Today, Patricia Levesque, Executive Director of Foundation for Florida’s Future, released the following statement on proposed changes to the state’s accountability system:
“Access to a quality education is a foundational promise the state of Florida makes to every student and, over the past two decades, we have stayed true to that promise, learning that a high-quality and successful assessment and accountability system along with educational choice for families creates better outcomes for students.
“Through experience, we know this requires high expectations for students, strong summative assessments that are aligned to these expectations, school grading that holds the education system accountable for helping every child make progress and achieve, transparent and clear information for parents on their child’s progress and performance, and strong interventions and supports for students and schools that need it.
“Because of these policies, Florida has moved from the bottom on almost every national indicator to being in the top 10 or above the national average on those same indicators.
“Today, Governor Ron DeSantis and Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced changes to Florida’s accountability system.
“One such change would move statewide assessments to an online and adaptive testing approach. We applaud this enhancement, which could provide teachers more flexibility to teach and students more time to learn, shorten testing time, allow tests to identify student performance more quickly, and return results back to parents and teachers more expediently.
“Other changes, however, raise questions:
“As these proposals are vetted and take shape, we look forward to working with policy leaders, educators, and parents to ensure modernizations to our system keep Florida’s students moving in the right direction.”
