Bay County school has
an 11-year old third grader, thanks to FCAT. See comments by Gloria (with thanks
to Dave Miner for his great line about retention).
Girl left behind by FCAT
quirks
By S. Brady Calhoun
Panama City News Herald
Monday, February 21, 2005
New laws, quirks in the system and the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
have meshed together to hold one Bay District student in the same grade for
three years.
The 11-year-old girl is a third-grader at Tommy Smith Elementary School. Further
information about the child is confidential under Florida law.
"There are lots of things and interventions going on with this particular
child," said Lynn Stryker, principal of Tommy Smith Elementary.
Jimmy Maddux, executive director of curriculum and instructional services for
Bay District Schools, said it was incredibly rare for a child to be held back
three times in the same grade.
"All of this is the new law and the new emphasis on reading," Maddux said.
Gov. Jeb Bush’s A-Plus Plan and other laws that support it eliminated social
promotion in public schools. In the past, students who had trouble in class were
sent to the next grade level if they were too old or too big to stay behind.
Florida law states that if a third grader fails the FCAT, the student is held
back. There are six exemptions that allow a child to move on, but the Tommy
Smith Elementary student does not meet any of them, Maddux said.
Retention should be based on a teacher’s assessment and should be done with a
parent’s involvement, said Gloria Pipkin, president of the Florida Coalition for
Assessment Reform, a group that is opposed to the FCAT as it now exists.
"Those are the people we ought to be listening to," Pipkin said. "Not some
distant, faceless, politician and bureaucrats who have no idea what’s going on
inside a real classroom."
The Tommy Smith Elementary student is now midway through her third school year
in the third grade. She is in a mixed class with third- and fourth graders and
could be promoted before the school year ends through a portfolio procedure — a
method of charting a student’s progress — said Lendy Willis, director of
instruction for Bay District Schools.
The portfolio procedure is one of the six exemptions allowed under state law,
but it is strenuous for both students and teachers, education officials said.
The law is clear that no matter how old a child is, the student cannot be
promoted until the student masters the curriculum.
"The child was struggling to learn to read," Willis said.
She added that the school cannot "promote students based on anything that looks
like, smells like, or sounds like social promotion."
Had the Tommy Smith Elementary student failed a grade before reaching third
grade and then failed again once she reached third grade, the student could have
been moved on under one of the six exemptions. By failing for the first time as
a third-grader she was held back indefinitely, Willis said.
"She’s the first child to hit us under this new law," Willis said. "I think it
will happen more over the course of time."
However, Willis said he wasn’t anticipating a large number of students to be
held back for three years in a row. On average, 2 percent of third-graders are
retained each year, Maddux said.
It is unclear what role the child’s parents, teachers or other problems may have
played in the setbacks. Willis didn’t know whether the student attended summer
programs designed to help third-graders.
"She doesn’t have to go" to the summer programs, Willis said. "We have to offer
it."
About half of the children who are retained for one year will drop out of
school, said Jackie Russell, a resource teacher with Bay District Schools. If a
child is retained for two or more years, the number rises to 85 percent, Russell
added.
"If you are retained twice, you are almost surely doomed," Pipkin said. "What
our children need is more attention, not more retention."
Retaining a child is always a tough decision, Maddux said, but sometimes
children need to be retained.
"To me it is much more criminal to promote a child and then the student will not
be able to grasp the concepts to the point that they are frustrated," Maddux
said.
As this year’s FCAT inches closer, parents need to be working with their
children in a way that doesn’t pressure them, Maddux added.
"We have some parents out there that need to be paying attention to this," he
said.
