FCAT Writing and Reading Results are in - WMBB News 13 - The Panhandle's News Leader

The official FCAT Writing and Reading results are released and Bay District officials say although there are problems with the state's new version of the test, they do have something to celebrate. 

District officials say Bay County students should be proud of the 9^th and 10^th grade reading results, as both grade levels beat the state average, which shows a little more than half of Florida students passed the FCAT reading assessment. But district official say Bay students do need work on the FCAT Writing scores as in 4^th, 8^th and 10^th grade, students performed at a lower level than the state.  

The FCAT Writing assessment is under a lot of scrutiny right now as Tuesday in an emergency ruling, the State Board of Education lowered the passing grade from a 4.0 to a 3.0 as preliminary results showed that 75% of students initially failed the exam. This year the state implement it's new FCAT 2.0, which made the writing portion tougher to take and tougher to pass as the importance of grammar and punctuation weighed heavier than schools anticipated.  

Bay District's Coordinator of Assessment and Accountability, Camilla Hudson doesn't think the FCAT Writing exam is valid. 

"I think what the board did was put a band aid on a cut. I don't think it saves it at all, I think we need to look for next year to see why this happened this year and what we can do to change it. It was like our student went into take a biology exam but they were graded on a history exam. I see no validity in the test at all and it is not an indication of our students their level and knowledge of writing," said Hudson.  

Parents can find their child's individual grade through their parent portal on the Bay District School's website.