Educational Leadeship

Educational Leadership: My Position on the Elimination of the FCAT High Stakes Testing

In my view, the move to eliminate the FCAT is both timely and well-thought. This is particularly the case in grades 6 through 12 where the standardized exam will be replaced with end-of-course exams. To begin with, the FCAT high stakes testing largely encourages teachers to prepare students for the said tests, i.e. By ensuring that they have the necessary skills to make it through. It is important to note that a high failure rate in this case impacts the entire system. Therefore, to cover themselves against loss of funds, schools have to ensure a high pass rate. In such a case, students are likely to be spoon-fed a relatively heavy dose of test prep reviews. Here, teachers easily end up ignoring fundamental material in the course of instruction. In the short-run, these efforts could pay off. It should however be noted that in the long-run, the consequences could be very negative. One could in this case therefore conclude that with the FCAT, students do not receive the necessary skills they require to face actual challenges in the real world. What they instead receive are short-term skills and knowledge that fade away as soon as they are done with the test.

The FCAT is also a rather comprehensive achievement task. This is particularly the case when compared to the CAT which according to Risk (as cited in Fultz, 2006) "only tested the basic, minimal skills a child needed to survive." It should however be noted that with the FCAT, teachers (and students) find themselves embracing an unhealthy competition with other schools. The interschool comparison the FCAT initiates does not in any way appear to be advancing the best interests of education. Some of those who have been the FCAT's harshest critics in the past include but they are not limited to Carol Castagnero. In Casagnero's opinion, the FCAT is impacting negatively on the nation's children. Indeed, Castagnero according to Fultz (2006) "believes that the FCAT is destroying children." She could be right after all. The stress children are exposed to as they prepare for this particular test is also an issue that should raise serious concern. All year long, children are constantly reminded of how critical the test is. In my opinion, no single test should be used to determine whether or not a pupil should proceed to the next level or not. As a matter of fact, the pressure to pass exams in this case is largely two way -- to students and to teachers. As Whitford and Wood (2010) point out, the FCAT (to most teachers) is a high-stress test with the potential of affecting morale in schools.