A promise to end standardized testing in Florida is not what it seems, teachers said this week after Gov. Ron DeSantis launched the state’s new assessment system.
The Florida Standards Assessment, also known as FSA, was scrapped Tuesday after a months-long process that began with DeSantis declaring that a change in assessments would allow teachers to focus more on student growth. In a move that was welcomed by educators, DeSantis last September announced the state would transition to FAST—the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking program—to monitor student progress more regularly.
Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, Florida students will take three short “check-in” assessments instead of devoting weeks and weeks of preparations for multi-day, end-of-year, high-stakes English language arts and math tests. DeSantis says the new tests will keep students and educators more informed and allow teachers to tailor instruction to each learner’s individual needs.
In signing the new regimen into law on Tuesday, DeSantis and members of his administration also invoked one of the most divisive, pre-COVID battles over education. “In three years, we have eliminated Common Core, invested approximately $2 billion to increase teacher pay, focused on literacy and created civic standards that empower our students to become great citizens,” DeSantis said. “By signing this bill, we are setting an example for the nation.”
But FAST has lost DeSantis the support of the state’s largest teachers union, which said the overhaul “falls far short” of what the governor proposed initially. “The bottom line is this: the law does not reduce testing, nor does it eliminate the big end-of-year test,” the Florida Education Association said on its website. “Because this bill deals with progress monitoring from Prekindergarten through tenth grade, it requires even four-year-old children to sit in front of a computer and take a statewide, standardized test.”
Under FAST, progress-monitoring assessments will be conducted at the beginning and middle of the school year, with a more comprehensive test at the end of the year. The law stipulates the results be available to teachers no later than two weeks after the test.
“Testing is an important accountability tool for schools, teachers and students, but it doesn’t do much good to wait until the end of the year to find out a student has been having trouble,” Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson said. “Transitioning to progress monitoring will provide more timely information about how students are doing throughout the school year so that any struggles can be addressed quickly.”
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