This is the week that all of our efforts have been working up to, FCAT week. The county adjusted the school year to start in August and end in May so FCAT week would fall later after the holiday break, and there would be more time to prepare.
In the begining everyone promised that they wouldn’t teach to the tests, that the teaching process wouldn’t change to be one of preparing for a test. I fear that now instead of teaching the children how to learn we are teaching them how to take a test.
I have watched the schools change from a fun place to learn with friends and teachers, an environment of learning in many ways, to a place where it feels like the only goal is to prepare for a test, a series of tests. I watched as even the PE teacher had to incorporate FCAT into the curriculum. I have been to PTA meetings where too much time was spent teaching the parents how to fill in the answer sheets so we can help make sure that our children understand too. We log on to the FCAT Explorer web site to take practice tests.
I remember a time when the children worked hard all year to get good grades, to learn with thier classmates and to celebrate they would take a field trip to SeaWorld. They cancelled that a couple years after FCAT started. Now the third graders have to score well enough on the FCAT or they don’t move on th 4th grade. It doesn’t matter that some are straight A students, if they don’t score well enough on this one test they don’t move on.
You can’t imagine the pressure that this puts on these kids. They hear the news, they hear thier parents and teachers talking, they know that how well they do on these test affects the amount of money thier school will get from the state. How well they do will help determine the grade thier school gets. It’s not like other tests where the grade a child gets affect that child, this time the grade they get affects the whole school. I remember how I used to sweat trying to get C’s on “my” tests, I can’t imagine what it would feel like getting a “C” on a test that affected all my classmates, and my teachers!
And then there is the wierd voo-doo like magic that goes on when they actually calculate the school grades. The first year my daughter was in middle school her class scored all A’s scores on the FCAT tests. They were either the highest scoring middle school or in the top three on all the tests, Math, Reading and Writing. On one of the tests they had scored a percentage point or two less that the class from the year before, so they didn’t get an A grade for thier school. Remember they are measuring improvement, but they compare the 6th grade class of 2003, to a completely different group of kids, the 6th grade class of 2004. So these kids work thier tails off to score A scores on the test and the school still doesn’t get an A.
There are a myriad of other factors too, it’s worse than trying to figure out the NFL playoff tie breakers. Attendance, children are not allowed to be sick during FCAT week, there is not so subtle encouragement to make sure you children show up no matter what. Reduced price meals, the number of reduced price meals served affects the scoring.
