ICYMI: Florida Education Policy, Not Common Core, Encourages “Teaching to the Test.”
On Thursday, January 31st, Governor Ron DeSantis created quite a stir in the education advocacy community when he announced an executive order to eliminate Common Core in Florida. The Executive Order (EO-19-32) calls for Commissioner of Education, Richard Corcoran, to comprehensively review Florida’s current standards and provide recommended revisions to the Governor by January 1, 2020. In addition to articulating how Florida will eliminate Common Core, the EO calls for “innovative ways to streamline testing” which is something that DeSantis said would allow the measurement of success but also assure “we’re not just teaching to the test.”
On Monday, 2/4/19, during questions at a press event in Jacksonville (where he announced his proposal for expanded Gardiner ESA funding/vouchers, for children with special needs), DeSantis reiterated “You have to measure, we have to know if people are learning or not, but at the same time… I don’t want schools to be a big standardized testing machine…”
We agree! We don’t want our kids attending test prep factories either. But here’s a NEWS FLASH: Common Core State Standards do not mandate “teaching to the test;” however, many of Florida’s own education policies incentivize it. When everything from teacher employment to promotion to 4th grade are tied to state test scores in Math and Reading, the system will do what it can to improve those scores, in those subjects, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
As we have been writing since Day One, unless Florida detaches the high stakes attached to the state mandated standardized tests, a change of test or standards will not put an end to “teaching to the test.” This is what we wrote in our inaugural blog post in September 2015:
The primary problem with high stakes, standardized tests is the “high stakes”, not that the test is standardized. The right tests, when used appropriately, can be used to inform instruction. Currently, in Florida, these tests are being used for almost everything but informing instruction (retention, graduation, remediation, merit pay, school grade, etc).
Campbell’s Law (a social science adage first written about in 1976) says “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor”. Campbell’s Law predicted the distortion and corruption to the education system when stakes (like retention, merit pay, school grades) are attached to standardized test scores. Florida’s parents have witnessed the narrowing of curriculum as schools increasingly focus primarily on tested subjects. The importance of state testing is emphasized at Back to School Nights. Children are asked to track their own data. Some classes are little more than test prep. These disruptions can be traced back to the high stakes attached to test scores in Florida.
https://accountabaloney.com/index.php/2015/09/11/the-sunshine-solution-solves-the-wrong-problem/
Here is an incomplete list of some of the ways that education policy from Tallahassee currently incentivizes educators to focus on test results:
Teacher Pay and Employment
How teachers are paid and whether they retain employment is dependent on student scores on state assessments. Tying teacher pay and employment to test scores, with the passage of SB736 in 2011, incentivized focusing on test preparation and test scores. Initially, half of the teacher’s annual evaluation was tied to student test scores but in 2015 this was decreased to one third. SB736, also, placed all teachers on an annual contract and districts were forbidden from renewing that contract if a teacher had two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations or a combination of unsatisfactory and needs improvement evaluations over three years. Student scores needed to increase or an educator could lose their job. SB736 made a teacher’s employment dependent on his/her students’ test scores.
Since 2016, some teachers have qualified for significant bonuses, up to $10,000/year (called Best and Brightest) based, in part, on their test score influenced evaluation.
School Grades
Florida’s school grades are calculated almost entirely based on standardized test scores. High performing schools are given excess funding (A+ funds) which are often distributed as teacher bonuses. Low performing schools face turnaround options that include possible closure.
Middle Schools and High Schools score extra points in the school grade calculation when students pass state mandated End of Course Exams in Math, Civics, Biology and U.S. History. In some schools, the entire focus of these courses is passing the state assessment.
School Grades are said to influence property values, placing tremendous community pressure on districts to keep test scores high.
VAM, Turnaround and School Closure
2011’s SB736 also ushered in the use of VAM (Value Added Model) which is an expensive, proprietary algorithm designed to measure student growth on standardized tests for use in teacher evaluations. In 2017, the use of VAM was made optional for districts. Since then, it is unclear whether ANY districts have opted to NOT use VAM. Regardless, the FLDOE continues to use VAM as the sole measure of teacher effectiveness when evaluating turnaround plans. Schools that have persistently low school grades (almost exclusively schools serving high poverty areas) are required to have “turnaround plans” approved by the state. When such plans come before the State Board of Education (FLBOE), the Board has consistently insisted on the dismissal or reassignment of teachers with low VAM scores.
In 2017, HB7069, through its “Schools of Hope” language, required that any school whose test scores earned them a school grade of 2 consecutive Fs or 3 consecutive Ds, be closed or converted to a privatized option, either utilizing and outside management company or convert to a charter school. Persistently low student test scores can now result the closure or privatization of a community’s public school.
Financial incentives for passing scores on AP/IB/AICE exams.
In some case, teachers and schools receive direct payments for their students’ scores. Both teachers and schools receive bonuses for every student who passes an Advanced Placement, IB, or AICE test. Districts receive 0.16 FTE (or just over 1/6th of a student’s annual per pupil funds) for each passing student from the previous year. For some schools, this total can add up quickly.
Teachers receive $50 bonuses for every student with a passing score. An additional bonus of $500 is awarded to teachers who have at least one passing student in a D and F school. Teacher’s with high passing rates can receive hefty bonuses.
State Approves Digital Test Prep and Mandates regular Progress Monitoring (testing)
The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) requires and approves the assessments and curriculum that turn classrooms into “big standardized testing machines.”
Florida statute requires regular progress monitoring of students in Reading and Math. The FLDOE provides lists of assessments recommended for such progress monitoring. These are the “tests to see if you’re ready to take the tests” that parents complain about and result in the atmosphere of “always testing.”
FLDOE-approved digital curriculum is also used to prepare students for testing. Many districts use these programs, mandating students (as young as 5) complete weekly digital lessons, collecting data and preparing for state testing. In many districts teachers are required to give up face-to-face teaching time to place their students on these programs. In 2017, the FLDOE approved progress monitoring/data collected/test prep programs, like iReady or iStation, as alternatives to the state assessment for 3rd grade retention decisions.
Impact on Students
Of course, despite all these incentives for higher test scores, for most teachers the largest incentive is their desire to see their students succeed. Teachers know that student retention and promotion decisions, high school GPAs and graduation are all dependent on state test scores. Teachers want their students to be well prepared for success.
The current system of assessments in Florida, when coupled with the high stakes accountability system, requires teachers to teach the content that is expected to be on the state assessment. Rather than being tested on what they have been taught, students are taught what will be tested. The entire accountability system rewards those who are best prepared for the state assessment, so a focus on test prep will continue, regardless of a change in standards or assessments.
If Governor DeSantis wants to dismantle “the big standardized testing machine” (and we hope he does), then he should insist on a serious, state wide, discussion regarding the appropriate use of standardized test data and work to detach the high stakes from student test scores. Without that, a standards change, alone, will simple result in more accountabaloney.
Nobody does Florida education policy like Accountabaloney.
Thank you.