Florida Gov. Ron Desantis signed a bill into law on March 15 that eliminates year-end achievement testing for public school students in grades 3 to 10 and replaces it with a computer-based system to monitor students’ progress three times throughout the year.
The new law also adds screening and monitoring of student performance from pre-kindergarten through second grade, aimed at identifying children with learning delays and disabilities and getting interventions in place early.
The Republican governor had urged lawmakers in September to make his proposal a priority for their annual regular session, which ended March 11. The Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill in their last week of work, and delivered it to DeSantis’ desk on March 14.
In place of the statewide, end-of-year, Florida Standards Assessment (FSA), the measure creates a new Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (F.A.S.T) program. The new plan will be implemented in the 2022-23 school year.
DeSantis said the change makes his state the first in the nation to fully implement progress monitoring, instead of relying on “high stakes” testing at the end of the year.
Parents and teachers opposed to the old, statewide, multi-day, end-of-year test—one factor in determining grades assigned to Florida schools—have complained for years that it forces instructors to focus more on teaching for that test, rather than on systematically building on skills students need.
The new law requires “three, short check-ins” during the year, instead, that will give results to teachers, parents, and students far faster than the old way. Under the new system, teaching can be individualized and adjusted, and any learning problems can be addressed immediately.
Teachers will have results from the shorter tests in one week; parents will have results in two weeks. The plan will cut testing time by 75 percent, giving teachers more time to teach what students need to know. And remedial teaching can be tailored to each student’s identified needs.
The new law also so fully eliminates the controversial teaching standards known as Common Core.
“There will be more time for learning under this progress-monitoring system, and you will have much, much more feedback,” DeSantis said.
“So this is a huge streamlining of what we’ve been doing. And I think it’s teacher-friendly. I think it’s student-friendly. And I think it’s parent-friendly.”
Florida recently was ranked third in the nation when it comes to K-12 education, according to an annual list published by U.S. News and World Report. New Jersey was deemed the top state for education, followed by Massachusetts.
Washington and Colorado were in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Connecticut, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Utah rounded out the Top 10.
The hope is that the new F.A.S.T. program will help push Florida to No. 1, DeSantis said.
“We did need some tool to be able to assess, and we do believe in accountability,” he said, “because it’s important to have high standards.
“At the same time. If you look at what’s been innovated, you look at new technology, we can get the same information [we received] from the FSA in a much shorter period of time, and in a way that provides really quick feedback for parents, teachers, and students.
“We want the parent to be able to be involved in this, to get that feedback, alongside the teacher, and then both can work to help remediate, if students, in fact, need that.”
Under the old system that relied on one intensive end-of-year test, by the time results were available, “it was too late to do anything about that,” DeSantis said. “How are you going to remediate, if you see problems when people are already out for the summer?”
That kind of testing has been stressful, and didn’t always measure the learning of children who don’t test well, teachers and parents said at the bill’s signing ceremony.Laney Gibney, the foster mother of two girls, said the outgoing testing method “negatively impacts children’s self-esteem, mental health, and access to academic support.”
The annual test was “only set up for high-performing and exceptionally supported students. But what about those students who are average or even struggling?” Gibney asked.
“What about students like my children, who had substantial barriers early in their childhood education? When I heard that our state was changing to a new system that reduces the anxiety and stress the children face, I was thrilled.
“I want our schools to have an assessment that truly captures their brilliance and instills confidence, and I want my children to enjoy school and to look forward to demonstrating how much they have learned and grown over the years, something that is tailored to their individual needs.
“So thank you, Governor, not just for this bill, but for all the work you’ve done in the education and foster-care system. As a mom of two precious girls, this truly means the world to us.”
Administering just one big test at the end of the year “doesn’t give parents and teachers room to have those important conversations about what is best for the child’s education,“ DeSantis reiterated. ”By the time those conversations could even happen, you have a new school year, and you have a new teacher.”
By implementing ongoing progress monitoring, “we are really going to help bolster the conversations between parents and teachers, so they can work together to make sure that our kids succeed,” he said.
The program is fully funded in the budget just passed by the Florida Legislature, and will eventually save the state money, he said, in response to a reporter’s question. The exact cost of the program was not available at that time.
DeSantis has pushed several measures over the past year that give parents more control of what goes on in the state’s public schools, such as the choice about whether their children should have to wear masks and the banning of discussing sexual topics with children in kindergarten through Grade 3.
The latter has provoked a flurry of indignant tweets from political opponents, especially Congressman Charlie Crist (D) and Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried, also a Democrat.
They are considered the top contenders among a group of 20 challenging DeSantis this November in his bid to hold on to his job as governor.
Fried and Crist have not responded to numerous requests from The Epoch Times for comment on those issues, and on their campaigns against DeSantis.
DeSantis also has pushed successfully to raise teacher salaries and increase funding per student in the public schools. And he insisted on giving students the opportunity to have in-person teaching, when much of the rest of the country was offering only “virtual learning” at home during the pandemic.
That also drew the ire of his political opponents.
Keeping students home, instead of having them in class, left children from low-income and working-class families at a severe disadvantage and caused them “immense damage” during the pandemic, DeSantis said.
Wealthy families, he said, could afford tutors or enrollment in private schools that were meeting in person, and their children did better during restrictions.
“And that is wrong!” said the 43-year-old governor and father of three children under 6.
The new Florida law provides for a “hold-harmless” transition year, in which grades for schools won’t be awarded. School grades will resume the following year.
For younger students, the new law requires computer-based monitoring of learning, starting with 4-year-olds in voluntary pre-kindergarten through 2nd grade.
That monitoring is designed to check oral language development, awareness of phonics, knowledge of print and letters, decoding and encoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
The aim, among other things, is to identify dyslexic students and those with a substantial deficiency in reading.
The new law does not modify the requirement for the statewide standardized science assessment for grades 5 to 8, or the requirement for end-of-course assessments in Algebra 1, Geometry, Biology I, United States History, and Civics.
Annual FSA testing will be administered one last time in Florida before this year’s summer break begins. As part of the outgoing FSA, students in grades 3 to 10 are tested in language arts, and students in grades 3 to 8 are tested in math.
