Florida's public school students will soon start taking their state assessments. And the primary one, the Florida Standards Assessment, remains in place.
The FSA replaced the long-running Florida Comprehensive Assessment Exam, which was phased out as the state transitioned to new education standards.
But after a flawed rollout of that exam upset many education watchers and led to calls to get rid of the test all together. Now an effort to allow national exams like the SAT and ACT replace some Florida standardized tests, has failed. Republican Sen. Don Gaetz’s plan never got traction in the Florida House of Representatives.
"Because there are amendments drawn to the bill and time is running out, I reluctantly TP [temporarily postpone] this bill. There is no companion in the House. Our hope would have been the House would have taken it up because this is such an important issue," he said.
Gaetz’s bill would have allowed districts and charter schools to choose which exam they wanted to use. Last year lawmakers attempted to reduce the number of exams students take each year.
