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Does The 'C' In FCAT Stand For 'Chagrin'?

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By Camille Beredjick / The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 15, 2008

It's that magical time of year again, when teachers cram repetitive curriculum into young, impressionable minds and students cringe at the mention of four little letters. Ah, it's FCAT season.

I hate this standardized examination of my knowledge that has controlled much of my schooling. It has plagued my educational track for seven years now, and I can't name a single benefit I've gotten from it, except maybe free peanut butter crackers three days a year.

Being a junior, I am retired from FCAT, with the exception of the dreaded science test recently added to the FCAT lineup. But I still see the effects of this test all around me.

The high school FCAT measures our aptitude on material that was relevant in classes years ago. Students in more advanced classes are deterred from learning the material for honors and advanced placement courses by mindless FCAT review

The questions are obscure and don't reflect students' intelligence or knowledge. I have several classmates who make good grades in college-level courses who nearly failed portions of the FCAT, perhaps because honors English courses and Advanced Placement language and composition classes have trained us to examine written works differently than the FCAT.

In contrast, students in lower-level classes must spend the majority of their class time focusing on how to pass this single test, rather than obtaining the skills they'll need in the real world.

This doesn't even touch the absurdity of the writing portion of FCAT, which does not in any way measure your skills as a writer. It simply trains you to memorize a basic five-paragraph essay format.

A high-scoring FCAT essay lacks any structural creativity or varied thought processes; a few four-syllable vocabulary words and a personal example or two are enough to drive the graders ecstatic with literary satisfaction. Some of the most talented writers of my class have gladly earned less-than-great scores for refusing to conform to this cookie-cutter method of writing.

Even at the elementary school level, this test is delivering mixed messages about what kids should be learning.

I'm currently tutoring a fifth-grader who has been struggling with FCAT math concepts. Once a week, we log on to the FCAT practice Web site, solve sample problems, and essentially allow one little test to confuse us both into oblivion.

The questions are insanely frustrating. They're split into small sections. There's the sports section for hyperactive youngsters and the whimsical circus section for those with imagination. But my least favorite is the "Florida History" section.

Each problem attempts to incorporate tidbits of historical information into a mathematical context, confusing the times tables out of any kid who's already having a hard time figuring out the purpose of this test. My young friend must sort through fact after fact about Kissimmee and Withlacoochee, decipher maps of Cherokee campgrounds and stutter names of obscure locations in St. Augustine, only to eventually be asked how many sides there are in a pentagon.

I'm all for some history on the side, but the addition of such new and random material can only hurt a kid's chances of identifying what skill he's actually being tested on.

So, what's a school system to do about such an outlandish measure of supposed intelligence? Perhaps we should come up with a more sensible way to decide if our students deserve to move on up to the next grade, be it yet another standardized test or sticking with the class-specific exams.

I'm open to suggestions, just as long as they don't require extensive knowledge of landmarks in St. Augustine.

Camille Beredjick is a junior at Chamberlain High School.

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