James Davis: “for the last several months I have gotten an earful from parents, students, and teachers in Florida who are concerned…”

“for the last several months I have gotten an earful from parents, students, and teachers in Florida who are concerned that standardized educational testing has run amuck there. Today, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of school children in Florida, I rise in support of this amendment. I am not opposed to testing students every year, but I believe the principal purpose of testing should be diagnostic. Testing should determine where my third grader is at the beginning of the year and what he needs to do to get to where he needs to be at the end of the school year. Testing should tell my child, my wife and I, and the teacher, what my child's needs are and how to help meet those needs. I also support accountability. I want to know how my child's schools are doing in relation to other schools. In the Florida legislature, I chaired a subcommittee that wrote our accountability law. But unfortunately, through the FCAT standardized test in Florida, the governor and the legislature have turned that law on its head and are using testing as a public relations tool. Florida already tests reading and math in the third through the tenth grades. However, teachers, principals, and students receive no information that helps them identify the needs of children and what they need to help those children learn. Teachers and students in Florida are not stupid. They have figured out this testing system does nothing to help teachers teach and children learn.”