Click Here To View Top 3 Term Paper Sites

  Increasing Scores of Disabled High School Students on the FCAT

Target Population:

     Target population of my project is disabled high school students keen to take FCAT test for higher studies. The majority of students with disabilities taking FCAT are identified as speech impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, language impaired, emotionally handicapped, visually impaired, specific learning disabled, hospital homebound and traumatic brain injured.

Problem/Need:

There are many flaws in FCAT system, only student with adequate reading skills can perform well on the FCAT, which make the test harder and sometimes impossible for disabled high school students. The main aim of the FCAT, like any other test, should be to find out what students have learned and what they understand, not how they process and acquire raw information. In my view, requiring a student with disabilities to pass the FCAT with current rules is analogous to requiring the student in a wheelchair to run the two hundred-yard dash. Disabled students population continues to grow faster than the normal student population. From 1996-97 to 2001-02 the disabled students population grew 14% while the non-disabled student population grew only 2%. In the fall of 2000 a total of 440,969 Florida students were receiving exceptional education. The numbers of disabled students served by districts ranged from 148 in Lafayette County to 58,030 in Dade County (OPPAGA, 1999)

Setting:

The idea to increase the focus on the elements that have been identified by the Florida Legislature to grade Coral Shores High School was agreed upon by all parties. These are the skill areas of reading, mathematics, writing, and the percentage of those students eligible to take the FCAT who actually take the test.

The Florida Board of Education should take measures to implement changes in the way so that disabled students can comfortably take the all-important Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. These changes include increasing space between test questions, using sound machines to reduce noise distractions and allowing more movement.

References

OPPAGA, Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (1999) State's Testing Participation Goal Unmet in Fast-Growing Exceptional Education Program, Report No.99-19, Page No. 1-3