KB K-8 Center - Much room for improvementIslander News, September 9, 2010. Letter to the Editor. Last week’s front page article “K-8 Center a Solid A” in the Islander News asserted that “The Key Biscayne K-8 Center once again earned a "solid A" based on the 2010 FCAT scores, making it one of South Florida's top-performing schools.” Although I respect and appreciate the work our Principal, teachers and administration do for the school, the data indicated in the article implies our school is performing as a “solid A” grade school, when the reality is that children in various grade levels at the K-8 Center are performing at a good level, but nowhere at the top of the highest performing public schools in the State of Florida.. Let’s take for instance 5th grade’s FCAT results, as these are indicative of the level our children graduate from elementary school. By measuring the “Mean Scale Score”, ranging from 100 (lowest) to 500 (highest), as used by the Florida Department of Education, KB K-8 scored 351 in Math, 329 in Reading and 340 in Science. These scores place KB K-8 Center in position number 285 for Math, 387 for Reading and 310 for Science as compared to other schools in Florida. These positions are far from the top-performing schools as described in the article. Furthermore, KB K-8 Center position has declined 25% in Math, 17% in Reading and 48% in Science from the 2008 FCAT results. FCAT measures student performance based on the Sunshine State Standard, which are very basic and far from what could be considered a global benchmark. In addition, FCAT scoring favors a higher score by interpreting a 3, in the scale of 1 to 5, as “successful”, even though the definition of a 3 states “partial success… but inconsistent performance”, or a “C-“ at best. When the Sunshine State Standards place our graduates from elementary school in the 285+ position in the State of Florida, I believe that our celebration should be somewhat subdued. Particularly in a community with our demographics, where many parents have college degrees and where children are closely attended to by their parents. Instead, it should be a call for improvement and for our community to become involved in the matters of public education. Our community should collaborate with our school and school district to make sure our children receive a high quality public education that FCAT results clearly show our children are not getting and that should be demanded from a community like ours. FCAT scores are detailed in the FDOE website http://fcat.fldoe.org/, and an objective summary can be seen and the www.keybiscayneeducationfoundation.org. Angel Martin |
