Tavares, FL - Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013
The Lake County School Board is having a workshop tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 26, on how the School District will deal with the State of Florida dropping participation in the planned PARCC testing consortium for Common Core based classes. It will be at the School District HQ on HWY 441 at 2pm. The Calendar entry is HERE on the website. The agend has only one subject, the PARCC issue, on it.
The meeting was only scheduled yesterday, and I confirmed that the purpose, as told to me by Board Chair Kyleen Fischer, was for the Board to discuss the issue.
Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order to drop out of the PARCC "assessment" (testing) system that would be implemented in the 2014-2015 school year, which was widely known to be controlled by liberals. At least 15 other states are still in the consortium. If they created tests with a bias, then teachers, whose merit raises depend on student rankings, would "teach to the test". The PARCC tests are not for this current new school year, but the 2014/2015 school year.
HERE is an Orlando Sentinel article about the dropping of PARCC.
HERE is one reply from groups opposing Common Core about the dropping of PARCC & Commending Gov. Scott for doing so. It is titled: The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition and Florida Parents Against Common Core Response to Governor Scott’s Executive Order and Letters
I and many observers were not in favor of PARCC, but it leaves the Florida Schools in a lurch since they will have to wait until FL State decides what testing platform to use. (PARCC was not completed yet anyway). So rather than have a year to learn the expected PARCC exam process and content, teachers will have to wait until the State decides on another testing system.
The risk is that Florida could then hire an outside firm that is also run by liberals with biased testing. That happened in Texas, which rejected Common Core, and the "educators" chose CSCOPE, another system that was then proven to modify courses with liberal biases so much that parents were outraged and got CSCOPE pulled.
Part of this problem is because in my opinion, School administrators and the Board clearly didn't follow or understand many parent and citizen objections to Common Core Standards (which are still in place) or the PARCC and its creators, thus had no idea how many opponents were rising up to demand elimination of Common Core (which still will be followed in Florida) and the separate testing systems from PARCC.
Another issue hurting the Lake County School District is that recently, the well regarded head of the department rolling out Common Core left the District, leaving a vacuum in leadership.
So, what can happen?
- Possibly the State will select an outside vendor who could then be subject to public review and support or rejection.
- The State may rush to create committees and staff to develop their own testing system from scratch.
- The State could tell Schools that time does not exist for them to create any vetted testing system, and the Districts should create their own, local systems to be used until the State creates or chooses one.
- The State could have Districts continue to use the outgoing FCAT testing systems. I have no idea if that is practical, because they would have to be updated to "align" with the Common Core standards.
- Or, the State could go back to PARCC and use the planned or a modified version.
So, my condolences to the School administration and I doubt the issue will be resolved this week or soon. It may take months for Florida State to decide on the new testing system.
This meeting on Friday was called for by Chair Kyleen Fischer and will mostly be for the Board to hear comments from the Administration. I think it is too early to do much, and they could have probably waited until a regular workshop or meeting to discuss it. At the most, they might provide direction to alter training or staffing plans to deal with the termination of PARCC. And, they might decide to accelerate hiring of a replacement for the administrator supervising the Common Core roll out who just quit.
Vance Jochim
PS: You can also read my Factsheet on Common Core at: www.tinyurl.com/HaltCommonCoreNow - but there is so much coming out from dedicated groups I don't update it much anymore.