FCAT not fair measure of student's knowledge

March 14, 2009

All over Florida, teachers raced to get their students ready for the FCAT. As an eighth-grader trying to prepare myself for high school, I encounter roadblocks when learning new curriculum for the FCAT. I feel that the FCAT determining students' placement in classes adds to the stress of taking this assessment. Some students are not granted with the gift of being able to test well. Many bright students feel confident in the classroom, but when the test arrives, they tense up and test poorly. I feel that this is unfair to the student.

I had an FCAT disaster experience last year. My bat mitzvah was on a Saturday, and the reading FCAT was the following Monday. When I arrived at school, my head was still in "party" mode, the FCAT was sitting on my desk ready to judge my knowledge. Later that year, I received my score and found out that I hadn't done so well. That experience has shown me how unforgiving the FCAT is. I believe teachers should determine students' placement in their academic classes. The FCAT takes a look at how a student performed on one test during one day and makes a decision on where they should be placed. If the exam were some other day, the results would be different. The decision should be left to the teacher who has been with the student all year round.

Nicole Ruggiero, 13, Westglades Middle School, Parkland
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