This can’t be what Jeb Bush had it mind. More like George Orwell.
Anyone agree that teachers shouldn’t be “accountable”? Of course not. Anyone agree that we should be striving to raise “standards”? Of course.
But what you do in the good name of “accountability” and “standards” can actually be bad. That’s the FCAT lesson we should have all learned by now. Punitive standardized testing is counterproductive to the educational experience. The reasons–from teaching to a high-stakes test to justification for school letter grades that include monetary rewards to the less needy–are manifestly obvious.
Now there’s the FCAT writing fiasco. Regardless of the focus, sentence structure, transitions, grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization, the pedagogic writing on the wall is there for everyone to read.
The grading of writing will always have a subjective element. But what Florida and the State Board of Education did with its fourth-, eighth- and 10th-graders was educational malpractice. They changed the grading rules. Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson admits communication was subpar. Results: roughly four out of five students passed last year. This year: more like one out of four. But “standards” were raised.
What to do? Quick, change the rules so more students “pass.” It’s called damage control. It was called “newspeak” in “1984.” But that was disturbing fiction; this isn’t. Just disturbing.