Superintendent of Schools

Welcome Mr Thurman and thank you for coming into the blogs to offer yourself up for a closer look.

Lacking anything specific at the moment I would like to know what YOU feel needs fixing within our School System?

How do you feel about schools that are too small from the get go being built? How do you feel about Teachers who don't even have their own classrooms but wander to others like Nomads? 

How do you feel with the budget cuts coming about adding the expense of 2 more Commissioners?

http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice in Nov. 7 Commissioners or 5.

Wow!

It seems our sometimes much maligned blog site and 'Mullet Wrapper' MCS paper are getting more attention than some want to give it credit for.

Mike Mann, Tom Platt and now Patrick Thurman. I wonder how many others read just to keep up.

I think I'd have a question concerning the FCAT. Is it really that important? We spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time and effort teaching to it.

Is it an effort in bureaucratic futility or does it honestly serve a purpose?

Mike Heemer http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice (5 or 7) in Nov.

I agree Finder. Seems to me, the FCAT is all about $ and here is why. Teachers themselves have spoken of the pressure to "get things in" before the FCAT. They don't even have time to listen to a child's story because they are on such a time crunch. Here's another reason: if the schools are so interested in how my child is doing in a particular subject just so they can have a better understanding of the material and not struggle in a particular area like reading or math, then why do the schools offer free tutoring prior to the FCAT and not a week longer after the FCAT is taken when there is still a whole grading period left to the school year? If it were truly about my child having a better understanding and not struggling, free tutoring would be offered all year long!

The FCAT is not tough.  If a student fails to pass all parts of the FCAT before graduating from hs then that student does not deserve a diploma.  The FCAT is basic undertanding of math, reading, science and grammar. 

In 11th grade the FCAT is taken and if a student fails any part, then they are required to take an elective class in that area in order to pass that section.

Doc, you make no sense.  tax funded tutoring is offered all year long before the FCAT and after the FCAT in any subject.

The FCAT, while a pain in the ass to teachers and students is there for the state who oversees pubic education to make sure students understand the basics, AT LEAST THE BASICS before graduating, which while adding onto the buracracy makes perfect sense.  Before the FCAT it was called the CTBS so this state issued graduation pre-rec.  is nothing new. 

My mother is a teacher and i've taken both the CTBS and FCAT, both were a pain, but both for the student who actually gives a damn about their future worked and work well.   

I was given a paper with all the info so I could see how my son did on this year's FCAT, I went online and nothing. This past weekend I went back online and still nothing. I think they are waiting till the end of the school year to post results, just like last year. So that way parents don't have any outlets to find out what the scores mean. All the mumbo jumbo on the website is hard for me to understand. I am not the brightest bulb on the tree anyway, but the website is not very user friendly.

Foxx;

I agree with you up to a point about the FCAT. Perhaps I didn't ask my question or make my point very well.

It isn't the concept of the test that I question so much as it is the time and energy expended teaching to the test. Great a student can pass the test and therefore we assume they have the basics. Does the average student really 'know' the information or did they memorize it?

I'd like to ask a couple of practical questions.

Math:

1. Can they balance a check book, read a bank statement or even understand the concept? Do they understand that just because they have checks left it doesn't mean they still have money in the back?

2. If they were a store clerk and a customer purchased items that totaled $16.34 and handed them $22 could they provide the correct change without a calculator or a machine to tell them how much it should be? If they were the customer and got the wrong change would they know the difference?

Reading/Grammar: The numbers I'm using are for illustration only. I don't feel like looking up the real ones but the concept is there.

How can only 40% read at grade level yet 60% can write at grade level? Did we hire some of the 60% that can't read to do the grading of the writing portion?

And now for the biggy - who determines the 'basics'? What are the ramifications if the school (not the student but the school) doesn't 'pass'?

It seems to me there are more 'basics' than they can test on. If teachers spend 80% of their time teaching the 20% of the 'basics' that will be on the test then overall the student isn't being served very well. 

Mike Heemer http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice (5 or 7) in Nov.

My child was at a public school where the tutoring for a subject was provided before the FCAT and stopped the week after. Tell me more how I don't make any sense? I HAVE made use of the public school's tutoring system. Do you have a child in the school system that needs extra help with tutoring? Have you ever used the tutoring program provided at the school? Its all about the FCAT. If students do well, teachers get bonuses, as well as extra school monies. Not ALL questions on the test are "basic". Who chooses what is "basic" for the FCAT? Not all students are whizzes at geometry or algebra; I wouldn't classify either of those as "basic" that one MUST have to get through life.

Maxie, a hairball is what FCAT has become.  The practical application in public education is that FCAT stands for Forget Children and Teachers.

I wonder if Mr. Brandhorst would still stick out in my mind as a wonderful teacher if he had stuck to his test prep schedule instead of answering my questions that weren't going to be on a standardized test.  Would I remember Mrs. Abramson if she was satisfied that I could answer the questions instead of pulling me aside and saying that wasn't good enough for me, and that I wouldn't earn an A from her unless I learned more than everything on the tests?

Teachers are among the most valuable people in society.  Always have been, since the first cave man decided to share his secret of starting fires.  We call them teachers, we pay them to be teachers, but they are becoming teacher/clerks as a result of public education's dependence on standardized testing.

FCAT is, by nature, doomed to produce diminishing results.  The more importance it assumes in the state's division of public education funds, the more time it commands in the classroom, the less time a teacher has to do anything other than prepare students for the test.

I'd rather give back that test-prep class time to the discretion of each individual teacher.

One final thought about this hairball ... It's ultimate goal is to improve education.  The biggest asset in any education system is it teachers.  How many more teachers could be added with the money public school systems are devoting to the implementation of FCAT?  How many more teachers could be standing in front of a classroom of eager students if we fired all the FCAT papershufflers in Tallahassee?

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net

maxie -

I got a login and password to access my child's scores several weeks ago and started to get excited. The catch: check out the release date. My child's aren't scheduled to be available until next Monday. The distributed those logins super early as a tease, I think.

Furthermore - the results have been later than expected most years, so I'm hoping they'll show up on time, but I'm not holding my breath.

NCLB: No Chocolate Left Behind

My tenth graders used to ask why I hadn't "prepped" them for the FCAT yet (in January). My reply was always that I was preparing them from day one. Anytime a teacher requires higher levels of thinking rather than rote memory, he/she is prepping for the FCAT.

The FCAT is not a bad test. It's discomforting because it measures higher order thinking and its structure is strange to anyone used to SAT/ Stanford style achievement tests; however, once a student understands how to navigate its structure, if he or she can take information from a text and use it to prove a point -- as we do on the blogs every day-- doing well should be achievable. If, however, the child is not taught (at home or school) to use these levels of thinking, he/she will struggle.

Sadly, the FCAT format and frenzy has taken over the schools and their curriculum. All the textbooks are labeled with "Florida edition" because the exercises and even structure of the text itself is arranged to (1) cover the SUnshine State Standards and (2) provide practice for the FCAT. This is what the legislature created when it made the FCAT the ptimary deciding factor in school grades.

It is sad if the result is that kids can't get subject specific tutoring unless it's FCAT based and that even this help disappears after the testing. Follow up with the principal and county office on that one. Parents need to kick up a fuss, because that shouldn't be the case.

Interestingly, I believe that the FCAT will not be the main factor anymore in the high schools, following legislation passed in the most recent session. We'll see if it helps.

NCLB: No Chocolate Left Behind

All about money?  Not all about money, but the test certainly gives way to that discussion.  I remember in hs, our principal taking everyone out of class, bringing us to the lunch room to encourage us to do well.  We all weren't dumb, some of us knew that the school earned money and bonuses if "A" status was achieved.  We knew the school would get a pretty little banner that said "We're an A School".  And that is the load of crock side to the FCAT. 

If a for profit business does well, then should more profit be taken in?  If a school does well on the FCAT, which means that the teachers did well in preparation, should they not get more money along with school improvements or are we on this forum against such?

Does the FCAT teach basic life skills Mr. Heemer?  Not Really, maybe some paraphrasing. 

2. If they were a store clerk and a customer purchased items that totaled $16.34 and handed them $22 could they provide the correct change without a calculator or a machine to tell them how much it should be? If they were the customer and got the wrong change would they know the difference?

Now there may be some, but do you honestly think that young people of this generation are as big a dumbass as you just portrayed? maybe i'm sheltered, could some of the elderly working in Wal-Mart do it without the machine?

And now for the biggy - who determines the 'basics'? What are the ramifications if the school (not the student but the school) doesn't 'pass'?

The Dept. of Edu.? i don't know.  If the school fails for a certain number of years, then the school is shut down which solves nothing, it just moves the dumb students elsewhere.

Yes doc. i utilized the tutoring "system" in hs and depending on which program one is in will determine whether or not it is directed at the FCAT. My point, tutoring is offered school year round except for the first and last week probably, it may not be directed or it may be solely directed at the FCAT.