New reading test has glitches

Assessments designed to help students

By LINDA TRIMBLE
Education Writer

Matanzas High School reading coach Mella Baxter planned to spend all day testing students' reading skills on a new statewide, online assessment.

She ditched those plans after the Florida Department of Education limited Friday's testing to only eight school districts around the state because of ongoing problems with a computer system struggling to handle the load as teachers try to test 1.9 million students by the state's Oct. 19 deadline.

It's the latest chapter in a bumpy rollout of the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading, known as FAIR for short, that's been marked by a computer system that frequently responds slowly or freezes up as students log on.

School districts are required to use FAIR this year in assessing kindergartners' readiness for reading and were given the option of using it in other grades for state-required monitoring of the progress of struggling readers.

Most districts chose the expanded testing option. Volusia and Flagler have scheduled all elementary students to take the test, with students with low FCAT reading scores taking it in middle and high schools.

State officials said they've made multiple fixes to the computer system and things are improving, but Baxter has yet to see that. "The state says it's better every day, but we're not seeing it better every day in our daily experience," the Palm Coast teacher said Friday.

While Baxter and others said FAIR offers valuable feedback to teachers on students' reading skills, they're frustrated by the extra class time being eaten up by the up-and-down computer system.

And they worry about how it will affect the accuracy of this round of test results and what it says about the state's readiness to move to online administration of the other tests like the all important FCAT, scheduled to be phased in beginning in 2011-12.

Florida students must pass that exam -- the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- to graduate from high school. FCAT scores also are used to determine which children pass third grade and which schools qualify for cash bonuses or must offer their students transfers to other schools.

"I can't get my head around how they can possibly make the FCAT work online when they've had so many problems with this," Baxter said.

Volusia Deputy Superintendent Chris Colwell characterized the FAIR problems as "growing pains" that are common with major new initiatives, but he said the assessment is superior to those the district was using before in analyzing students' reading skills and progress.

"We understand it's taking longer than expected," he said, but the lessons learned from this experience should help prepare for the state's planned move into online testing for FCAT and end-of-course exams.

Flagler testing coordinator Jim Devine is among those concerned the computer problems may impact the accuracy of this round of FAIR results. "I have a concern with any kind of assessment when a student starts it and they're stopped for any reason and they have to come back to it," Devine said. "It's not a good testing situation."

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