FCATs shape student futures

FCATs shape student futures…but parents can’t double check scores

By Deborah Nelson
June 28, 2007

“Public schools exist to create citizens, not to create widget makers.”

Gloria Pipkin
Director, Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform
www.fcarweb.org

Florida’s FCAT affects grade promotion, graduation, college prep course placement, and school funding levels.

But despite those high-stakes implications for families, parents are not allowed to review test booklet records, to check scoring results, answer-by-answer.

That’s unfair, contends a public advocacy group who opposes the FCAT as a graduation criterion.

Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform (FCAR) is fighting to open exam results to parents.

FCAR Director Gloria Pipkin says reviewing answers against questions would help parents understand where learning weaknesses are.

And double-check for scoring mistakes.

“Parents have a right to see it,” she remarks.

Florida’s policy appears to conflict with a Federal law that comes down on the side of parents.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) verbage describes test results as confidential, except to parents.

In a September 2005 letter, posted on the state Department of Education (FDoE) website, U.S. Department of Education Family Compliance Office Director LeRoy Rooker advised FDoE that:

“FERPA does provide parents with the right to inspect and review education records maintained by the SEA within 45 days of a receipt of a request.”

The letter is currently posted on page 3, at
http://info.fldoe.org/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-3455/k12_05_176memo.pdf

“Florida complies with the Federal Family Educational Rights Act (FERPA) by providing full information to parents and legal guardians about their children’s scores,” FDoE Press Secretary Tom Butler clarified, in an email.

“The law does not allow any student information to be provided to the general public or the media,” he adds. “Florida also complies with the test security requirements of Florida Statutes Sections 1002.22, 1008.23, and 1008.24.”

But state compliance does not include parental access to individual test booklet questions and answers.

“Florida Statutes (Sections 1002.22, 1008.23, and 1008.24) provides that all examination and assessment instruments are confidential and exempt from public disclosure,” Butler writes.

“This statute was upheld by the court in 2006.

“Further, State Board of Education Rule 6A-1.0944 states that access to the state student assessment tests is limited to officers and staff of the Department of Education and persons under contract with the Department whose duties require them to have access.”

FDoE releases parts of tests, and provides overall scores to parents.

“…Florida does provide a detailed report to parents and students of all scored questions,” Butler notes.

“Further, the Department uses these scores to summarize state, district and school data. There are a few questions on each test that are included for field testing purposes or which are anchor questions used to equate tests from one year to the next which are not reported.”

Released tests are available online at http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcatrelease.asp

“We have released and made public the 2005 reading and math tests for grades 3, 7, 9 and 10 and the 2006 reading and mathematics tests for grades 4, 8 and 10,” according to Butler.

“These released tests can help student confidence and comfort level with the FCAT. Students, parents and teachers should use the released tests to better understand the FCAT and the types of reading passages and questions that are included.

“They can also be used to illustrate the length of an actual test and the difficulty levels of the questions on the test.”

Should parents be worried about scoring mistakes?

In 2006, a public information lawsuit revealed that 64 percent of $10 per hour temporary workers hired to score FCATs lacked subject area credentials, according to AP reports.

Florida Senators Les Miller (D-Tampa) and Walter “Skip” Campbell (D-Tamarac) had sued for access to 2,947 employment files.

Some graders’ backgrounds were in hairstyling, pizza delivery or janitorial work, according to a June 13, 2006, AP report.

FCAT contractor CTB/McGraw Hill was responsible for hiring those workers. FDoE, at the time, pledged to improve contract oversight of the process.

In May of this year, FDoE acknowledged a mistake on the 2006 Third Grade reading FCAT that resulted in inflated test scores.

Some 200,000 2006 scores may have been affected by the use of “easier” questions… which would cause 2007 scores to artificially appear to drop.

Although that issue did not involve scoring mistakes, Pipkin says parents should be concerned about errors, given the test’s use in placement and graduation.

Previous standardized tests have been closed to public access, she points out, but those didn’t wield the FCAT’s high-stakes impact on student futures.

“We call it a test with life-altering consequences,” she observes.

DoE officials say parents have no reason to worry about scoring mistakes.

“The Florida Department of Education has full confidence in the reliability and quality of our assessment program,” notes Butler.

“The FCAT program is implemented according to national standards for educational and psychological tests. In fact, it exceeds these standards in many areas. Parents can be assured of the quality of the FCAT and the state’s entire testing program.”

Standards aside, says Pipkin, without individual test results, parents and educators have no way to address individual learning problems.

She says she’d like to see FCAT results used to diagnose and address learning weaknesses, rather than to punish students and schools.

The FCAT was never intended to analyze individual learning skills, something both sides affirm.

“Parents are under the mistaken idea it was designed to be a diagnostic test,” Pipkin observes. “The FCAT was never designed to do that.”

“FCAT is not a diagnostic test,” says Butler. “It is a comprehensive achievement test and provides parents with an indication on how well students are achieving a comprehensive curriculum.”

Parents receive scoring data on specific areas, he notes.

“FCAT reports provide summary information for the curriculum area as a whole (achievement level scores) and for subcomponents of the curriculum (number of points earned per area),” Butler explains.

“For example, parents receive information on how well students performed in five areas of mathematics – number sense, measurement, geometry, algebra, and data analysis. At some grade levels, parents receive an actual copy of their child’s work.”

That’s not enough to make a pass or fail call, Pipkin contends.

“The metaphor of a snapshot is often used,” she notes. “It’s a snapshot of what one particular student did, in Florida, on a very specific day.”

FCAR is working to open individual FCAT results to parents, reform mandatory retention and graduation requirements, and is participating in a FDoE FCAT study committee.