Florida’s Legislature is looking for ways to keep FCAT in perspective at high school. Currently, the high-stakes, statewide exams are the Alpha and Omega of school grades. How students perform on these tests determine what letter grades — and what, if any, bonus funds — their schools receive from the Department of Education.
State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, wants to broaden the high school report card by factoring in other measurements.
Under his Senate Bill 1908, FCAT would count for only half of a school’s letter grade. The remaining 50 percent would be scored according to graduation rates, participation in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, dual enrollment classes, SAT/ACT results and vocational certifications.
Such indicators are worth measuring. Higher grad rates and vocational certificates are definitely needed, as Florida is anemic on both counts.
Gaetz also makes the valid point that fewer than half of a school’s students may actually be taking FCATs in any given year. So, some balance seems in order.
But at least two of the bill’s benchmarks could simply invite more grade inflation.
First, mere participation in AP and IB courses isn’t enough; passing those class exams is what counts. While Florida’s AP enrollment rate far exceeds national averages, test passage rates fall below U.S. performance. A better barometer is success on the test — just as the bill treats SAT/ACT results.
A second pitfall is the graduation rate, which Florida computes more generously than do federal or independent analysts. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ announcement that her agency will set a standard national protocol will, hopefully, get everyone on the same page. Until then, the local numbers are suspect.
One other potential measure of schools curiously neglected by Gaetz is safety. Parents would find it useful to know how much violence there is in a school and how many suspensions there are.

tcpalm.com

It’s just after 1 a.m. CDT as I’m writing this. Sunrise will officially begin day one of a two-day period that I look forward to every year as a sports fan. While every other round in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament can be just as exciting, it’s the first round that always captivates and amazes us.
It is a round that can either bust a lot of our brackets or put us ahead of whatever pool we may be entering (at least until the second round). It is a round that has us flipping channels or surfing through the web to catch final scores of games we didn’t get to see, particularly afternoon games.
Personally, I won’t have to worry about missing daytime scores tomorrow. I’m on spring break, so this will be the first time ever I am able to watch the first games of the tournament from the comforts of my own home—instead of going to CBS Sportsline during some business or English class.
What do we do while we are watching this? We might be pulling our hair out or calling our friends to whine and complain because our brackets are off to a terrible start. Inversely, we could be calling our friends just to rub in their faces that we’ve gotten almost every game right so far.
However, there is one thing that no sports fan can deny happens during this or any other round during the tournament: Drama.
We eagerly await the unthinkable upsets that will occur over these first couple of days.
The first round has seen its share of upsets over the years. It’s already been 10 years since Bryce Drew lifted Valparaiso to a win at the buzzer against Ole Miss. More recently, who can remember 14 seeds Bucknell and Northwestern State upsetting first-round foes Kansas and Iowa, respectively?

bleacherreport.com