WEST PALM BEACH, FL-- Widespread opposition to a new testing program in Palm Beach County schools prompted administrators to back down.
Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey Hernandez alerted principals late Thursday that the school district would immediately revise the controversial embedded assessments initiative.
"This was a need," Hernandez said in an interview Friday. "We were responsive to the needs of teachers and principals."
Schools will no longer be required to administer the district-issued tests in most subjects and grade levels roughly every three weeks. Instead, principals at each school will be empowered to create their own tests or use the district versions, whenever they choose.
"Each school principal will have the flexibility to make the decision of when it is appropriate to administer these assessments at their school to monitor the learning of students," Hernandez wrote in an e-mail.
Principals and teachers cheered the changes.
"Fabulous!" Principal Una Hukill of Beacon Cove Intermediate school in Jupiter wrote in an e-mail to Hernandez. "I truly believe by making some concessions, much of the tensions will be relieved. Thanks!"
Toni Bicknell, math department chairperson at Boca Raton High School thanked Hernandez and wrote, "It was exciting to see the smiles return to teacher's faces today."
"I can tell you we have been extremely stressed this year because we want to be the best we can be, yet feel too much has been asked all at once," Bicknell said.
The district will continue to use two other academic programs that have been under fire: curriculum outlines for teachers called "frameworks," and a teaching model called departmentalization for most third-, fourth- and fifth-graders.
Superintendent Art Johnson agreed to change the embedded assessments plan after meetings with PTA groups, focus groups with principals and teachers, and a superintendent's task force with 50 educators from around the county.
"We looked at all the feedback that was given," Hernandez said.
The action also follows criticism from hundreds of parents in e-mails to the School Board and district administration, coordinated protests through a Facebook page called "Testing is not Teaching! - PBC citizens united to make a difference!" and a website, parents4teachers.org.
Yet until Friday's announcement, administrators said they were pleased with the embedded assessments program. For weeks, they collected testimonials from principals and teachers praising the tests.
Hernandez said all of the curriculum changes were developed to ensure students are learning according to new, tougher state and federal guidelines.
