JUPITER, Fla. (CBS12) — Students across the state have just finished up their FAST tests – that’s the state-required standardized tests that, starting in 3rd grade, they need to pass to make it to the next grade.
Many parents and teachers have said that this requirement has led to test anxiety and too much “teaching to the test” in classrooms.
Some lawmakers in Tallahassee listened as a bill to amend the requirements passed the Senate unanimously. However, it went nowhere after that, as the House never even voted on the issue.
We’re looking into whether requiring kids to pass one pressure-filled test is really the best way to solve the problem of why our kids can’t read.
9-year-old Madden Craine reads aloud well, but he struggles with the comprehension part of reading and has issues following a story.
He just finished taking his FAST test, and his mom says he was pretty nervous.
“The anxiety that you go through,” says Ashlee Craine, “Even as an adult going through a test, imagine a child? ‘If you don’t pass this today, you’re not going to fourth grade…’”
Madden missed the score he needed to move on to fourth grade by one point.
“It makes him feel like he’s not good enough, or he’s not smart because he can’t do it. And it’s hard to kind of tell a nine-year-old like, no, you are smart.”
Madden is one of over three thousand third graders in the Palm Beach County School system who scored a one out of five on the FAST test -That’s almost a quarter of the entire grade that faces the possibility of being retained.
Ted Hoskinson works with many of these kids – he’s the founder of Roots and Wings, a non-profit that hosts after-school reading clubs in 15 schools in Palm Beach County.
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“These kids in Title One schools, which is the only thing we work with, are poor,” says Hoskinson. “They’re poverty-level kids. The parents, they have one job, maybe two jobs. They’re minimum wage jobs. They’re struggling to make ends meet. Many of them don’t even speak English themselves, and here we are trying to educate their children, right? So we have to inspire those kids that, yes, they can.”
He says the kids he helps often aren’t even close to passing the FAST test.
“They’re in the bottom 25% of their class, and they’re reading one or two grades below grade level; they’re not there. They’re not even close to there. In a normal day, they’re discouraged by that test, because when they take that test, they don’t understand a lot of it.”
Hoskinson supports testing – he says it’s important to know the kids’ reading level, so they can get the help they need. But the focus of helping our kids read cannot be teaching to a test.
“So I think the real key is educate, educate, inspire as early as possible to those kids that spend the extra time, because once you get it, you get it.”
Dr. Matt Burns is the Assistant Director of the University of Florida Literacy Institute. His research focuses on the best ways to test students. He calls Florida assessments the best in the country.
“There can be a positive setting a goal and working towards a goal that’s always going to be something that has a positive effect,” says Dr. Burns.
But he has also seen it go terribly wrong.
“I’ve seen teachers actually tell kids, you know, if you don’t do well on this test, I might, I might get fired. They didn’t use those words, but that’s what they said. Very few kids are going to do well under that type of situation.”
Dr. Burns says that’s where Florida fails by stigmatizing kids who fail the test and holding them back.
“When we talk about retaining a kid, there has been decades of research that does more harm than good.
When asked about Madden being held back after just missing the test by one point, Dr. Burns called it “indefensible”.
Which brings us back to poor Madden and his testing anxiety.
He admits that he was nervous, and now he is sad knowing that he could be held back.
“I feel like, you keep doing this to children, they’re going to want to drop out of school,” says Ashlee. “They’re not going to like, have a positive aspect of school because they think that they can’t pass something, that they’re stupid.
Madden’s mom has been told that he next goes to summer school, and then will take the FAST test again. If he does pass, then he will be able to go to the fourth grade. He has also tested positive for Visual Processing Disorder – a condition which can impact a person’s ability to read. He’s hoping to get some help for that as well.
If you know someone who struggles to read and has failed their latest FAST test, you can comment on Matt Lincoln’s Facebook page at LincolnCBS12.
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