Resolution on Accountability by our superintendent, Dr. Roberts, was unanimously approved tonight: The School Board of Alachua County, Florida Resolution on Accountability WHEREAS, The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, is committed to the success of every student; and WHEREAS, The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, believes that the future well-being of our county, state, and nation depends on a public education system that will graduate students who have the knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics to be lifelong learners and independent thinkers -- students who will excel in their chosen careers and be productive and contributing members of the global community; and WHEREAS, The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, believes in accountability for both its students and employees; and WHEREAS, The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, is required to participate in the State of Florida assessment program, which utilizes high-stakes standardized testing of students to make major decisions affecting students, teachers, administrators, and schools; and WHEREAS, the State’s high-stakes standardized testing program continues to grow in both scope and cost, which is undermining educational quality in our schools by focusing on inadequate and unreliable standardized testing at the expense of classroom instruction time that should be focused on a broad range of learning experiences for students to promote critical thinking skills, creativity, and deep subject-matter knowledge of subjects necessary to develop productive citizens; and WHEREAS, the increasing over-emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing has created numerous barriers for students seeking to receive a high-quality public education, including a narrowed curriculum that is often focused on only the standardized test, the introduction of the concept of failure to young students for whom school and learning should be a fun and rewarding experience, the loss or handcuffing of quality teachers, and the loss of public confidence in our public schools; and WHEREAS, the use of high-stakes standardized tests to label students, schools, or teachers as failures affects all students and has a disproportionate, negative impact on minority and low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities; and WHEREAS, the State of Florida has not and continues not to use standardized testing instruments that are correlated to national or international assessment instruments, which prevents meaningful comparison of both student achievement and progress in Florida with students from other states and countries; and WHEREAS, the State of Florida has enacted an unfunded mandate requiring each school district to create and adopt hundreds of end-of-course exams for every subject offered to students and then use those assessments to measure student learning and teacher effectiveness; and WHEREAS, in this digital age, the increasing scope of the State’s mandatory on- line assessment program is diverting time and resources from technological instruction and learning to accommodate an ever-increasing number of required on-line assessments, which will harm our students’ ability to compete in the global market; and WHEREAS, the State of Florida has failed to demonstrate that its previous and current assessment programs, which have not been field-tested in Florida, are able to provide the reliable and consistent data necessary to support the accountability measures for which the assessments are used; and WHEREAS, the State of Florida is failing to uphold its constitutional obligation under Article IX, Section 1 of the Florida Constitution, which provides that it is therefore BE IT RESOLVED, that The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, calls on Governor Scott, the Florida Legislature, and the State Board of Education to provide for no less than a three-year transition for full implementation of the accountability system based on the Florida State Standards, Florida Standards Assessment, and local assessments, with no impact on students, teachers, administrators, schools, or districts during this transition. FURTHER, BE IT RESOLVED, that The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, calls on the Florida Legislature to delay the use of Florida’s state assessments to determine student promotion and graduation, as well as teacher and administrator evaluations, until at least July 1, 2017. In the interim, school districts should have the flexibility to make their own decisions about standards for student promotion and graduation and employee performance. “a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders” and that this shall be done by enacting laws to create “a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education;” FURTHER, BE IT RESOLVED, that The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, calls on the State Board of Education to assemble a representative panel of all stakeholders, including public school parents and teachers, to oversee the implementation of the State’s accountability system to ensure that it is reliable, accurate, fair, and properly funded. FURTHER, BE IT RESOLVED, that The School Board of Alachua County, Florida, calls on the United States Congress to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act,” to reduce high-stakes testing mandates and allow for an Accountability system based on all forms of reliable evidence.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 03:44:17 +0000