Senators push to curb tests for schools

Limits also sought for time spent on exams

Key Florida senators will push sweeping legislation this spring that aims to cut the number of standardized exams students take and lessen the impact testing has on public schools.

These members want a “return to sanity,” said Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, who is spearheading the effort.

“I think it’s time for us to do a very serious, serious look at the amount of testing we do,” Simmons said, because it leads to “tremendous, tremendous collateral damage.”

The bill they are drafting, Simmons said, likely will call for scrapping some state tests, allowing schools to give paper-and-pencil exams instead of online ones that takes weeks longer to administer, and letting students with good scores on college admission exams skip state tests.

Simmons, chairman of the Senate’s pre-K-12 budget committee, said the legislation could also end rules that make some tests a “gatekeep-

Foundation for Florida’s Future has pushed hard over the years for school reforms based on standardized testing and for tougher passing scores on state tests.

er” that can keep students from earning a diploma. That would be a significant change for Florida, which has had a high school exit exam required for graduation since 1979.

Testing has been a hotbutton issue in Florida for years. In 2015, in the face of public outrage over technology glitches that disrupted the roll out of the new online Florida Standards Assessments, the Florida Legislature made some changes to testing rules.

But those did not get to the crux of many testing complaints.

Seminole County Superintendent Walt Griffin summed them up this way: “We are spending way too much time testing,” he said, and that wastes time that students would better spend in class.

Florida’s so-called testing season starts this year in late February and runs through mid-May. The testing system includes FSA language arts and math exams for students in grades 3 through high school, plus science and social studies tests for students in certain grades and courses.

The state gave about 3.6 million exams last year, the bulk taken online, with students in some grades taking up to four each.

Superintendents are helping Simmons’ committee devise its legislative proposal and several spoke at a meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday, including Griffin.

Superintendents suggested the state ax its standardized, end-ofcourse exams in algebra 2, civics, geometry and U.S. history. Those exams are not required by federal school testing rules, which demand some testing in certain grades and subjects.

Online exams take weeks longer to administer than paper ones because students have to be cycled through a limited number of computer labs. In high schools that process can take up to a month and disrupts classes as students leave to take their exams.

So superintendents said schools could benefit by a return to paper-and-pencil exams, which would mean fewer days devoted to testing since everyone in a certain course or grade could take them at once.

The Seminole school district has been pushing since 2015 for the state to allow districts to use the ACT and SAT in lieu of some of Florida's standardized tests. Many students take those anyway, and parents and students see more purpose in those tests since they are tied to college admission, Griffin said.

Volusia Superintendent Tom Russell said he’d support efforts to give teenagers more “pathways” to a diploma. Though his district boosted its graduation rate in 2016, he worries about the 250 seniors who did not earn diplomas solely because they could not pass the state exams.

Simmons said he thinks his counterparts in the Florida House will back his committee’s efforts, though House education leaders have not yet discussed the issue and have not, in past years, seemed as receptive to such changes. Michael Bileca, chairman of the House’s education committee, could not be reached for comment.

At the meeting Wednesday, even the influential education foundation founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush said it supported efforts to “minimize time associated with testing.”

Bush ushered in Florida’s test-based school accountability system during his first term. His Foundation for Florida’s Future has pushed hard over the years for school reforms based on standardized testing and for tougher passing scores on state tests.

Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, called the foundation’s “evolving” views “refreshing” but also blamed the group for the state’s current situation.

“We are here because of you,” he said.

A testing system should help students, Lee added. “Let’s design a system that serves them rather than serves us.”

Education Commissioner Pam Stewart sounded the only warning note, telling senators that returning to paper-and-pencil exams would add an extra $32 million to the testing budget and cautioning against abandoning all testing.

“We won’t get to greatness without knowing ... how our students are performing,” she said.

Superintendents said they agreed Florida’s testing system has led to academic improvements, highlighting who most needed help and holding schools accountable for student progress.

“It’s not to abolish standardized testing. We need it. We want it,” said Ken Kenworthy, superintendent of Okeechobee County school district.

But, he added, there is now strong support among parents and educators to rein it in.

“I think you will squelch a lot of the anxiety and a lot of the anti-testing sentiment.”