Teaching to the test works! That's how this headline should read. Isn't there a better way to gauge if kids are learning? Testing should be a part of all assessment but it is not the panacea. Oh yeah, here is the caveat, "Because the FCAT is still relatively new, testing experts warned that rising scores do not necessarily come from better teaching or smarter pupils. As teachers and students become more familiar with the test, scores will naturally rise, they say."

Update: The governor is comparing apples to oranges again. The "soaring" FCAT scores represent comparisons between two different groups of students. Even the data reported in the Times compares last year's third-graders with this year's third-graders, last year's fourth-graders with this year's fourth-graders, etc. A much more significant data comparison would be between last year's third-graders and this year's fourth-graders. Oh, and what about that thing called random variation? Do we even know if the differences reported between the 2002 and 2003 FCAT reading and math scores represents significant improvement? And let's remember that a single data point is no basis for making high-stakes decisions about anything. FCAT critics shouldn't back off. Not only is the test being misused, but so are the data from the test. Op-ed from St. Petersburg Times