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More Are Failing FCAT But Earning A Diploma

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By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 29, 2008

Of the 147,000 public high school graduates in Florida last year, at least 6,500 earned a diploma without ever having passed the 10th-grade FCAT.

How? They received a comparable passing score on the SAT or ACT college prep tests, an option school districts are encouraging more and more.

The record-high graduation rate of 75.4 percent that state education leaders announced earlier this month included thousands more students who earned a diploma through that alternate assessment. Educators expect that number to increase

To earn a diploma, students must pass the 10th-grade math and English portions of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. If they fail, however, they can earn a diploma by scoring at least a 15 on the ACT or a 410 verbal score on the SAT. If they fell short of the math FCAT cutoff, they graduate if they scored a 15 on the ACT or a 370 SAT math score.

MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of Hillsborough County schools, said the district has in recent years been more proactive in "making sure that kids know this is a viable option."

It wasn't always that way. In the 2002-03 school year, the first in which graduation rested on the FCAT score, 135 students statewide took the SAT or ACT option. That number swelled by hundreds each year thereafter.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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