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WPEC-TV CBS12 News :: News - Palm Beach County News - Eye on Education: FCAT results released

Eye on Education: FCAT results released

PALM SPRINGS, Fla. -- It's become a cornerstone of your child's education, the FCAT. Today the state released the FCAT writing results. This is the test that was changed this year causing a big drop in scores, forcing the state to change what is considered a passing grade.

Local 4th graders, 8th graders, and 10th graders took a very different FCAT writes exam this year.

Dr. Wayne Gent, Palm Beach County superintendent: In the writing, be more detail-oriented, making use of more logic. So that represented a little bit of difference from the past. So in essence, it was more difficult.

Punctuation, spelling, and grammar more heavily weighted. Those changes led to a dramatic drop in scores and just cause the state Board of Education to lower the passing test score from 4 out of 6, to 3 out of 6.

Gent: The point that can't be missed in that when we compare ourselves to the rest of the state, we still out perform them.

With the adjustment to the passing score here's the local breakdown:

4th grade:
85-percent Palm Beach County
84-percent Martin County
79-percent St. Lucie County
81-percent Indian River County
70-percent Okeechobee County

8th grade:
84-percent Palm Beach County
88-percent Martin County
78-percent St. Lucie County
77-percent Indian River County
72-percent Okeechobee County


10th grade:
89-percent Palm Beach County
87-percent Martin County
82-percent St. Lucie County
79-percent Indian River County
79-percent Okeechobee County    

Dr. Gent says he hopes what happened this year with the writing tests causes the state to take a hard look at the entire FCAT process.

Gent: Because the stakes are so high. And we're all for rigor, and high standards. We just want to make sure our students aren't penalized, and that it's a fair test.

Results of the other FCAT tests still to be released.Eye on Education: FCAT results released

Friday, May 18 2012, 07:02 PM EDT

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