JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In just a few months, students in across the state will take a new standardized assessment, which replaces the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
Because it will be the first time students in Florida have taken the new test, the Duval County School Board passed a resolution earlier this week urging the Board of Education to use this as a transition year and not issue school grades.
The School Board thinks wants this year's test to establish a baseline to establish future growth for future years.
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School Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti said that it would be difficult to determine student growth based solely comparing a new test to the results of a different test last year. He said he fully supports the new test and using it for school grades in the 2015-2016 school year, just not this year.
"At the end of the day, if school grades really matter, and they do to give the citizens a sense of the academic health of a school, then we should recognize the fact that this is a transition year," Vitti said.
Vitti said the State Board of Education has said there will be no direct sanctions this year based on those school grades, but indirect sanctions that come from those grades would be unavoidable.
"A lot of parents look at those grades and say I should send my child there or not," he said. "We could see tremendous declines based on these new standards, and it's not because our kids are not working hard or the teachers aren't working hard."
Vitti says that he does want the test scores published so that the public knows how students performed on the test and so that they can be compared based on scores in other counties.
He said that some other school districts across the state either have already or are expected to past similar proposals to the state soon.
"We are continuing to advocate do the right thing, have a solid year of transition, build a baseline and then build off that in future years," Vitti said.
"It's really important that parents and students take seriously the transition to the new standards. I think teachers are really helping parents understand that," said Deirdre Conner of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund.
Conner said that using this year's scores to establish a baseline result to compare future years especially since many are still unsure what will be in the test.
"They haven't had a ton of time to look at it, and it hasn't been tested here in Florida," she said.
Vitti said that the district can still hold teachers, students and administrators accountable for their performance this year without school grades being issued, and he hopes those at the state level will see that as well.