Florida edumacation system

[Zoolander]

It's 99% healed up now that's all that matters (*'-')

Do you know how on the sidewalks where there are those sewer drain things? You notice how the ground is like very diagonal instead of just having normal drains? Yeah, I walked over one of those in a really awkward way, it was dark out and I couldn't see it, just thought it was regular sidewalk/street and yeah, the rest is history, shit hurt like hell.

Oh fuck, that is gunna make me really paranoid about that now when I'm walking around at night.

And the FCAT really needs to go, although I am quite troubled that many kids really struggle to pass it. The bar has been consistently lowered when we need to be raising it. Idk how the system should be fixed, but it definitely needs to be changed.

[#686578]

A lot of the problem with the Florida education system and the FCAT as alluded to in the previous posts revolves around requiring higher and higher graduation rates without any emphasis on the standards. Why teach better to get more kids to graduate when you can just make the test easier?

[Heavencloud]

The FCAT - I assume - is a standardized test that is required to graduate High School? If so, those tests are a joke. We had the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) when I was in HS, it was quite possibly the biggest waste of time ever. My brother now tells me that they're doing multiple standardized tests - like one every few months. It's just such bullshit because the teachers are forced to teach you how to take the damn tests rather than important skills that will help you to be successful in college and beyond. Especially since these tests have such a low bar and the skills that you have to display on them are generally very mundane. However, I worry for anyone who can't pass them, lol.

[Headspace]

My wife is a teacher here in the Ft. Myers area and it was something I was thinking about getting into in a few years as well. While basing pay on FCAT scores sounds like a good way to motivate teachers, it really can't work in FL. For one, nearly half her kids can't even speak English and can you really hold that against a teacher? A good majority of her kids have no plans to go to college, they just want to work on their families farm. Also, how are they going to score the subjects that aren't part of the FCAT, like gym or art?

What I ended up telling my wife to do is to take one week out of the month, or one every two months, and work on the FCAT that week. If that's what they are going to base your pay on, then the big wigs must think it's more important than what else you're supposed to teach.

Fuck Ft Myers.

The kids here are so dumb.

[#686578]

The FCAT - I assume - is a standardized test that is required to graduate High School? If so, those tests are a joke. We had the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) when I was in HS, it was quite possibly the biggest waste of time ever. My brother now tells me that they're doing multiple standardized tests - like one every few months. It's just such bullshit because the teachers are forced to teach you how to take the damn tests rather than important skills that will help you to be successful in college and beyond. Especially since these tests have such a low bar and the skills that you have to display on them are generally very mundane. However, I worry for anyone who can't pass them, lol.

Dont quote me on this, but I BELIEVE the FCAT was originally required to pass 4th, 8th, and 10th grade. It's since evolved and I understand it's taken pretty much every year now and is basically the equivalent if you're treated like you have a mental handicap or not. No shit, no lie, if you fail the reading section of the F-cat your 40 minute English class will be replaced with a 2 hour long English class where you will do nothing but the equivalent of 4th grade reading for the rest of your life. I had a close friend who failed the F-CAT because they slept through it and it is honestly bullshit what you have to go through when you're in that class. You're learning at a slower pace, learning much less advanced material, and above all else taking way longer to cover a days worth of material. This is a county wide practice for Seminole County in Florida near the Orlando area, not just one school.

The class is almost entirely made up of doing worksheets for the entire class period. I can't think of a good way to describe it or specific examples, but it's essentially like teaching fractions to 11th graders who failed the math portion of the F-CAT in 10th grade. (Coincidentally, I dont think there's an equal penalty for under performance on the math or writing sections)

I'm going to try to avoid pulling a Max here. I am pretty smart. I'm pretty egotistical about that. I always passed the F-CAT in the 95th percentile or higher meaning that I performed higher than 95% of everyone else who took the F-CAT in every subject. Let me get that out of the way so I can make my point which is, even for someone like me it is BULLSHIT that I can finish a test that has allotted 2 hour portions in 10 minutes.

That is how easy the test is.

[Julian]

oh shit the science fcat, forgot about that one lol. Had to take it my Junior year I think, the shit they put on it was retarded, and stuff that I hadn't seen since like, middle school, but it was still pretty fucking easy to use elimination to guess the right answer.

Oh fuck, that is gunna make me really paranoid about that now when I'm walking around at night.

And the FCAT really needs to go, although I am quite troubled that many kids really struggle to pass it. The bar has been consistently lowered when we need to be raising it. Idk how the system should be fixed, but it definitely needs to be changed.

Just don't go from sidewalk<>street without looking down

[gandorf]

Sad thing is. GED = High School diploma. The only thing you get from graduating high school in Florida is a chance to get Florida Bright futures. Which could be replaced by financial aid and a few paychecks at a part time job at minimum wage.

The GED test in Florida is a joke.I dropped out of school 3yrs ago when I was sixteen. Haven't been to school since then and one day a few months ago I took the first part of the test and passed it with flying colors. I still need to go back and finish it but I have been somewhat lazy over the fact that even with it I will still have a hard time finding a job and I don't want to pay them 100$ to finish the test.

I have always felt sorry for teachers. They put up with everyone's bastard children all day long and maybe five outta twenty kids in a classroom actually wants to learn. My moms friend has been a teacher for 25yrs and she is extremely pissed off about this.

Edit: They been saying that they were doing away with FCAT since I was in fourth grade. I remember in 8th grade I got a highscore on reading and math and they tried to put me in advance classes(I was in retard classes for years) in Highschool. That lasted about two weeks before they found out I was dumb as a doorknob. Come to think of it I know more now being out of school for three years then I knew while I was in school for over ten. Oh shit I should make a post asking if I could sue my county for making me a retard. I'm gonna be rich!!

[Akucaen]

The FCAT - I assume - is a standardized test that is required to graduate High School? If so, those tests are a joke. We had the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) when I was in HS, it was quite possibly the biggest waste of time ever. My brother now tells me that they're doing multiple standardized tests - like one every few months. It's just such bullshit because the teachers are forced to teach you how to take the damn tests rather than important skills that will help you to be successful in college and beyond. Especially since these tests have such a low bar and the skills that you have to display on them are generally very mundane. However, I worry for anyone who can't pass them, lol.

Texas has had two tests in recent years, I was the last year that TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) was given. That was an absolute joke at best. We spent all of elementary being taught the TAAS test only to have out 8th grade math, science, history, and English tested. (No, seriously. It was fucking shameful to fail that test. It meant you were at minimum two years behind in that particular subject.) They gave us a practice TAAS every two years starting in the 4th grade, and we took the real one in the 10th.

TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) though was a different beast. Since we were the last year for TAAS, they gave us a practice run for TAKS. (Only took it once, so anyone who graduated in Texas in 2005 or later can shed more light on the changes. I know some parts were changed from our trial run.) They added many more sections, increased the needed knowledge to grade-appropriate knowledge, and increased the overall difficulty. It was also very apparent which subjects were taught "for real" and which ones were taught for TAAS on a per-child basis. A lot of the test went from ABCD answers to open-ended and/or critical thinking problems that couldn't be guessed. At heart it was still a lolstandardized test, but the bar was set much, much higher compared to TAAS. It felt more like the SAT where it was a standardized test, but it's still a challenge in its own right in terms of pacing and doing well overall.

Despite the TAKS being made into a decent test, I have very little doubt the teaching methods have changed. Now it'll just be "teach the TAKS."

[#686578]

There's no problem with teaching to the test, the problem is with the test and our reaction to the test scores.

[gandorf]

I went up to my sisters school last week and I swear half the school was pregnant and most of these girls looked no older then fifteen. An these schools got nursery's but they wont teach sex Ed. I think that is one of the biggest flaws with our education system.

[Akucaen]

There's no problem with teaching to the test, the problem is with the test and our reaction to the test scores.

No, being taught the test is a problem when that's all you do. For example, in 5th grade, my entire year of English was doing TAAS worksheets straight out of a workbook. We did NOTHING in terms of learning English, just practice worksheets everyday.

It was fucking ridiculous.

Edit - worth nothing. That class was an exception. My elementary school was a GT school where we actually did hand-on, real, properly educational activites/games/whatever. I fully admit part of my hatred of that is based on I was at a cool school where we had fun learning only to do THAT, but we still lost a year of English doing that regardless.

[Korietsu]

Texas has had two tests in recent years, I was the last year that TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) was given. That was an absolute joke at best. We spent all of elementary being taught the TAAS test only to have out 8th grade math, science, history, and English tested. (No, seriously. It was fucking shameful to fail that test. It meant you were at minimum two years behind in that particular subject.) They gave us a practice TAAS every two years starting in the 4th grade, and we took the real one in the 10th.

TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) though was a different beast. Since we were the last year for TAAS, they gave us a practice run for TAKS. (Only took it once, so anyone who graduated in Texas in 2005 or later can shed more light on the changes. I know some parts were changed from our trial run.) They added many more sections, increased the needed knowledge to grade-appropriate knowledge, and increased the overall difficulty. It was also very apparent which subjects were taught "for real" and which ones were taught for TAAS on a per-child basis. A lot of the test went from ABCD answers to open-ended and/or critical thinking problems that couldn't be guessed. At heart it was still a lolstandardized test, but the bar was set much, much higher compared to TAAS. It felt more like the SAT where it was a standardized test, but it's still a challenge in its own right in terms of pacing and doing well overall.

Despite the TAKS being made into a decent test, I have very little doubt the teaching methods have changed. Now it'll just be "teach the TAKS."

I was also one of the test kids for the TAKS. WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME. Seriously, the TAAS and TAKS were gigantic wastes of time. Having taken both to graduate from both MS and HS, I can surely say that it makes teaching in school worse. However, I went to a hill country school district, so we had finals on top of TAKS/TAAS, which basically said fuck you, learn the material.

Took me 15min to finish the History TAKS with a perfect score, same for Science TAKS. 20min for Math with a 100%, and 40min for English with 100%. What really pissed me off is that they made the AP and UIL (University Interscholastic League) kids go to a remedial TAKS session because we had a break period unlike everyone else, we ended up throwing a shitstorm and had that canceled.

TAKS is just as bad as TAAS, average students can easily blow off the test, and bad students can still pass by the skin of their teeth. More students were afraid of our Bio teacher's quizzes than TAKS, which was a pretty valid fear. The 4 days would be best spent teaching real material, or rather, go to making students take the PSAT to graduate, as that's a better indicator. Considering they can waste my day forcibly making me take the ASVAB (another waste of time, near perfect score, no desire to go to the military).

[Akucaen]

I was also one of the test kids for the TAKS. WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME. Seriously, the TAAS and TAKS were gigantic wastes of time. Having taken both to graduate from both MS and HS, I can surely say that it makes teaching in school worse. However, I went to a hill country school district, so we had finals on top of TAKS/TAAS, which basically said fuck you, learn the material.

Took me 15min to finish the History TAKS with a perfect score, same for Science TAKS. 20min for Math with a 100%, and 40min for English with 100%. What really pissed me off is that they made the AP and UIL (University Interscholastic League) kids go to a remedial TAKS session because we had a break period unlike everyone else, we ended up throwing a shitstorm and had that canceled.

TAKS is just as bad as TAAS, average students can easily blow off the test, and bad students can still pass by the skin of their teeth. More students were afraid of our Bio teacher's quizzes than TAKS, which was a pretty valid fear. The 4 days would be best spent teaching real material, or rather, go to making students take the PSAT to graduate, as that's a better indicator. Considering they can waste my day forcibly making me take the ASVAB (another waste of time, near perfect score, no desire to go to the military).

Oh we were PISSED about being the TAKS bitches. A lot of us threw the test and didn't try despite our teachers saying they'd add it as a real grade for that six-weeks. Luckily we also found out they had no grounds to do so, so we threw it. (legality issue, hah. Test scores were anonymous, if they recorded a grade it invalidated our results,)

The AP kids breezed through it since, like you, we had "real" finals as well, so we needed to know the material regardless. I think we had just passing scores on average since most kids did about half then filled out all C's before we got bored. A lot of those memories are a blur... mostly just remember how angry we were.

We actually were forced to take the PSAT. We did it in 8th grade though as in indicator for future SAT performance. We never took the ASVAB though, wasn't even offered to us in school on any level.

[#686578]

If the test doesnt provide sections where that type of practice would be useful they wouldnt do that type of practice.

Requiring critical thinking skills and mostly short and long responses would go long ways towards making someone actually having to think on a test. (If done right)

[Cptnobvious]

I went up to my sisters school last week and I swear half the school was pregnant and most of these girls looked no older then fifteen. An these schools got nursery's but they wont teach sex Ed. I think that is one of the biggest flaws with our education system.

This.

There was at minimum 1 girl pregnant, or had already had a kid, in every one of my classes. It was ridiculous. And there was no social stigma attached to it. People were excited about getting pregnant at 15, and actually looked forward to it. I couldn't wrap my head around it. There general thinking was that mom/dad/government is going to take care of me and the baby, so why the hell not.

[Julian]

One of the middle schools I went to had at least one girl pregnant. The school was in a blackish neighborhood/city, I was only going there because they accepted me into their IB, and I had to wake up at 5am every morning and take a 20min train ride to get there.

That didn't last very long. And it wasn't because of the train ride, because that was actually kinda fun.

[guartz]

No that's bullshit.

The teachers in Florida suck. What seems like years ago, I want to Spanish River high. A very good s. florida high school. My fucking history teacher would fall asleep mid lessons.

Fucker still works there.

[guartz]

I shit you not sons... first he'd be like "American can do enthusi..." and then "ZZzzzzz"

[Julian]

No that's bullshit.

The teachers in Florida suck. What seems like years ago, I want to Spanish River high. A very good s. florida high school. My fucking history teacher would fall asleep mid lessons.

Fucker still works there.

Who?

I went to Spanish River D:

[Hitoru]

I went to Coral Springs High and honestly it didn't seem that bad in terms of the teachers. Sure, some of the kids in my classes made my brain hurt but I guess due to where I grew up things were a bit better even in a public school.

Either way I had a full ride on bright futures and went to FSU. I have to say, anyone in Florida can apparently get into a college. Seriously my brain would explode at some of the things people would say at times.

Always been a big believer in parents not doing what they're supposed to causing a good portion of this shit. There may be a lot of crappy teachers in FL and across the nation, but there's also plenty to balance out the other side.