I've been born and raised & Florida, and for most of my years here the Florida school system has not been well at all. In fact, we're one of the lowest states educationally ranked. All students that attend public schools have to take and pass the FCAT which is an assessment test. If students don’t pass they don’t receive a diploma. Cool, right? Some might think.
However, many parents are against a test as such, because many students are not passing this test. I wouldn’t say that the students here aren’t bright, but we do have a high population of immigrants. Many of these students aren't speaking English yet. The state for years has tried to change the outcome of these test scores. I will also add that majority of the failing schools have an 80% minority populationn.
This is the county's decision:
+ If the principal doesn’t raise the school's FCAT grade they will be placed to another school but not potentially fired.
+ They are now testing in elementary schools to prevent students from failing the exam in high school. Again, if the kids dont pass, they dont move to the next grade.
[[[During my HS career I've had 3 principles and it's quite frustrating b/c the foundation never stays the same and things are always changing. Each principal came in just focusing on FCAT and other matters such as discipline and student attendance was worse. School spirit also dropped!!!]]]
May not seem like a big deal but a principal's job shouldn’t be focusing on one test, because they will soon ignore they're other responsibilities. Right?
So I ask you all...is this a far move to put principal's under so much pressure as such when they have SO many duties?
Is this only occurring in Florida???
Posted By: Tiffany Marshall
Wednesday, April 26th 2006 at 6:53AM
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