentally, our education system is ranked around 49th or 50th in the country. But hey, at least no one person is being left behind…because we all are.</p>
<p>So glad I will be done with what’s left of public education next year. Until we, as a country, stop this madness, we are doomed.</p>
<p>Hey, Oklahoma is ranked 48th! If you guys saw our tests, you’d know why.</p>
<p>Yet children in most of the rest of the world read, speak and write multiple languages. We really do not need to keep lowering standards in the USA. </p>
<p>In fact, that is the exact opposite of what we need to do and if people can’t pass then maybe we can help them get jobs dunking basketballs or at McDonalds and stop wasting resources on them. I know I will be attacked for that but we need to change everything about public high school education in this country. It is an absolute joke how much money we spend in relation to what results we get.</p>
<p>This absence of academic ability can be easily solved by outsourcing the completion of these exams to “exam farms” in India and Malaysia and…</p>
<p>I was telling my kid the other day that the relative dumbness of the competition made it that much easier for him to get into college where he did. He didn’t agree with me based on some principles of the Bell curve, but, whatever, he’s been smarter than me since 7th grade.</p>
<p>Coming from the inside (I’ve taught for 15 years), I can say that the state of public education is truly a mess. There are numerous facets to this, but the most disconcerting one is the fact that everyone constantly blames “the schools” - this school is good, this school is bad, etc. What they really mean is, “the kids in School A are upper middle class and know how to sit still for a reading lesson, and the kids in School B are all on free lunch and tend to tear the books up instead of reading them.”</p>
<p>I’ve taught in both types of schools, and I can say without doubt that it is not the school system that’s at fault. I spent a year in School B trying to teach adolescents who read 4-5 years below grade level, bloody each other in gang fights in the hallways, steal the technology purchsed with government Title I money, and view pregnancy at 13 as some sort of adolescent rite of passage. It truly must be seen to be believed. Needless to say, I quickly found a position in School A and brought my kids with me. However, I left behind some of the best teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with - but they continue to fight a losing battle.</p>
<p>While it’s easy to blame “the system” for dumbing down the tests, I’m not sure what else we should expect. States are allowed to set their own “standards” for achievement, most kids are not able to fill in the bubble next to the correct text structure (look it up - I have two MS degrees, and I had to!), and states will suffer funding consequences when the kids can’t pass. Of course they’re going to dumb down the tests!</p>
<p>We need to start looking at what we in American culture value - if our core beliefs are that everyone can be above average (a statistical impossibility, given that half the population is, by definition, below average), then NCLB should work. But at the same time, we should also impose sanctions on doctors who can’t cure every disease, detectives who can’t solve every crime, and mechanics who can’t fix every vehicle. </p>
<p>Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>DiveMom,</p>
<p>Thanks for trying. I have lots of respect for K-12 teachers. You guys and gals are the definition of work hard for small pay and little thanks. </p>
<p>I agree with every word of what you wrote. Why on earth, other than to avoid starvation, anyone would choose to devote their vocational life to being a K-12 teacher is beyond my ability to comprehend. I have the same pure admiration for police officers, men and women in the military and a select few other professions that work so hard for so little pay. </p>
<p>If kids are in gangs and would rather fight and get pregnant at 13 there is no way on earth you can function. You said it … it has to be seen to be believed and it is why I doubt we will ever regain our status in the world. We are truly a sinking ship it is only a question of long we can list around before going down. </p>
<p>Tying fudning to standardized test score success has not lead to improved academic achievement it has lead to dumbing down the test. It just hasn’t worked.</p>
<p>Divemom: thanks for being in the trenches day after day. I sub in two districts. They couldn’t be more different. My kids have done both private and public in multiple states. I think I’ve seen a little bit of everything. </p>
<p>The thing that disturbs me the most is the APATHY of students who cannot afford to be apathetic if they expect to get anywhere. They can’t seem to equate learning NOW with earning gainful employment LATER. </p>
<p>The good thing about seeing all this as a sub is that I realize how blessed my kids are with smarts and willpower.</p>
<p>ACCecil - thanks for the vote of confidence! I went into teaching thinking I was going to save the world, but after several years I realized I either needed to make a change or lose my sanity. 
I’ve been teaching gifted students for the past 5 years and have loved every minute of it - oddly enough, I feel like I’m doing a better job of changing the world in the position I’m now in. My current students challenge me every day, and I love that I have the opportunity to teach them the creative and critical thinking skills required to solve problems of the future!</p>
<p>Walker - I’m really thankful for what my kids have as well; not only smarts and work ethic, but parents who care about their education and future as citizens in this society. D1 attended kindergarten in a Title I school near where I used to work, and I remember asking her teacher at conference time if there were any other students reading above grade level. She looked at me pointedly and said, “Honey, I’m just trying to get them to not eat the crayons.”</p>
<p>No surprise to me. My teacher friends/clients complain all the time. Hard when they teach a grade that gets FCAT tests. One gal cannot get a transfer because her principal wants her to stay put.
I have met HS grads in FL that cannot spell beyond 3 letter words.</p>
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