The Florida Board of Education voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to back Commissioner Pam Stewart on proposals about test scores and school grades, turning aside concerns from business and education-reform groups.
But even as the board went ahead with Stewart’s ideas on a pair of 6-1 votes, some lawmakers were floating ideas for making changes that could complicate the process of calculating school grades in the future.
Board members considered where to set two critical benchmarks of the state’s education accountability system: “cut scores” that determine the levels of achievement students get based on their performances on standardized tests and the school grades tied to how well students do on those tests.
The changes are necessary because of the state’s move to the Florida Standards Assessments, a set of tests given to public school students. Stewart’s proposals opened up a rare battle between board members, who were appointed by a Republican governor, and a coalition of business and education-reform groups that generally back the GOP’s education policies.
Those groups have pushed for the state to line up what is essentially considered a passing score on the state test to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a highly regarded, nationwide standardized test. That would have increased the number of students who would fall short of passing the Florida exams.
Critics were also disappointed in Stewart’s recommendations for school grades under the new system, arguing that more students need to be required to pass the tests for schools to receive certain grades.
The system the board adopted would see 189 schools receive “F” grades for the 2014-15 school year, according to a simulation run by the department. But under one of three options proposed by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, an advocacy group founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush, the number of “F” schools would have been 503.
School superintendents, who have asked for the school grading system to be paused altogether, said they supported Stewart’s proposal over the others.
Leon County Superintendent Jackie Pons said proceeding with school grades carefully was particularly important because schools that have historically struggled wouldn’t be able to rely on how much progress students made on the new tests in the first year.
The measurement for “learning gains” will not take place until the grades for the 2015-16 school year.
Pons and others said the stigma of receiving failing grades is a blow to morale at schools.
“When we give these schools an ‘F’ grade, what we do to those schools for a long time is devastating,” Pons said.