Years from now, people will look back on this sad FCAT decade with horror and embarrassment. A generation (or more) of school kids will have come and gone without learning anything other than how to pass a useless, arbitrary test.

(And you've got to love the boost of confidence and self-esteem students must get from being told they're responsible for their school receiving an F grade.)

Considering how Crist claims to be the people's governor, I'm at a loss to explain why he hasn't simply dropped this utterly failed, unpopular testing program.

I agree with you 100%. In fact, while reading your post I thought maybe we were at the same open house. Let's not forget the hours of homework every day. It's no wonder our kids are stressed out. Are there FCAT type programs in other states??

I whole heartedly concur!! I went to my daughter's 3rd grade open house and was told that promotion to 4th grade is based soley on the FCAT Reading score. What??!!! So her entire year of work does not matter at all?? Why send her to school? Why not just send her to an FCAT Prep Course?? Is this for real?? I am almost ready to send her to Private school so she go and learn, enjoy school and not have such a brainwashed FCAT philosophy!! Parents need to revolt and voice the dissastisfaction. I am told that is what it takes to make Tallahassee listen.

It's for real, all right. And it seems like it gets worse every year. I can't believe they're turning an 8th-grade advanced English class into a seven-month FCAT prep course, but that's what it is.

My daughter is now in her first year of highschool and when she was in 4th grade her teacher pushed the kids so hard for that ridiculous FCAT that my daughter ended up stressed out and so drained out that she had mononucleosis. I was so upset. All you hear is FCAT. Im from Canada and have been in the States for 26 yrs. We do not have testing like that there and the kids learn all they are suppose to learn in a normal school way. Not for the grading of the school (which the school is excellent) and how much money this teacher is going to make because she had the most amount of kids past the FCAT. This needs to change. Our kids have enough stress in life to come than having to start already at such a young age. Thank You

Yet another reason why I'm so glad we chose to homeschool the kids! I agree with all of your comments, it's such a shame that kids' love of learning is being squashed at such an early age - by a test! School should be a time of learning and exploring, not having their whole year's worth of achievements being flushed down the toilet because they fail one test. What about testing anxiety? What about kids who just don't test well, regardless of how well they do academically? I'm so not for the "one-size-fits-all" solution for our public school children. What if another curriculum or test would serve this particular child best? I guess that goes back to my original comment: I'm SOOOO glad we homeschool...

its not all the teachers mind u though its actually the principle the more students that do really good on the fcat the larger the principles bonus so the principle tells the teachers if they dont teach for the fcat they will be dismissed

Test anxiety is a huge issue for me. My son didn't do well on his FCAT reading section last year because of anxiety and the fact that he wasn't feeling well that day. When we picked up his schedule in August, he had been assigned to two hours of intensive reading each day in what was essentially a special education class. This from a kid who made straight As in reading in sixth grade. I had to raise you know what with the folks at the school to get him out of that program. It's really a bunch of nonsense. I'm ready to march on Tallahassee!!!!!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that my son has maintained a 100 average since school started in the one hour reading class that they put him in after I complained.

I concur with everyone's sentiments above.

My son started kindergarten at NOB HILL when he was five years old. His teacher told us that it was a problem that our child would not try to write full sentences because he was going to have to take his FCATS in just a few years.

And I'm sick of the homework too. I don't ever remember having a fraction of what they bring home. And to top it off, half the homework they bring home is work for the parents to do!

Sorry to rain on your parade but have you stopped to think about what the FCAT is actually assessing? It requires students to think about their learning (application), not just memorizing rote facts. The 4th grade test requires students to go back into a a reading passage and find supporting detail. I don't think that is waste of time but a skill many of you use on a daily basis.
Our generation of parenting wants to make everything fun, happy and failure-free for students. All students must receive something, sometimes for doing not much at all. This is not training students to be productive citizens that can hold a job and support themselves and their families. Isn't that the long-term goal of raising a child anyway?
I think students should work hard, do some homework and actually be challenged. Part of the problem is parents often complain more than the students. Have you noticed that the United States is low on the totem pole of academic achievement in secondary education? Our culture is raising a bunch of whiners.
I don't agree with how the FCAT data is used to grade schools - comparing previous year's scores with the current year (different students are taking the test).

Susi,
You make some good points. I really do not object to my children taking standardized tests nor to their being taught to the Sunshine State Standards. These standards are, in fact, an excellent guide to what children should be taught. They should be tested, and, I think the FCAT is probably a reasonably good instrument with which to do that.
My problem is in the over-reaction by some teachers and school administrators, who are so obsessed with getting good scores on the test that they forget what good education is about. Instead they insist on drilling, drilling, drilling non-stop. This does not instill a love of learning in children.
I'm particularly frustrated that they subject children who will not only pass the test but likely score at the highest level to this level of practice when it is clearly not necessary.

Susi, No disrespect intended, but do you have children in the public school system? My daughter attended a so-called FCAT boot camp when she was in middle school. Guess what she learned? She was told that when you don't know the answer, you should "Christmas tree" your answers. That's just beautiful. I don't think any of us are complaining that students are subjected to testing. The reality -- and the problem with the system -- is that schools are being told to make sure students pass that test with high marks above anything else. They are being taught to the test rather than going to school to learn about English, Literature, Science, History and all the other subjects that will help them learn the critical thinking skills and time management skills that will help them continue through high school and college. Most of us aren't complaning that they take tests and do homework. We are complaining that all the eggs are being placed in the FCAT basket and they aren't being allowed to think or breathe anything but FCAT at school. It's draining and is creating a generation of kids who are really being taught the basics. But, wow, my kids know how to Christmas tree. What a wonderful system.

Have faith, but get involved.

There are still many teachers and parents who endeavor to minimize the deleterious effects of FCAT upon instruction in their classrooms.

Resist, revolt, refuse!

http://tinyurl.com/3dwmpf

I would agree with some of Susi's points. I believe in hard work and challenging students. Life is filled with hard work and challenge. And yes, the FCAT provides some valuable assessment information. However, I still think that using one solitary assessment tool to determine every single student in the State of Florida's success/failure, as well as the "teaching to the test" phenomena that has transformed our public schools is dreadful. Yes, school should definitely be challenging and hard work. Yes, students should be tested to determine their abilities/strengths/weaknesses. But should the majority of the school year be spent focusing on making sure students pass this test??? I don't blame the teachers, they're just doing what they've been told to do, what's being mandated by the state. I do have many friends that are teachers within the school system, and they are incredibly frustrated. Their incentives are no longer in teaching their students to the best of their abilities. Their incentives have become the bonuses they get if the kids score well on the test. Drilling definitely does not instill a love of learning. Children learn at different levels and their success/what they have learned is measured in different ways. Some children don't write well until they're older. Does that mean we don't push them and continue to challenge them in a weak area until they are strong? No, that's not the solution. But holding them back a grade, or not letting them graduate because of one test should not negate an entire body of work done while in school. I'm not referring to slackers here, I'm referring to the student who does fairly well, but just may not test well, or failed the test by a few points...What ever happened to coming along side someone who is having trouble and helping them out? Isn't THAT what life should be about? Isn't THAT what we should try to be instilling in our children? Not the "sink or swim" mentality...In the long run, I don't think the FCAT, and all of it's associated drilling upon drilling done throughout the school year helps teach our children to become productive members of society. For those that are truly trying their best, it teaches them that their best isn't good enough...

I am a 4th grade teacher and I agree that the FCAT has many flaws. However, I am confused as to why you seem so annoyed at the teacher? I would be completely outraged about what is going on in your daughter's class. The question is what are you doing about it? Maybe you are doing something and didn't mention it here. You need to pitch a fit about the situation. Tell the teacher what your problem is and how you feel. Then talk to the principal and then to the superintendent and talk at a school board meeting. I feel bad for the teacher because in reality she is probably only trying to make you happy. Their child doing well on this test probably does make most parents happy. Oh yeah, and just forget about the idea that ANY teacher is doing this for money. I am at an "A" rated school and the bonus is about $500 and everyone gets the same amount. Yes, the janitor, lunch lady, and secretaries all get the same amount that I do. I have my master's degree and am a national board certified teacher, but the woman that hands out ice cream in the lunchroom receives the same amount I do. So, to say any of us emphasizes the FCAT because of the bonuses is laughable. We work so hard to receive high scores because that is what is considered achievement in our profession. Very sad but true. Most parents wouldn't want their child going to a C rated school, but on the other hand wants their child to receive a quality education not revolving around the FCAT. Well it doesn't happen. If it is an A school they are heavily FCAT driven. Parents need to unite and protest the way this test is used. When teachers complain we are just blown off as not wanting to work hard. Coming from parents complaints make a much larger impact.

Dear Why Are You Mad ...
I'm annoyed at the teacher because she has ceased even trying to balance her curriculum or teach anything other than FCAT drill. I'm happy that my daughter is getting instruction in grammar, and I agree that she should learn how to write the FCAT essay. But I think that this teacher could differentiate her classwork to recognize that every student does not need the same level of practice to do well on this test, and that daily drilling to the exclusion of all other instruction --for any child -- is not education. Sure, they learn how to pass a test, but they also learn to hate learning.

To Why Are You Mad At Us.
I'm angry with the system that has allowed the FCAT become the end all in education. I'm happy with my son's school, for the most part. And some of his teachers -- the better ones -- find ways around the All FCAT All The Time system. Those are the teachers whose classes my son enjoys. The ones who follow the Teach the FCAT mandate have already lost most of the kids less than a month into the school year. They are bored silly. As for your suggestion about telling the teacher and see what can be done, I've tried that. That's how I got my son out of two periods of intensive reading. But I had to raise you know what to get him into a regular class. From what I'm told, teachers hands are tied by the same folks that came up with that bonus system you speak of. If homeschooling was an option for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I really have no faith in our education system.

As the ignorant mother of of a first grader; If they are learning and being read to and exposed to intellectually stimulation situations regularly, then shouldn't they automatically do well on the FCAT?

I place the blame entirely on the shoulders of the administrators and the state. My husband, aunt and cousin are all currently teaching in the Florida public school system. Each one despises the FCAT and they tell stories of faculty meetings where conversations focus on how to get around the all-FCAT agenda being pushed by their school principals.

Well I'm about to have a parent-teacher conference to explain why I'm refusing to force the insanely boring compulsory homework being sent home with my six-year old.
Composing chants from site words? Timing her on fluency phrases?
Not only does this bore her to shouts, it insults her intelligence She refuses to do it. "It's stupid, Mom."
I can't argue with her; she's absolutely right. I think she learns more from reading every book she can get her hands on.
I'm just not willing to bore the love of learning out of her.

Donna

Good for you, Donna! I'll be interested to hear how it goes. I've only had limited success convincing teachers that my children don't need the banal homework that's sent home, but they would benefit from something more challenging or intellectually stimulating. Good luck.

I have been writing letters to editor of this paper for years. They all have had to do with education since I am a teacher. I left New York schools with a New York education and as a New York teacher. I came here and recertified 18 years ago. I have seen the state of Florida education change and dramatically take a nose-dive. No longer do we give our students the opportunity to become thinkers. We ply them with FCAT practice 24/7. This is from Kindergarten (even though FCAT doesn't start until 3rd grade) and it continues through 10th grade. Our children are robotic learners. They know how to eliminate the two worst answers and then how to pick a 50/50 chance. They are great bubblers! That is right Jeb Bush our "Education Governor" created a generation of non-thinking bubblers". I guarantee when he runs for the presidency in 2012, he will cite that when he left Florida, most of his schools were A+ schools. The funny thing is that last year, the year after he left, most of the A+ schools were no longer A+ schools. Now I do want to make it clear that as an educator I do believe that testing is important and has it's place. In the 60's when I went to elementary school I was given tests at the end of the school year. These assessments determined how I did as a student. The scores were then given to my next years' teacher so that he/she could use them to help me become a better student. For instance, if my level of comprehension was poor, then the teacher knew to work on my comprehension the next year. The year after, I was then given the "END OF THE YEAR" TEST and once again my level of ability was judged against MY OWN LEVEL of ability. I was not judged against a different groups of children. That is right, each year's group of say 3rd graders are judged against the next year's group of 3rd graders. It doesn't matter that each group of children are different, learn differently, come to school with different backgrounds etc. It is like judging apples to oranges. This is what you get when non-educators develop our state-wide education plan. Makes sense doesnt'it? Please also understand that the FCAT is given in March, a full two months before the end of the school year, yet the test expects all students to have completed a full years worth of education and that is what they are tested on. Finally,in the past when I grew up, our teachers were the ones to determine whether or not we were to be retained or not. The teacher would look at our school work from an entire years worth of work,,,book reports, end of chapter tests, etc. This is what determined what kind of student we were. Not one test. Imagine if you were judged by one test to see if you were a good parent. We all make mistakes. We all have good and bad days. Someone needs to come to their senses and really look at our educational system. It needs change desperately!

How can America, whose future depends so much on education, have turned our educational system into this test prep morass? It's a grim frivolous time in education where the need for reform has been hijacked by a top-down order to focus on the simplest most-measurable type of education and get the largest number of kids possible to score at the passing level.

I saw this blog in the Sun-Sentinel today and I had to respond. My son is a junior in high school and the bulk of his high school years have consisted of FCAT prep despite the fact he has very high scores on his previous FCAT exams. Last year, World History, both honors and AP, consisted of Reading FCAT Prep instead of World History; Honors English was low level FCAT writing prep and included very little of the literature and grammar the teacher had planned to teach; pre-calculus was FCAT prep for two levels below pre-calculus. Currently, physics and biology are now integrated science, and that script includes no physics. And yet, my son's transcripts that go to colleges will show that he had all of these courses that he has not actually ever had. Our schools are actually lying to the colleges and universities our kids apply to!

Although the FCAT ceases to affect students after they pass the 10th grade reading, math and writing FCATs, the Principal tells the students on the loud speaker that juniors must pass the Science FCAT to graduate. The truth is that no one is required to pass the Science FCAT to graduate -- the school grade is slightly affected by the Science FCAT, but students are not affected by it yet. But, the Principal uses this lie to keep the kids in FCAT prep through their Senior year. (Last year, a whole group of very smart 11th graders purposely failed the Science FCAT to get back at the Principal for lack of academic instruction. The group even informed the principal they planned to do so, and they kept their promise. The School grade dropped.)

This summer my family toured the University of Florida and sat in on a session with an Admissions Counselor. One parent asked how FCAT scores are viewed by the school for admissions. The Admissions Counselor literally sneered at the FCATs and said no college or university cares about them. At UF, the school only wants to enroll students working well above the Sunshine State Standards level, and so a high school teaching only to the FCAT test is actually preventing kids from being admitted to college. Universities are looking for high level SAT performance, and my son's school is nowhere near teaching to that level.

Last spring I read a study put out by the ACT and a similar study put out by the federal government. Both studies showed the same result. Students entering college have higher GPAs than ever and have taken more high level classes than ever, but these students are less well prepared than ever. I know college professors say they have to remediate students in freshmen classes and that almost none of the students can write appropriately for college despite the writing FCAT. Due to No Child Left Behind legislation from the federal government, FCAT is duplicated in some form in every state, and so if most public school students nationwide are subject to this type of teaching, then the results of the studies can be explained.

I have complained about this situation at every level of administration from the Principal to the Superintendent of Schools, and not one administrator cares. Teachers, however, for the most part are very unhappy as these FCAT prep classes are actually scripted. The Principal actually has a whole separate curriculum from what the class is supposed to be for the teachers to teach. The scripts are so extensive that there is no time left for the teachers to teach their real subjects. Teachers have tried and not only can't they do it, but the principal sends spies who are loyal to her around the school and they report who is and who isn't teaching the FCAT prep scripts. THIS IS SICK.

I have even contacted State Legislators. One aide told me that the legislature never meant for this type of teaching to occur in our schools and that if it is happening then the schools are misinterpreting the state's intent. As I see it, the State of Florida has asked for this situation in the way the legislation has been written. Parents and teachers state-wide need to band together to get both the No Child Left Behind federal legislation (which is now under discussion in Washington) and the State FCAT legislation repealed. Until that happens, I'm afraid our children will be left behind.

I think I forgot to add in the comment I just posted -- the Principal sent her own kids to private school!

In the modern era, all workers need metrics to measure their work by. For years, teachers did not have any rigorously defined metrics. One could argue, that teachers are just over-reacting to the NCLB movement by over-teaching to standards. Once they get used to it, they will reach a more mature balance of how much to teach-to-the-test over time.

I personally don't believe this. I believe that everyone obsesses on metrics so it's vital to refine the measurement system. I think the "fix" is to refine the FCAT test so it's actually testing what we want the children to learn. This might mean extending the test and changing it's format. But, we need to be clear on what we want the schools to accomplish. And the quality of our measurement of that progress is all-important.

Teachers and schools will teach to whatever we measure but we need to have a measurement system that somehow incorporates all the complexity of learning. While this is hard, it's more realistic than trusting thousands of teachers to to educate the kids without giving them concrete definitions of what we mean by educate.

Because each teacher comes with his/her individual sense of what is important and realistic for their kids to learn and we've already rode that horse into the ground...

Our entire family has been stressed out this year by the FCAT Preparation my fifth grade son has been getting at school. We feel like we are home-schooling him each afternoon. At open house, his teacher said the concentration will be on math and science, since that is what is the focus of the 5th grade FCAT. She regrets that she will not be able to teach social studies much, even though she enjoys it. The class he is in is considered gifted/high achievers. (She even boasted that her class last year all got into GEM math). Many of her students this year are not doing well, especially in math, for the first time in their lives. Their confidence is down, and it is sad. Has anyone thought about the psychological consequences of all of this pressure? The teacher explained to me in a parent conference that they will "touch on all the math concepts that will be on the FCAT." It is not their philosophy any longer to teach the concepts completely. She said, "Hopefully they will remember what they saw when they see it on the FCAT." Since when do we "touch on" math topics? The children need to be taught these skills and given time to practice them before being tested. Which brings me to my next point, they are graded on the practice immediately after they are taught a lesson! Why are we testing how quickly a child can learn a math concept? As a result, we have to review every concept at home each night in addition to doing the assigned homework. It is all too much. After all he is only 10 years old! He spends all day at school and a minimum of 2-3 hours a day on homework at home. We fight with him constantly, just to get him to keep up!

I have been reading the comments regarding FCat. My kid presently goes to a so called gifted private school. However, my wife and I have come to believe from our research that actually the gifted public school curriculum is more advanced then the private school. For example, I am told that in one public school gifted program the kids are taught multiplication and division in second grade. My private school kid has done neither. Private school does not teach to the FCAT
but not so sure it teaches
equal to public school gifted. Thinking seriously about moving her to gifted public school. An comments?

Hi everyone,
I am a Tennesee resident and I am afraid to move to Florida.I feel like I live in a retarded state.Here we have a TCAP test and I am sure they are alot easier than Florida's FCATs.My daughter is in 4th grade and they do not emphasize on ANYTHING (which scares the Bejesus outta me)They do not use handwring,they print!!!
She never has homework( 1-2 times a week 1-2 pages ) And I am noticing that she is "losing" some skills since she's been here.We lived in Florida and she was struggling to get a c ,here shes made honor roll.I'm so afraid to move back home because her self esteem has improved but her school skills have now diminished.
Any idea how to get her back to Florida standards so she doesn't feel"DUMB" down there! Please email me @ Honeybearacuda@aol.com