Are the 2010 FCAT scores wrong?

[teach1st]

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7/12

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2010/07/are_there_problems_with_the_20.html

A whole heap of school districts, including Broward and Miami-Dade counties, are holding simultaneous news conferences at 2:30 p.m. Monday (today) to talk about the 2010 FCAT scores.

To be more specific, they plan to talk about “significant anomalies in this year’s Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results, and their potential impact on upcoming school performance grades.”

State education officials have repeatedly said that this year’s test scores aren’t flawed despite lengthy delays in releasing results, which have been linked to computer systems that don’t talk to each other very well. The problem had to do with demographic data and not scores, the state has said.

Well, looks like superintendents in Broward, Miami-Dade, Duval, Hillsborough and Leon counties disagree

Also, Tampa Tribune, 7/12: http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jul/12/new-fcat-scores-have-problems-hillsborough-schools/life-education/

[teach1st]

1. The letter from the districts to the Commissioner of Education

This is courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times Gradebook, the Times' education blog. The letter has details about the suspected problems.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/files/20100712134706685.pdf

(Edited to fix link)

[Orlandodem]

2. But the Republican legislature and Barack Obama want to tie teacher pay to test scores.