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Students will take the state’s standardized tests this year, but what education leaders do with the results is still up in the air. This school year has seen fewer students taking classes in person and policymakers are discussing how to address testing, and the results, this year.
Federal law requires students to be tested yearly and schools to be held accountable for that performance. It’s up to states to figure out the rest. In Florida, those test results determine teacher pay and retention, school and district grades, and funding. The pandemic forced students out of school early, and the state waived its accountability rules, giving schools, districts, and teachers a break. This school year has been full of interruptions, and they’ve touched state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s family, as he noted recently in a Facebook Live.
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Florida lawmakers will deal with the pandemic’s impact on education when they reconvene in Tallahassee in March. Among the issues: a steep drop in student attendance, growing concerns about learning losses and a Republican effort to consolidate the state’s school choice programs.
90,000.
That s about how many fewer students are enrolled in public schools this year. It s also a number that could determine everything from school funding to how the state should count student test scores, and it s a figure that s weighing heavily on the minds of lawmakers that will have to come up with plans to address COVID-19 s impact on education.