All of the questions swirling around Florida’s public education system have local school superintendents crying foul.
In addition to the uncertainty facing teachers about what they’ll be teaching, the superintendents say there are other issues that remain unresolved—like what to do about the state’s sketchy school grading formula, how teacher evaluations will be conducted, and whether all public schools have the technology in place to meet all the new demands.
“Superintendents know we cannot meet the demands of the accountability timeline. Therefore we are respectfully requesting the state board pause the implementation timeline and allow for a transitional period of three years," Volusia County School Superintendent Margaret Smith told the State Board of Education.
Smith, speaking for the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, wants a three-year pause on any further changes to the state's school accountability system. But that recommendation did not go over well with board members like Kathleen Shanahan—who didn’t mince her words:
“The kids are performing...and you all are asking for a three-year status quo?"
Shanahan likens the rollout of the state’s new education standards to that of the federal government’s health insurance exchanges:
“The Obamacare rollout, I’m not going to say one word about the policy content, I’m just going to put a reminder out there that when you try to do stuff technically through government, that you’ve got to be careful not to take on hubris that the private sector can do better.”
Florida is at a crossroads when it comes to the future of public education. National education standards in English and Math, called Common Core, have already been adopted. The standards were developed by states—but critics say there has been too much federal intervention.
A review of and recommendations to the standards could be done by the spring. Yet as the Florida Department of Education reviews the recommendations it’s received, some members of the state board say some opinions should count more than others. Outgoing board member Shanahan has been a strong supporter of Common Core, and she says the comments should be screened:
“There should be some way in the analysis, that it’s not, I don’t want to say a ‘random person’, but someone who showed up to speak with no classroom-relevant experience; to have that be equally weighted with a teacher’s experience in whatever analysis gets done.”
In addition to deciding Common Core’s fate, the state is still grappling with what to do with new assessments that were supposed to be tied to the standards. Florida leaders initially joined a consortium of states using the so-called PARCC exams. Now that too is in limbo, as the state has opened competition up to other testing vendors. But PARCC did get a bit of a boost at this week’s state board meeting, with state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart giving a brief synopsis of what states with better academic performance than Florida are using:
“Massachusetts will choose PARCC and they have some assessments—state-developed hybrids, they continue to consider; Maryland has selected PARCC and New Hampshire will use or at this time selected Smarter Balanced," she told board members.
A decision on Florida’s new assessments could come by the Spring. Superintendents say one option they don't like is Florida creating its own exams to replace the FCAT. Instead, they’d like to use tests that would allow the state’s students to be compared with their peers across the nation.
