FCAT Science

 Novem­ber 23rd, Pres­i­dent Obama launched the “Edu­cate to Inno­vate” cam­paign. The goal of the nation­wide effort is to move Amer­i­can stu­dents from the mid­dle to the top in sci­ence and math achieve­ment over the next decade, over $260 mil­lion in public-private invest­ments have been made to help achieve this goal. Big name pub­lic and pri­vate part­ner­ships have come on board to help achieve this goal includ­ing: Time Warner Cable, Dis­cov­ery Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Sesame Street’s Early STEM Lit­er­acy Ini­tia­tive, The MacArthur Foun­da­tion, Sony Com­puter Enter­tain­ment Amer­ica, and numer­ous other cor­po­ra­tions. States have begun sub­mit­ting qual­i­fy­ing paper­work to state their inter­est in apply­ing for  “Race to the Top” funds. States receiv­ing Race to the Top funds will have to dra­mat­i­cally improve their schools and stu­dent achieve­ment in sci­ence and math. A major por­tion of the funds are expected to be used for pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment. For fur­ther details on the “Edu­cate to Inno­vate” cam­paign see the offi­cial White House Press release below.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-launches-educate-innovate-campaign-excellence-science-technology-en

An arti­cle in The Her­ald Tri­bune by Tiffany Lakes, pub­lished on Decem­ber 20th, 2009 pro­vides details on sev­eral Sara­sota schools and their plans to pre­pare stu­dents for this year’s FCAT. Arti­cle is enti­tled “This Year’s FCAT Les­son: Plan Ahead.” See the link below for the com­plete article.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20091220/article/912201041

Rep. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, has filed leg­is­la­tion to replace the FCAT with end-of-course exams in a range of sub­ject. The argu­ment for this change is that Democ­rats say the exams would expand and bet­ter mea­sure what stu­dents learn over the year. This would replace the cur­rent prac­tice of many teach­ers who spend a great deal of the school year teach­ing to the FCAT. For fur­ther details of this leg­is­la­tion see the link below.

Resource:

Arti­cle in the Miami Her­ald Blog Posted by Shan­non Colavec­chio on Decem­ber 15th, 2009.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2009/12/swap-fcat-for-end-of-year-exams-dems-say.html