What shoes go with FCAT?

Yesterday your child's education went on hold. It is officially FCAT season in Florida. Don't worry, your child's normal education will resume in two weeks.

Getting ready for school Monday morning, I had to guffaw as I wondered which shoes to wear for FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test). I didn't want to make too much noise wearing some sort of clickety-clackety heels. Perhaps in defiance, I wore them anyways.

Let me paint a picture of what it's like to walk in the shoes of a teacher administering the FCAT. Your already early arrival of 7:10 may begin even earlier this day. You report to school well before the sun. The testing headquarters are in the windowless In School Suspension (ISS) room and open at 6:30 am. You walk into the room, where the weary guidance counselors have been transformed into paper-pushing-schedule-making-pencil-sharpening-drones. They are not able to counsel students this time of year as they are tied up in testing preparation. You recount all of your tests and grab your goodie bag. You head to your room to figure out which movie you will be showing that afternoon. Or if you're like me, you plan to finally take the opportunity to do that artsy project whose benefits can not actually be measured.

The students file in begrudgingly, fully understanding the magnitude of the three hour sentencing that awaits them. As their fearless leader, you try to maintain a balance of airy calmness, cheery energy, and solemn dignity. After all, you are being scored today too. Then you have the challenge of getting 300 kids to use a restroom with only 3 stalls each. There are late busses. Most students seem to have gotten a good rest last night, but some are already having a bad day. This is just one test. One day. One snapshot. Yet it weighs so much on them and us. It determines which class they will be in next year: honors, advanced, or intensive. Starting next year, it will determine our pay scale. That's a story for another day. Regardless, the stakes are high.

Finally, all students have arrived and gone to their testing room. It's now time for about 20 minutes of directions and material managing. The test finally begins and I have free time to catch up on grading papers and plan lessons! NOT. We are supposed to walk around the room monitoring the students. If a student is caught cheating, we could get in deep trouble. I'm talking lose your job or certification. I know some teachers will read a book or check their email, but I come from the school of CYA. So I watched those chillins take that FCAT. Okay, at some point I got really antsy and started making a wedding to-do list. Some might think this sounds like a nice break, but there is something rather draining about doing nothing in an environment where there are a million things to do.

My students hardly lifted their nose from their books or their pencils from their paper. Of course, there are the token kids who just want to stare out the window. There are a few short breaks to stand, stretch, and eat some pretzels. Finally, students are done but don't have the energy to celebrate. It's lunch time. I drop off my tests in ISS, this takes 10 minutes as I scored very low in my "ability to survive in a bureaucracy" on my district entrance exam. By the time I grab my lunch and walk to the cafeteria, I am told I have 15 minutes to eat. I protest but they remind me that today is FCAT day. I walk into the teacher's lounge and my teachers are outraged but not surprised that I have been told I have 15 minutes to eat. I go back to speak to my assistant principal, but before I can open my mouth he says, "You get your 30 minutes." He's not all bad. FCAT stresses out everybody.

Too add to the insanity, it's an early release day. We switch classes one more time, and I take my students to our video conference room where we do a virtual field trip. Pretty cool. We learned some things today despite FCAT's best efforts.

How many days are lost to testing in an already very short school year? In an 180 day school year, I estimate that 26 days are used this year in the name of standardized testing. That's 14.4% of our school year dedicated to filling in bubbles as a measure of a student's (and now a teacher's) achievement.

Don't believe me? Here's the breakdown:
4 days for FAIR (3 times a year, but there's always at least one day where the computers don't work and we have to go back)
3 days FCAT (2 days reading, 1 day for math. This is just 6th grade. I'm not counting the 2 weeks where various grades in the school disrupt our schedule for FCAT testing.)
3 days for district writing exams
2 days for school-purchased FCAT practice, Write Score
1 day for Brainchild, a school-purchased web-based FCAT practice "tool"
1 day EPAT, practice software for reading FCAT
2 days district language arts end of semester exams
1 day Stanford Norm Referenced Test (NRT)
2 days practice moving to the correct testing room
7 days to FCAT tutoring

I'm glad I missed the tidal wave that is FCAT in my own Florida education. I graduated in 2004, just barely missing the world of "there is only one right answer." But now I teach it.


I snapped this photo (not during the test!) of my students' confiscated electronic devices. I thought about grabbing the bag and running away. There's a couple grand right there!