Florida: Still Stupidly Punishing Children
Posted by Peter Greene: 05 Sep 2016
Sigh.
So you will probably recall that some of Florida’s educational leaders have lost their damned minds , having decided that the full force of districts and state powers must be brought to bear in order to beat a bunch of nine-year-old children into compliance.
In some school districts, administrators had concluded that third grade children who opted out of the Big Standardized Test could not be promoted, not based on their report cards, and not based on alternative assessments like portfolios.
The case ended up in court when parents sought relief from their children’s non-promotion. The details that emerged there were not pretty. Orange County allowed students to advance based on their portfolios– just not this one particular child.
Many districts played Gotcha by not informing children they had failed third grade until the very end of the school year, with no prior notice of deficiency and no attempt to put a remediation plan in place.
And it also became clear that when the state wasn’t hedging and hemming and hawing, it was just plain giving districts advice contrary to the actual laws of Florida.
All of this, mind you, while other counties in Florida had no trouble reading, understanding, and following the law. Meanwhile, to add broader insults to the whole business, the state introduced the contention that…
Read the full blog post here: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Still Stupidly Punishing Children
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