Florida was one of the first states to adopt a policy consistent with that of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The main aspect of the NCLB is a standardized test that students at several grade levels must take and pass in order to move on to the next grade. Florida instituted such a test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), in 1998.

Since its implementation, Florida remains in the bottom ten percent of the nation in education. Students, teachers, and administrators alike have all expressed their opposition to the FCAT, but politicians at both the state and federal level continue to spout off ideological banter in favor of both the law and the tests.

On its surface, the testing system seems simple: schools that have higher average test scores or that increase their scores from the previous year are provided additional funding by the government. Essentially, the political talking point here is simply that if schools do their jobs well, they will be rewarded. However, this kind of thinking is the type of logic that ironically leaves children behind.

Schools with lower budgets that have student bodies that sit near the lower rung of the economic ladder start out at a disadvantage. As they perform poorly on their state tests, they are denied additional funding and are forced to start over with the same substandard resources. Meanwhile, well funded schools in more upscale economic areas that begin with an advantage perform well overall on their state tests. As they perform well, they receive performance bonuses from the government. It is essentially a system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but those who are affected the most are children and teens.

The political game of using catchy slogans and honorable sounding names for programs that in reality are far from honorable is something that at the very least children should be exempted from. Teachers throughout the nation complain about having to teach to a test rather than teaching students the kind of information they actually need to know. Students who perform well in their classes throughout the year, but struggle when presented with a structured standardized test are forced to repeat entire years of their education.

Administrators of failing schools are searching for answers to the questions of how to fix aging campuses, how to provide new books, and how to hire new teachers for students who are stuck in a perpetual loop of failure. Meanwhile, some politicians are promoting voucher systems that would allow some students to transfer from failing public schools into private schools rather than simply addressing the problem of fixing these public schools. These are the kinds of issues that arise when politicians and legislators rather than experts in the field of education are shaping policy in this area.

Learn more about this author, Art Vandelay.
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