Julie DelegalPart one of this two-part series examines one senator’s move to lower the stakes in Florida’s high-stakes education accountability system, and how the stakes got so high in the first place.
For several years, parents and teachers have bristled against the centerpiece of education reform in Florida. “Teacher accountability” is the political term for it, but what it boils down to is high-stakes testing. And lots of it.
The criticisms range from the amount of testing (too much) to the stakes attached (too high.)
The stress level has kicked up another notch this year because Florida schools are making the transition from the FCAT to the new, Common Core-based Florida Standards Assessment (FSA). Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has warned the Duval County School Board that the number of schools with D or F grades could double.
With Tuesday’s opening of the 2015 legislative session, is Tallahassee finally listening? Three different proposed bills, an executive action, and a Department of Education “investigation” indicate that they are. Sort of.
This will be the year that Florida’s public schools’ test-based accountability system gets tweaked. But will the changes be enough to satisfy stressed out students, teachers and parents?
Lowering the stakes
Even former Gov. Jeb Bush’s chief education policy point-person, Patricia Levesque, is now saying that test scores should make up less than 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. That would require quite a turnaround for Republican lawmakers who, with strong pushes from Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future (FFF), fought to implement the high-stakes link over vehement teacher and parent objections.
Florida law now mandates that 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations be based on their students’ test scores. (Hillsborough County, which participates in a Gates Foundation pilot program, is the single Florida county to use a 40 percent figure.)
Now, Sen. John Legg, R-Pasco County, has introduced SB 616, which would scale the test-score percentage back to 40 percent of teacher evaluations for all counties. He also wants to reduce the number of end-of-course exams students take, and cap state and district testing to take up no more than 5 percent of the school year.
Duval County School Board member and former chairwoman, Becki Couch, applauds Legg for going in the right direction. “It helps,” she said.
But rather than simply lower the percentage, Couch, who is also a teacher, wants lawmakers to make more meaningful changes to the teacher evaluations statutes.
“I’d like to see Sen. Legg engage in a conversation with teachers about what performance looks like.”
Couch, who has children in public school, also wants to see more respect shown for parents who choose public schools. “I’d like to see lawmakers and decision makers take this opportunity to have a robust dialogue with the consumers of public education,” she said.
Parent-advocates reacted more bluntly to Legg’s proposal.
“Senator Legg’s bill does nothing for children,” says Kathleen Oropeza. Oropeza is co-founder of the advocacy organization, Fund Education Now, and is a named plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit to enforce state constitutional provisions regarding education.
“If Sen. Legg is sincere, he needs to pay close attention to what his colleagues are telling him. He needs to not hurt children in this process.”
Oropeza references a bill by Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, that would hold students harmless from the results of the new Florida Standards Assessment until the Department of Education collects enough data to make sure the test is reliable and valid, and to create meaningful cut scores for promotion and graduation. (More on Montford’s bill in Part Two.)
How the stakes got so high, or, Gov. Bush’s 16-year Term
The FSA’s predecessor, the FCAT, was implemented under Gov. Lawton Chiles. But it was his successor, Gov. Bush, whose A+ program attached consequences including school grades and turned it into a true high-stakes test.
From 2010 to 2014, the state used FCAT 2.0 to measure student learning progress on a slightly different set of standards. Students will take the Common-Core-based FSA for the first time this year.
Eleven years after the Legislature passed Bush’s A+ program, the high-stakes connection to teacher evaluations was voted into place.
The controversial SB 6 was introduced and passed in 2010, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. Former Sen. John Thrasher successfully rammed the controversial bill through the legislature again in 2011, as SB 736, this time securing Gov. Rick Scott’s signature on what was dubbed the Student Success Act.
Thrasher now hosts educational “summits” for Mr. Bush at Florida State University, where Thrasher is now president. Summit attendees need lunch. That’s where the $1,000-a-plate fundraisers come in.
Make no mistake: when it comes to education policy in Florida, Republican lawmakers have a default setting. They look to the policies of former Gov. Bush.
“We’re seeing a real doubling down on Jeb’s policy to protect his legacy as he runs for president,” says parent-advocate, Colleen Wood, who serves as a board member for the Network for Public Education. Wood also founded the St. Johns County-based public school advocacy organization, 50th No More.
With Bush’s 2016 bid for the White House now imminent, Wood makes a prediction for education during the upcoming legislative session. “There will be no substantive changes.”
Wood says minor testing tweaks like the one offered by Sen. Legg amount to a “pat on the head.”
“They’re throwing us a bone in hopes that parents will quiet down. But this contingent of parents didn’t start yesterday, and it’s not going away tomorrow.”
While Bush left the governor’s mansion in 2007, his state-level education policy foundation, FFF, led by Levesque, has been front and center in education legislation ever since. Some observers even call her “the 41st senator.”
A former lobbyist, Levesque has been criticized for pushing legislation that may have benefitted her former corporate clients. Those clients include education giants like K12, Pearson and Amplify. In 2013, she withdrew her firm’s lobbying registration while under fire from In the Public Interest, a left-leaning government watchdog group, which questioned the blurry lines between FFF and Bush’s other, national non-profit, the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Both the FFF and the FEE shared the same P.O. Box with Levesque’s firm.
It’s hard to know whether the Bush camp has been reading research, which doesn’t support the high-stakes link to teacher evaluations, or the political tea leaves: a state full of test-weary parents. There’s a national election coming up, after all. It wouldn’t sit well if the loudest critics of Jeb’s so-called “Florida miracle” were Florida parents
(Next: The backlash to the new, Common-Core based standards in Florida, a push to let districts opt-out of the new test, and a proposal to hold students harmless during the transition. A version of this article also appears in Folio Weekly.)
Julie Delegal lives and writes in Jacksonville. She sent all three of her children to public magnet schools. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
