St. Pete Times editorial on parental access to FCAT

["Gloria Pipkin" <gpipkin@i-1.net>]

Fill in the blanks

 <http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/01/Opinion/Fill_in_the_blanks.shtml>
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/01/Opinion/Fill_in_the_blanks.shtml
 
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial
Published December 1, 2003

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An appeals court has now determined that Florida parents don't have a
right to see where their students are going wrong on standardized tests,
but Gov. Jeb Bush shouldn't be so eager to gloat. His win comes at the
expense of students who are being held back without really knowing why. 


The governor portrayed his opposition to disclosing FCAT test materials
as consistent with "the Department of Education's 20-year policy on test
confidentiality," but that's a little disingenuous. Until four years
ago, DOE never used a standardized test to grade and punish schools.
Until last spring, it never used a state test of such complexity to
decide whether high school seniors could graduate. Until this fall, it
never used a state test to decide whether third-graders should be
promoted or retained.

Because Florida has so dramatically increased the stakes associated with
one test, it owes students and teachers a better understanding of how
they are performing. It also owes them better assurance that testing
error didn't lead to grave consequences in their lives.

In 1999, according to a recent Boston College study, a question from a
Tennessee education statistician led to the discovery of incorrect
scores for 250,000 students in six states. Those mistakes merely
affected statistics; errors in FCAT scoring could unjustly flunk a
9-year-old.

At least four other states already release test questions to students,
and the educational logic is so compelling that Bush's own lieutenant
governor, Frank Brogan, committed two years ago to doing the same in
Florida. But Brogan is now president of Florida Atlantic University, and
his promise apparently no longer counts.

The state does have a legitimate concern about the security of FCAT
results and the costs of producing new test questions each year if the
old ones are made public. But the interesting thing about the recent 1st
District Court of Appeal decision is how the appellate judges chided the
trial judge whose opinion they overturned.

They criticized Circuit Judge Janet Ferris for trying to provide
"meaningful access" for families through a supervised review of the test
without the possibility for copying it. In other words, Ferris was
seeking a compromise, hoping to help a Pinellas high school student and
his family figure out where he's going wrong without unduly compromising
test security.

Ferris' effort may or may not have constituted proper jurisprudence, but
it is clearly sound education policy. This fight never belonged in the
courts in the first place, and might have been avoided if the governor
weren't so stubborn. Anxious families are just looking for some guidance
on a test that affects the lives of their sons and daughters. Why is it
impossible to find a workable middle ground?