Not every student who graduates from a Florida high school has to take the FCAT. Those who score high enough on the traditional ACT or SAT can bypass it. Sounds reasonable. But this is Florida, and nothing involving education is ever quite so.
State education officials have indicated that those FCAT-bypassing scores will likely be changing. But they haven’t said to what. Nor have they said when. Which is all kind of unnerving to students who very much would like to avoid the dreaded FCAT. And lest we forget, it is, after all, their educational experience that this is all about.
So advice is being proffered to the new education commissioner, Tony Bennett, in hopes that he can straighten it out and fairly manage the expectations of students with a lot riding on the outcome.
But lost in the confusion over timing and new numbers is this: the current FCAT-bypassing SAT score is 760. As in a minimum of 420 in reading and 340 in math. And, yes, this is still based on the 1,600 system. And recall that the reading and math numbers were reconfigured up about 20 years ago. A 340 in math gets you out of the FCAT? It should get you into remedial math class.