Don't miss part 2 of "Assess The Test": Our conversation about testing was so robust that we decided to continue it to a second episode. Listen to the 2nd part of here.Change is coming to Florida's system of standardized testing. Parents, students and educators alike are wondering if we will see the significant changes that are needed to create a system that actually works towards improving teaching and learning or if this will be just the same old testing regime with a new name.  Join us for part one of a two part series where we Assess the Test.

Episode 15 Show Notes:

Guests

Show Resources

Transcript

GuestsAnthony Colucci, President Brevard Federation of TeachersVicki Kidwell, President Clay County Education Association Bethany Koch, High school English teacher from Clay CountyMatt Yount, Teacher from Brevard County

ResourcesMore information on the legislation that will create the new testsBeyond the Bubble: Americans Want Change on High Stakes Assessments Moving Beyond the Failure of Test-Based AccountabilityFlorida Department of Education: Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (note: many of the promises made on this webpage about the new test are not included in the proposed legislation)

TranscriptAndrew Spar, FEA President: Hi, this is FEA President, Andrew Spar. To stay on top of all the latest news and issues impacting our public schools, be sure to follow FEA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For more information on this podcast, visit FEAweb.org/podcast.Sharon Nesvig: You're listening to Educating from the Heart. Thank you for joining our lively conversations with teachers, support professionals, parents and students, as they share issues that matter most in our public schools. Here are your hosts, Tina Dunbar and Luke Flynt.Tina Dunbar, Host Welcome to another episode of Educating from the Heart. I'm Tina Dunbar with my cohost, Luke Flynt. So Luke, can you name your favorite educator, one who had a really big impact on you?Luke Flynt, Host: Oh, absolutely. Mr. Powell was my fifth grade teacher at Glendale Elementary, and he's actually the reason I became a teacher. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. How about you?Tina: Well, several come to mind, but Señor Milliones, he was my Spanish teacher. He really stands out. He was the best, no matter what was going on with the students, he was always there to inspire you and push you forward. So, can you remember your favorite class?Luke: Favorite class? That's a little tougher, you know, I'm a bit of a nerd. I enjoyed almost all of my classes. If I had to choose one, I would probably be History of the English language. I actually loved it so much, I took it as an undergrad and then again at the graduate level.Tina: Wow, that sounds interesting. I might have to get a lesson from you on that. So, one more question: Can you remember your favorite standardized test? I'm sure you've got a few to choose from.Luke: No, no, absolutely not. “Favorite” and “standardized tests” don't really belong in the same sentence. You know, Tina, I was really fortunate that I graduated from public school in Florida before the current testing craze. The FCAT didn't come around until the year I graduated, and seniors didn't have to take it. As a teacher though, I did administer the FCAT, the FCAT 2.0 and the Florida Standards Assessment. And I can tell you, even though the test had three different names, nothing else really changed about them.Tina: I hear what you're saying. And once again, Florida is preparing to administer a revamped assessment system. That includes progress monitoring and a new end of the year tests called F.A.S.T. Or the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking. And while Governor DeSantis has made some really big promises about these new tests, the current proposed legislation doesn't seem to really make those changes. So, Luke, we're hearing from educators that they're worried that this new assessment will essentially be FCAT 4.0 .Luke: And, you know, Tina, I think those fears are probably well-founded. To delve a little bit deeper into this issue, we sat down with four educators. First, you’re going to hear from Anthony Colucci, from Brevard, along with Vicki Kidwell and Bethany Koch from Clay County, and Matt Yount, also a Brevard County teacher.We talked with them about the current system of standardized tests, what they hope to see with a new testing routine, and what they fear will happen if educator's voices are ignored. We begin by talking about progress monitoring,  since that seems to be a big focus of the proposed legislation.Tina: What is the goal of progress monitoring for educators?Anthony Colucci, BTF President: When you're teaching in the classroom, it's important that you make sure the students are learning and you're not just teaching, right? So, you want to constantly be aware of where your students are at and that they are growing from where they're currently at. And that is our primary job as educators is to see growth. Progress monitoring is a system to ensure that you are tracking students’ growth, or sometimes lack of growth, and tailoring your instruction to get that growth from students.Vicki Kidwell, CEA, President: Progress monitoring, from my primary experiences, is very targeted to standards or a skill or a concept that you're trying to get your students to understand. And it's the growth of the students towards your goals, against where they were to where you want them to be. It's not Billy against Bobby; it’s Billy advancing more and more and more on the continuum to where he is competent in the skills and the concepts and the standards that he needs to be competent in. We wouldn't sit down and compare two kids. Progress monitoring is one student's growth. And I think student growth is, is the whole picture right there. That student's growth.Bethany Koch, HS English teacher: Progress monitoring is not something that you do once a year, right? Progress monitoring in a teacher world is something that we do every day. Sometimes multiple times during the lesson, you know, I teach high school, so I've got 50 minutes to teach my kids. And in high school, often in my classes it often looks like an exit ticket, right? So, at the end of the day, we'll have three short questions, and sometimes that's taken on a computer, sometimes it's raising paddles so that we can see who knows what, and then I can understand myself both, you know, how my students are doing, but also how is my teaching time coming across, like is my lesson effective? Do I need to clarify something? And in that way, progress monitoring, I think the most important part of it is that it's a tool to help us be more effective educators. And that can't be done with one big, scary, standardized test at the end of the year.Matt Yount, Brevard Teacher: I would add to that, that progress monitoring should be formative, not punitive. And I think a lot of times what we do with that data is really the kind of thing that gets lost in the shuffle is, are we using that data to assign grades? Are we using that data to assign district grades and assign money? Are we using that data to punish students or teachers? Or are we using that to inform our instruction and to better our instruction?And I think, another key point is that progress monitoring might look different across different subjects and grades and even student groups. Obviously, my kindergarten counterparts, their progress monitoring is going to look a little different than what I might do in a sixth-grade classroom.Tina: So, are you saying that the previous testing system did not give you that kind of information?Matt Yount: Absolutely not. I've been I've likened it to an autopsy when the checkup was needed. At least in Brevard County, we would sit in meetings at pre-planning of a school year dissecting data from April or May of the previous school year. I was always frustrated, and still remain frustrated, that I could not celebrate the wins with my students, and I couldn't affect any change in what those things were now, because they were often off to another grade level with another teacher. And I just got handed a bunch of new names, and they were just names and numbers on a page to me, but I'm supposed to do something with that data. So I always found it very frustrating to have to deal with that, you know, from a data desegregation point of view,Tina: The students have already left, yes. That was one of the things as a parent that I never understood in terms of how that would help a child getting the information afterwards. Go ahead, Bethany.Bethany Koch: In addition to that, the FSA’s data is kind of masked it's hard to tell. We don't get to look at the test, so we don't get to say like, “oh, this is what, where this question went wrong.” We don't get to look at the standards that were affected. We don't know how the scores are calculated; it’s kind of a mystery. In Clay County,  and in my school, we prepare our…we do quarterly checkpoints, and we perform a pair of tests as a cohort with our PLC, according to the standards that are aligned with our curriculum map, put out by the county. And we check on our students' progress, and then when the test is over, we strategize on how we can, you know, move our kids forward and you know, where we need to improve any weak spots.Everything that we prepare for never lines up with the FSA, because we don't have the resources. We don't know what’s on the FSA exactly. We don't know what the inside looks like. We don't have any feedback. So it really is kind of is, it's like preparing to do a long distance run and then being told you're going to actually have to swim.Luke: What I've heard already is that during this transition,