Jay Wheeler
School Board

School Board Florida Commissioner of Education Gerard Robinson abruptly announced his resignation from his post the end of last month.

His resignation is effective Aug. 31. The stated reason was that he missed his family back in Virginia. Can’t help wondering why it took him so long to realize that he missed his family, and why when he accepted the post he didn’t think he’d miss his family if he left them behind? On the other hand is this the real reason or a way for him and Gov. Scott to save face? Only time will tell.

In his short tenure Commissioner Robinson has had a knack for displaying his lack of knowledge about K-12 Florida Public Education. In a letter he wrote that was published in the June 15 Tampa Bay Times Robinson writes; the FCAT “…account for less than 1 percent of instructional time provided during the year.” In the week prior to that letter I attended the Florida School Board Association spring conference in Tampa, and was present to hear him speak addressing those present in a tone that can only be described as arrogant and condescending. Marion County School Board member Bobby James sat with me and after Robinson’s speech turned to me and said; “those sound like fighting words!”

Add the recent missteps of the fouled up state writing score debacle, and the miscalculation of school letter grades for more than 100 schools statewide and a pattern of incompetence emerges. Bear in mind that this all happened during his 11 months on the job. He did takeover a department of education that prior to his arrival and still is unable to get High School information from the previous year back to anyone until after the next school years Thanksgiving break, and other data not back to districts and parents until after the school year has ended.

Additionally the Florida Department of education has abdicated its role for accountability to a sole source for profit testing company for all public school FCAT testing to Pearson Education. As a result of the Obama Race to the Top initiative we are now heading into “common core” which is supposed to be the next step towards standardized testing. The only catch is that no one can give a definitive answer who and how the tests will be developed. Many, including myself are highly suspicious that Pearson will get this contract too.

Understand that in the 2010-11, 2009-10, and 2008-09 school years the Florida Department of Education paid Pearson a total $132 million for administering standardized testing. They will not go away from that kind of revenue stream without a fight. Meanwhile as they are making money, the FCAT has turned into something it was never intended to be and kids are being hurt by it. Do not take this to say that anyone is against accountability. Accountability is vitally important in public education. We just need to adopt a different metric than the FCAT, or more to the point Pearson. Accountability should be more than a revenue model for a company.

Here are the steps for improvement the next Florida Commissioner of Education needs to embrace. First, start funneling money for standards and testing to universities with a college of education that has no profit motive. Never give one entity a monopoly on testing, break it into three parts. High School, Middle School, and Elementary School. Next, get the Department of Education back to work with providing performance data back to districts prior to the end of the school year. In the case of high schools, by June 30. Surely with electronic data collection and communication they can operate much faster than the snail’s pace they currently move at. The department of education expects our students and teachers to work in a timely manner; we should expect the same from the department of education. Finally don’t be a “yes man”, if there is a problem-admit it.

Now it is up to Gov. Scott to hire a strong leader who tackles problems with a sense of urgency, or  will he hire another quasi-leader who will tell us all that we “spend less than 1 percent of instructional time” on FCAT? As the current Vice Chairman of the Central Florida Public School Board Coalition, and 2013 incoming coalition Chairman, I look forward to working with leaders on improving schools and accountability metrics for our kids and schools.

Hopefully we will get someone who can see things for what they are who wants to do more than apply spin to something at the state level, and instead admit to the problems that exist with K-12 accountability and work in collaboration to bring the vast improvements that are so badly needed.

Jay Wheeler is the Osceola County School Board member for district 1.