Gov. Rick Scott signaled that he supports holding all schools that receive taxpayer funding to similar standards — a stance that could open the door to administering state tests to some private school students.
The exact extent of what Scott would envision for private schools that accept students receiving scholarships paid for with tax credits wasn’t clear from his brief remarks at a press conference following Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.
But the remarks seemed to square with complaints from some critics of the state’s voucher system who note that students in those schools don’t have to take the state’s Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
“I believe anybody that gets state dollars ought to be under the same standards,” Scott said.
Currently, students who receive vouchers to go to private schools don’t take the FCAT, which is used at the state’s public schools. They do, however, take other tests like the Stanford Achievement Test, a national test. The results can then be adjusted to estimate how well a student would do on the FCAT.
Jon East, a spokesman for Step Up for Students — the administrator of the state’s voucher program — said the discussion that Scott seemed to have embarked upon was an important one for the state.
And he noted that students could begin taking the same test when the education system begins to transition to the “common core standards,” a national model for curriculum.
“I think common core could be the kind of solution that will cross all sorts of boundaries,” East said.
However, it’s not clear what role private schools will have in the common core, he added.
by Brandon Larrabee
