As Florida students prepare for spring tests, parents and lawmakers have reservations

(The Center Square) – In a survey of 378 parents of Florida schoolchildren, 63 percent want standardized K-12 testing canceled this spring as an “unnecessary burden” during the pandemic.

The survey, conducted by Clearview Research for the Florida Education Association (FEA) – the state’s largest teachers’ union – found 80 percent of parents and 86 percent of non-parent voters are concerned about “achievement gaps” and the pandemic’s impact on the state’s 2.9 million K-12 students.

After assessments required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) were waived last year, the Biden administration on Feb. 22 ordered states to administer Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments in March and April, but schools won’t be held accountable for the results.

But even before the Biden administration’s announcement, Florida, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas were among states where standard assessments were scheduled regardless of federal guidance.

The Florida Department of Education had ordered standardized assessments resume this spring to determine how students are performing to gauge COVID-19’s impact on the state’s education system.

But critics say what is good for the “education system” is not good for many individual students struggling to keep pace academically after a year of pandemic-induced disruption, especially if results are used to evaluate students and teachers.

“Floridians understand students have been through an incredibly tough year. They realize kids, educators and school districts should be allowed to catch their breath,” FEA president Andrew Spar said, noting in addition to 63 percent of parents who want spring assessments canceled, 56 percent of 222 non-parent voters in the survey also think exams should be postponed.

Senate Bill 886, filed by Sen. Perry Thurston Jr., D-Ft. Lauderdale, does not seek to postpone assessments but, among other provisions, would prohibit results from standardized assessments “from being used for determining grade 3 retention or high school graduation or for calculating student performance measurement and evaluating personnel.”

SB 886 would temporarily lift punitive measures for students, teacher evaluations and school grades based on the assessments and “mitigates inequity in our schools resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” Thurston told the Senate Education Committee last week before it approved the measure in a 9-1 vote, advancing it to Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

“We need to focus on genuine teaching and learning without fear of the punitive judgments that have previously come with standardized tests,” FEA’s Spar said in support of SB 886. “At this point, attaching high stakes to assessments would just be piling on. It would punish kids, educators and districts for events that have been beyond their control.”

Overall, states are not pushing for a wholesale shift away from standardized testing but the pandemic has prompted some educators and lawmakers to “rethink” the value of assessment data as a valid measure of student achievement.

Some states want to vary from federal guidance and could adopt temporary waivers and changes with an eye to making them permanent as the debate over standardized testing is accentuated by the pandemic.

Georgia in February was denied a requested suspension of standardized testing by the U.S. Department of Education. Lawmakers in the District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Washington are considering test waivers this spring.

In Colorado, lawmakers have introduced a bill to lessen ESSA testing for grades 3-8 by instead following Colorado Measures of Academic Success standards. A similar bill has been introduced in Pennsylvania.

In Ohio, lawmakers are considering bills seeking a waiver for federal tests and to suspend Ohio-only end-of-course exams for graduation. Washington educators want to test a smaller sample of students, about 30,000 instead of the 700,000 normally slated for testing.

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