With All That “Robust Progress Monitoring” Data, Why Do We Need to Administer the FSA At All?
Come on, Florida, apply for a waiver, already!
After requiring all districts to collect “robust progress monitoring” data and spending at least $20 million of CARES funding creating the infrastructure, a literal “war room,” to collect, aggregate and analyze student data, Florida’s Department of Education wants us to believe they don’t have enough data to identify and provide the supports necessary for struggling students and schools in the upcoming year – insisting on proceeding with the administration of spring standardized testing, under anything but standardized conditions, despite the health risks during a pandemic.
On 2/15/2021, J. Alex Kelly, Chief of Staff at the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), testified before the Senate Select Committee on Pandemic Preparedness and Response. The topic was “Florida’s Response and Recovery for Education – Closing Achievement Gaps and Creating Safe Spaces for Learning.”
During the thorough presentation, Mr. Kelly emphasized that Florida had reopened schools with “a moral purpose” to close achievement gaps, which he said the science and data told them would likely be exacerbated by the pandemic.
Executive Orders 06 and 07 (issued in July ’20 and November ’20, respectively) offered districts funding stability in exchange for agreeing to, among other things, conduct “robust progress monitoring” – regularly assessing all students in the district, sharing that data with the FLDOE and providing support to students determined to not be making adequate progress. EO-07 further required that students attending classes virtually and struggling to make adequate progress would be strongly encouraged to return to campus to complete their school year.
To be clear, prior to Covid, most districts would routinely progress monitor students to ensure preparedness for state mandated assessments but the results were not required to be shared with the state.
Mr. Kelly went on to explain how the FLDOE spent federal CARES funding to provide data driven supports, investing in what he called an almost “war room approach” to progress monitoring students and offering support to struggling students and schools. The FLDOE spent $10 Million of CARES funding purchasing a progress monitoring tool (Adaptive Progress Monitoring or APM, developed by Cambium Assessment, Inc., the contractor for the FSA) for districts to use “free of charge.” They, also, contracted with a vendor to allow data collection, aggregation and analysis of progress monitoring data from multiple vendors used across the state (i.e. Renaissance Learning, iReady, NWEA, etc). The FLDOE spent an additional $4 Million creating a “modernized cloud based statewide data collection and student information system,” serving all districts and charter schools, with the purpose of data collection, longitudinal analysis, progress monitoring and state and federal reporting requirements. Kelly emphasized that getting kids “back on track” would take “real data science” and noted that an additional $6 Million of CARES funding was used to pay for staff at the district level so that all districts could have their own data scientist.
The FLDOE poured tons of money into to collection and analysis of progress monitoring data on Florida’s students. Kelly said submission of the progress monitoring data to the state meant that “we know, and the schools know, which students are struggling.” Per Mr. Kelly, such “war room” data could be and was being used to:
- identify students in danger of not making adequate learning gains and providing necessary interventions.
- identify students in need of summer school.
- determine what types of summer programs districts will need to offer to allow credit recovery and combat the so-called “Covid-Slide.”
- identify students at risk of third grade retention (this will be critical since the recent Executive Order, 2021-01, delayed the reporting requirements for third grade FSA Reading scores until June 30th, after most summer school programs would have begun).
- predict school grades and determine which schools deserved accolades or turnaround supports (Indeed, Kelly noted that the FLDOE was already working with districts to determine, using available progress monitoring data, whether schools might be entering or entering the turnaround process for struggling schools).
The committee members asked a lot of good questions, many of them focused on concerns about learning loss and the safety of administering the state assessments during a pandemic. Mr. Kelly reminded them that the Commissioner’s latest executive order expanded the testing window (potentially allowing smaller groups to test at a time) and, also, would allow schools to administer two days worth of testing on a single day (which suggests they have already given up on any chance of a truly standardized testing environment for children this spring). Kelly also reminded the group that schools are free to bring in students for testing on evenings and weekends, if they like.
Senator Ausley asked whether the 95% participation rate would be a requirement this year. In Florida, any school or district testing fewer than 95% of their students receives a grade of “Incomplete.” Kelly replied, “as of right now that requirement is still in place” and that failing to achieve the 95% requirement was a concern and the Department was carefully monitoring any changes to federal requirements.
This would be a good time to remember that Florida could request a waiver from the federal government for the 95% requirement. Florida has already asked for a waiver to allow school grade calculation to include nonsensical prior-prior learning gains calculations in the absence of 2020 testing data. The FLDOE understands how the waiver process works… the state must apply for one.
Senator Pizzo asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Why not use the robust progress monitoring data in lieu of the FSA this year?” Mr. Kelly gave a long winded response saying, despite having just given a presentation highlighting how progress monitoring tools could be used to inform instruction, direct funding to struggling students, identify deficits, guide the creation of necessary programs and predict school grades, federal law requires a summative assessment and, at this point in time, progress monitoring data doesn’t fulfill that requirement.
Senator Pizzo asked the followup, which was also on everyone’s mind: “Last year the USDOE waived the requirement, you don’t anticipate that this year they’ll do the same?” Kelly replied:
“At this point we’ve seen no indication of a waiver and we’ve seen predominantly… national advocacy organizations pushing to keep some sort of testing component. What we’ve seen overall is we’ve seen a push to keep testing but to… show some of the compassion and grace and understanding about how those results are used. So if that changes, of course obviously, we’ll look at that carefully, but as of right now that’s not changed.
J. Alex Kelly 2/15/2021
Again, it hasn’t changed but, even if it had, Florida would have to apply for a waiver (like Georgia, New York, Michigan and others already have). They know this because, in late January, the U.S. Education Department sent a letter to chief state school officers saying the original Feb. 1 deadline for seeking a waiver was being extended. The letter promised it would soon provide details on submitting waiver requests as well as state assessment plans to comply with the 2015 federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Florida has invested millions in collecting and analyzing progress monitoring data. In their “war room”, they have the data they need to make sound decisions and direct needed supports. Administering state standardized assessments during the anything-but-standard, disruption of this pandemic is risky and will not provide more reliable data than we already have.
Come on Florida! Apply for the waiver, use the data we have to inform the 21/22 school year and give the students what they really need during this disrupted school year: more time to learn face to face with their teacher.
Is this waiver for individual parents? Or just state or district based? How can I request that my child opt out of fsa?
The waiver mentioned is a federal waiver from ESSA requirements. The Opt Out Florida Network can help you to navigate opting out your individual student. Find them on Facebook.
Why are you opposed to a summative assessment? As a parent or taxpayer, don’t you want to know where your student(s) is (are) as regards to the standards they were taught? We need a criterion based assessment to see where our students are in Florida – and the APMs do not necessarily provide that. I still have 20% of students attending remotely – where they can use calculators, Google and Wolfram Alpha to solve all their problems for them. They will be required to take the test in-person in May. Then we will have legitimate data. Simple
In a regular year, I’m not opposed to summative assessments, per se. I am opposed to the way the test scores are used (misused?) and how Florida’s focus on test scores so often results in “teaching to the test,” i.e. data driven education and a narrowing of the curriculum. Florida does not have criterion based state assessments, or at least they don’t score them as such. This year, students in my district need face-to-face time with teachers, spring testing will waste precious time, especially since (per the FLDOE) we already know who is struggling (from progress monitoring data).
The pandemic has impacted students, classrooms, and communities across the state in unequal and unprecedented ways , the year has been anything but standard. Believing data collected from these tests is “legitimate,” or valuable enough to require distance learners to return to campus, risking Covid exposure, is something we will have to agree to disagree on.
I’m sorry – the test IS the standards under our current system. Any teacher who does not teach to the test (i.e. the standards) is not doing what he/she is being paid to do. If education is not “data driven”, what should the impetus be? Whatever any individual teacher feels she/he wants?
Florida does not have criterion-based assessments? Please check the definition – criterion based tests measure how well students have met specific standards. This is what our current exams assess, is it not? As far as the scoring, we could have a discussion there.
What district are you in? My district has offered in-person instruction from the first week in August.
The teachers in my district were told they could teach in person or resign. Why not give the same option to students? Come to school or do Florida Virtual.
So far from my experience, the data from progress monitoring has been a pretty accurate reflection of student learning for those in class. For remote learners, it is impossible to say.