Florida test scores bring more questions than answers (Half of students fail)

[sinkingfeeling]

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/21/florida-test-scores-bring-more-questions-than-answers/?hpt=hp_bn1

(CNN) - The Florida Department of Education has released the results of its most recent statewide standardized tests, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in reading and writing.

Results for the FCAT reading tests for grades nine and 10 showed that 52% of those students were reading at or above grade level, virtually unchanged from 2011, according to the Florida Department of Education.

This year’s writing test results, however, revealed a far different story. Writing scores have plunged. Last year 81% of fourth-graders scored a 4 (at grade level) or higher on a 6-point scale. This year, only 27% did.

School boards and activist groups across the U.S. have passed resolutions, published studies, promoted “opt out” testing boycotts by parents, and urged elected officials to repeal requirements for school districts to conduct standardized tests.

Florida’s attempt to “grade on the curve” supplies more ammunition for critics of standardized tests, who say that states have come to rely too much on them and that they produce little evidence of learning.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. Clearly, half of everybody are below average intelligence

[KurtNYC]

2. In the immortal words of George Carlin: "Think how stupid the average person is and then remember

that half the population is even stupider than THAT."