FCAT Science

Stu­dents across the state of Florida are tak­ing the FCAT 2.0 this week. The FCAT 2.0 will help to assess stu­dents under the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards (NGSS) which were imple­mented in 2007. The FCAT 2.0 will include NGSS in read­ing and math. New sci­ence stan­dards will be tested in 2012. The FCAT test­ing was sched­uled later in the school year com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, which allows for more time to cover con­tent. More impor­tant, more time to actu­ally com­pre­hend the con­tent ver­sus drilling irrel­e­vant and frag­mented facts into stu­dents heads. The Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards are designed to make con­nec­tions, favor qual­ity over quan­tity. Stu­dents will cover fewer con­cepts in math, read­ing, and sci­ence but the con­cepts will be cov­ered in greater depth. There is a lot of pres­sure on teach­ers this year because begin­ning next year, FCAT scores will affect teacher pay. Half of the teacher eval­u­a­tions will be based on how their stu­dents per­formed in the FCAT and other exams over a three-year period. I’m def­i­nitely one for teacher account­able but not based pri­mar­ily on test scores. There is no ques­tion that teacher eval­u­a­tion and con­tin­ued con­tracts need to be re-evaluated and revamped nation­wide. In any pri­vate busi­ness or gov­ern­ment posi­tion indi­vid­u­als are assessed yearly. If you are not per­form­ing up to stan­dards, you are out. It’s quite dif­fi­cult with the power of unions to fire a teacher who is incom­pe­tent. And unfor­tu­nately, it is the stu­dents who suf­fer. Long-term our nation suf­fers when stu­dents are not being given the oppor­tu­nity for a qual­ity K-12 edu­ca­tion. I’d be in favor of teacher eval­u­a­tion based on the teacher as a whole. Look at the ded­i­ca­tion of the teacher, moti­va­tion, class­room envi­ron­ment, the rela­tion­ship the teacher has with their stu­dents and their par­ents. Lastly, look at test scores over a sev­eral year period. Wish­ing all the Florida stu­dents and teach­ers a pos­i­tive FCAT test­ing expe­ri­ence this week.

Bio­med­ical Sci­ence Class is being offered at Mariner School in Lee County, Florida. The Bio­med­ical Class is part of the the first Project Lead the Way (PLTW)  Bio­med­ical Sci­encePro­gram. It’s the first PLTW class that Lee County has offered. Project Lead the Way is a nationally-approved method of increas­ing Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math (STEM) con­cepts and explo­rations within schools. STEM edu­ca­tion classes help to achieve the goals set forth in the Race to the Top grant pro­gram. Michelle Hell­man is the instruc­tor for the Bio­med­ical Sci­ence class at Mariner School. She com­pleted two weeks of inten­sive train­ing pro­vided by PLTW this past sum­mer to become cer­ti­fied to teach the class. Hell­man states that “she is more of a facil­i­ta­tor, she hardly lec­tures.” Stu­dents are in charge of most of their own research and labs. Project Lead the Way phi­los­o­phy and cur­ricu­lum encour­ages the devel­op­ment of problem-solving skills, crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ative and inno­v­a­tive rea­son­ing, and a love for learn­ing. To read more about the Bio­med­ical Sci­ence class at Mariner check out the fol­low­ing arti­cle in News-Press.com  by Mae Yousif-Bashi. To find out more about Project Lead the Way pro­grams and teacher train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties check out the Project Lead the Way web­site.

The Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Florida and eight other states were announced win­ners in the sec­ond round of Race to the Top Grants on August 24th, 2010. Race to the Top state  com­pe­ti­tion is designed to reward states that are lead­ing the way in com­pre­hen­sive, coher­ent, statewide edu­ca­tion reform. Winning states receive funds to be used in four key areas:

1. Adopt­ing stan­dards and assess­ments that pre­pare stu­dents to suc­ceed in col­lege and the workplace;
2. Build­ing data sys­tems that mea­sure stu­dent growth and suc­cess, and inform teach­ers and prin­ci­pals how to improve instruction;
3. Recruit­ing, devel­op­ing, reward­ing, and retain­ing effec­tive teach­ers and prin­ci­pals, espe­cially where they are needed most; and
4. Turn­ing around their low­est per­form­ing schools.

As a sci­ence edu­ca­tion con­sul­tant that pro­vides hands-on-minds-on inquiry-based sci­ence pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops, I’m hop­ing that Florida school dis­tricts will seek out qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for their teach­ers. Not “one shot in the arm” train­ing, but long-term train­ing where teach­ers receive con­tin­ual train­ing and advice when needed through­out the year from a des­ig­nated provider who has been proven to pro­vide qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops. The train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties should be directly con­nected with the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards, hands-on-minds-on, and inquiry-based. Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski has been pro­vid­ing qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops since 1987 through­out the entire state of Florida and nation. Check out the teacher train­ing work­shops Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski offers here. Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski looks for­ward to work­ing with Florida school dis­trict in their efforts to imple­ment edu­ca­tion reform.

 For fur­ther details of Gov­er­nor Crist announce­ment see the fol­low­ing press release.