Third-grade FCAT surprises, stumps some in women's club.

[teach1st]

Third-grade FCAT surprises, stumps some in women's club.

http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/news/article/0,2071,NPDN_14940_3477805,00.html

The pressure was on. It was test time Monday.

And some 28 women in the League of Women Voters of Collier County were about to see whether their college educations had held up over time.

"I hope this isn't going to be embarrassing," said Patricia Clark, 74, a music and education graduate from Ohio State University, where her father was a geology professor. Her mother was a member of Mensa, a high IQ society.

Clark and the other mostly college graduates were about to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test — for third-graders. That's right, third-graders.

More

[GOPFighter]

1. I'm not surprised

(the link requires the reader to login which I prefer not to do)

Kids today are exposed to a lot more material than 30-40 years ago. Also, the material is framed differently (different terms, etc.).

I often wish we could somehow make those who complain so loudly about the decline of the public schools take a 3rd or 6th grade standard test and see how well they do. Maybe then they'd think twice before complaining <chuckle>.

[teach1st]

2. Mostly college-educated women...

..having some difficulty with the third grader FCAT.

The women include those with education and doctorate degrees. FCAT isn't so much a test of progress anymore as it is a test of test prep.

When Ryan learned about the third-graders not passing the test, she wonder why the numbers were so high. Then she changed her question.

"Once I saw the test, I thought, 'How are they getting so many through?'" she said.

The 10th-grade High School Competency Test of the 1980s is not as difficult as the third-grade FCAT of today, she said.

"We weren't tested like this," said Clark

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. They should make Jeb take the FCAT

then maybe he wouldn't be such a big advocate of the value of this one test.

[The Zanti Regent]

4. But whose family is making the big buck$ from this?

Why the Bush Crime Family is making a killing on these tests via Neil's Impulse company!

[soup]

8. Shake my head, raise my voice and

rattle my cage. I can't even allow myself to get started on what the Bush clan has gotten away with. I did, however, enjoy this editorial column, so maybe I'm not totally over the edge. Mr. Ruth seems to be able to stand back, look at it all and still retain a biting sense of humor:

Heavens To Silverado! Whew, There Is No Cronyism Here!

DANIEL RUTH
Published: Nov 1, 2002; Tampa Tribune

This has to be the most curiosity- challenged clan since the last Fudd family reunion.

If you watched the warm and fuzzy familial footage during the 2000 Republican National Convention, you would be excused if you were left with the impression that all George W. and Jeb and Marvin and Neil Bush preoccupy themselves with when they get together are fond recollections over who gave the best wedgie.

It was Jeb it seems, the tallest one. Better torque.

And that apparent lack of interest in one another's adult lives seems to persist today, if Gov. Jeb Bush's public apologist is to be believed.

The Miami Herald reported this week that the family financial genius Neil Bush, who runs a Texas software company called Ignite Inc., is trying to position himself to sell a computer program designed to help Florida's public school students pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

Perhaps Neil might have a computer program designed to help him understand the concept of nepotism.

Or cronyism, too. One of Ignite's board members is Mike Eason, formerly the top technology officer for the Florida Department of Education. Yeah, he probably got the job because he always brings fresh Danish to directors' meetings.
rest of column here - (scroll down)
http://www.whoseflorida.com/floridians_are_paying_as_republi.htm

---

A personal note: My 17 year old son finally (3rd try) managed to pass the 10th grade level FCAT required to graduate. He really had a bear of a time with it.

He's been in what they call a 'dropout prevention program' since the 4th grade due to needing a smaller class size and more individual attention.

Right now, he's one semester behind, so won't graduate in the spring. He'll need either summer courses or an extra semester next fall (which he'll probably opt for), but he finally has the FCAT behind him.

As a relieved parent, all I can say is "Hooray, Sam!"

[soup]

6. He won't.

FCAT Critics Rally at Capitol
by Victoria Langley
Tuesday August 10, 2004

One of Florida’s most vocal FCAT critics brought a busload of angry elementary school students and their parents to the Capitol today. Senator Frederica Wilson wants the state to stop using the FCAT to determine if a child has to repeat third grade. As Victoria Langley tells us, Governor Jeb Bush refused their invitation to take the FCAT, then blew off their request to meet with them.

Children who’d been held back a grade after failing the FCAT packed into the governor’s office with their parents, hoping to speak to Jeb Bush. They want Florida to stop using the FCAT to determine whether a student goes on to 4th grade.
>snip<

Jeb Bush has never taken the FCAT, and he declined this latest invitation issued to state officials to take the assessment test. But before leaving town, Jeb Bush defended the FCAT. He credits the test for dramatic improvements in reading among elementary students. “The reason is that we assess, we measure, we have high standards and we have accountability,” Bush said. “If Senator Wilson doesn’t like that, too bad.” But the parents and students will have to take the long bus ride back home without hearing from the governor in person.

In 2003, the first year of the third-grade retention policy, 43-thousand third-graders failed the FCAT. This year, the number grew to 45-thousand. Students who fail the FCAT still have a chance at advancing to fourth grade if they can score well on the norm-reference test, or show adequate progress through a portfolio of their school work.
http://www.flanews.com/august/0810Fcat.htm

---

and this also from last summer:

July 6, 2004, Tuesday, BC cycle

SECTION: State and Regional
LENGTH: 482 words

HEADLINE: Teenager stumps Bush with pop math quiz

BYLINE: By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: ORLANDO, Fla.

Gov. Jeb Bush had come to pitch the virtues of reading, but instead got stumped on a math question Tuesday.

During a speech to high school students who mentor younger children in reading, a teenager asked the governor a basic geometry question taken from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which Bush has championed.

"Me and a couple of my friends ... we know that the FCAT is a very important part of schooling in Florida and we were wondering if you could answer one of the questions we remember from the FCAT?" said Luana Marques, 18, who just graduated from Freedom High School in Orange County and is heading to Flagler College in the fall.

The luncheon crowd at an Orlando hotel, gathered to honor 200 students who take part in the Teen Trendsetters Reading Mentor program, laughed and Marques posed the question: "What are the angles on a three-four-five-triangle?"

The governor gave a steely grin and then stalled a bit. "The angles
would be ...
If I was going to guess ... Three-four-five. Three-four-five. I don't
know, 125,
90 and whatever remains on 180?"

Marques had an answer, although it wasn't the right one: "It's 30-60-90."

The correct answer was 90 degrees, 53.1 degrees and 36.9 degrees, said Michelle Taylor, a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Florida, when told about the governor's pop quiz.
http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives/Jul2004/msg00055.html

[noamnety]

7. More kids must fail!

If more kids fail, less schools meet NCLB criteria, they get less funding, and there is more justification to use tax dollars to fund vouchers to religious schools. Not that I'm accusing BushCo of plotting for that, but if it happened to occur as a natural byproduct ...

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I had one of those test-taking dreams last night.

I was taking a timed math test and everything was going wrong. First, I couldn't see the words because the test sheet was too small. So I asked for a larger sheet. Then I lost the larger test sheet in one of the books I had at my desk and had to spend time looking for it. Then I recognized the problems as part of a section which I wasn't in class for when the teacher explained it; and by the time I figured it out I realized it was really just basic subtraction and addition disguised in dressed-up words. There were only minutes remaining by then.