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Hoping for the B.E.S.T.? Using SAT/ACT Scores to Calculate School Grades Probably Won’t Get Us There.

ByAccountabaloney

On Friday, 1/24/2020, Governor DeSantis released a slick PR packet, celebrating Florida’s new K-12 Education Standards, following a press event in Naples. To be clear, the new standards were NOT released… just the PR packet. The actual proposed “Florida Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking” or B.E.S.T. Standards (seriously, that is the new name for our education standards…) will be unveiled “before February.”

Unleashing a PR machine before the actual standards are released, suggests the further politicalization of education policy in Florida. Professionals should release the standards for public review without need for a full court PR press. The need for political spin is, frankly, unbecoming.

First, the name – B.E.S.T. Standards – is embarrassing.

More importantly, we have significant concerns regarding the proposed (mis)use of nationally normed, standardized college admissions exam scores in the State’s School Grade/Accountability system. According to the released supporting documents, two of the “Big Wins for Students, Parents and Teachers” (page 19) are :

  • “Replacing state tests with SAT or ACT – tests that are valued by parents and students”
  • “Better aligning state tests, via SAT or ACT, to college readiness”

Are these really big wins? Let’s take a closer look.

The “BEST” plan calls for 2020 Legislation/Policy changes which would:

  • Phase-out the 9th grade standardized English Language Arts (ELA) assessment (currently the FSA) and the state mandated Geometry end­ of-course (EOC) assessment by the end of the 2021-22 school year. (admittedly, these are wins)
  • By 2022-23, require all 11th graders to take the SAT or ACT at no cost to the student and include those scores in the A-F School Grade calculation. (very concerning, see below)
  • Passing scores the Algebra 1 EOC and the Grade 10 ELA assessment will remain graduation requirements. (not a win)
  • No mention is given to the currently required Biology and U.S. History EOC, but all high school students will be required to take a new “civic literacy” examination. (not a win)

Concerning…

Including SAT/ACT scores in the School Grade calculation is a bad idea, even if the students will not need to meet a particular passing score on the SAT or ACT for graduation.

  • Both the SAT and ACT exams are now aligned to the Common Core State Standards, yet these “BEST” standards purport to eliminate Common Core from our state standards. How can we hold educators accountable for teaching one set of standards, by testing for another?
  • SAT and ACT scores are highly correlated with family income and parents’ education attainment. Including such scores in the A-F school grade calculation will (continue to) favor schools serving high income, highly educated families.
  • Research supports the notion that these tests specifically disadvantage children of color, children from low-income families and children with disabilities; again, making them a poor choice for an accountability measure.
  • There are also concerns regarding gender bias and these standardized tests: “Despite the fact that girls consistently perform better than boys in high school math classes, girls underperform boys in the math sections of these tests. For example, for SAT tests taken by the class of 2019, girls averaged 519 and boys averaged 537.”

Regardless of whether parents “value” their child’s SAT/ACT scores more or not, these tests are poor measurements for an accountability system that attaches high stakes, like teacher compensation, school funding and even mandated closure of schools, to a school grade calculation. Attaching high stakes accountability to these scores will further advance the disparities we see today, placing schools serving lower income populations, or those with more students with disabilities and/or students of color at a disadvantage in our flawed school grade calculation.

You can read more of the new recommendations and the implementation timeline here. The actual standards are expected to be released sometime this week. We are awaiting more details and (hopefully) less spin.

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