Parents Campaign to Take Back Kids' Summers
High-Stakes Testing Has Cost Some August

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 22, 2006

MIAMI -- The pressures of federally mandated exams have pushed public schools here and in several other states to begin classes weeks earlier than usual to squeeze in more days of instruction before the critical tests, sometimes striking August entirely from vacation calendars and devoting the month, traditionally left open for childhood leisure, to class time.

But a widespread backlash, led by disgruntled parents organized into loosely affiliated Save Our Summers groups across the country, is underway.

Legislators in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Pennsylvania are weighing bills this year that would peg school start dates to Labor Day. North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin passed similar measures in recent years.

The issue is one of the most controversial aspects in the debate over the exams used to comply with the No Child Left Behind law, leading to widening opposition and adding to the litany of complaints about the side effects of what critics call "high-stakes" testing.

Public schools here, for example, began classes at the beginning of August, essentially wiping out a month many had counted on for a spell of unhurried pleasure. Sherry Sturner, a mother of two in Miami-Dade County, had been looking forward to a family reunion up north and time at the swimming pool. But the new schedule did not accommodate them.

"It just felt so out of whack," said Sturner, who created a Save Our Summers group to shift the school calendar back. "Every year, the schools were taking another week out of our summers. It was hot . So I said, 'You know what? I've had enough.' "

Or as South Florida-based columnist Dave Barry asked Miami Herald readers: "Here's a multiple-choice test: When should the school year start?

"A. Sometime around Sept. 1, when most of the United States of America has started school for many decades.

"B. On Aug. 8 -- also known as "smack dab in the middle of summer'' -- when the average Florida classroom is roughly the same temperature as a pizza oven."

Gov. Jeb Bush (R), a champion of the school accountability tests, known here as the FCATs, said he backs the bill tying school openings to Labor Day. The measure easily won endorsement from a House committee last week.

"I like it because, first of all, I'm tired of the FCAT being an excuse for everything from the common cold to the state of the schools," Bush told reporters recently. "It's just not right. I think bringing some certainty across the state is a good thing."

Critics have blamed the exams for creating unhealthy academic pressures and unnecessarily narrowing the definition of education to what can be measured by the tests. Some schools have sacrificed recess, art, music or social studies to gain preparation time for the exams.

The creep of classes into August "is just one of the many harmful and stupid consequences of high-stakes testing," said Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, a group critical of the use of tests. "People are experiencing one harmful consequence after another from the use of these tests. It steadily is ticking people off."

Indeed, Sturner, who gathered 8,000 online signatures in her lobbying effort, said that many parents offered additional complaints.

"I have gotten a lot of e-mails saying kids are facing enough pressure with homework and FCAT testing and the need to achieve, achieve, achieve," she said. "At least give them the summers."

School boards have moved up their schedules in recent years and have cut into August for class time, according to national surveys. The tourist industry has joined parent groups in opposing the earlier start dates, because so many of their businesses rely on students for summer workers and customers.

The issue has not been a controversy in the Washington metropolitan area, where most schools start sometime around Labor Day.

By contrast, schools in Seminole County, Fla., are scheduled to open the 2006-07 school year July 31.

Some schools in rural Georgia opened the current school year on July 22. Classes in some Miami-Dade schools began on Aug. 1 and the rest on Aug. 8.

Aside from yielding more days before the exams, educators say, the earlier schedules also better align semesters with the December holiday break and with the schedules for community colleges, where some high school students take classes.

But a driving force behind the new schedules for many districts is the testing.

"We make no apologies for trying to prepare our students as well as possible to succeed on the FCAT," said Ruth Melton, director of legislative relations for the Florida School Boards Association, when asked about the early start dates. "It is a high-stakes test that has repercussions that begin with the student and echo up through the school district and state level."

Noting that the tests are given in February and March, she said, "We're asking that a student get eight months of learning in 5 1/2 months' time. That has encouraged moving our start dates forward."

In Florida, each school receives a letter grade based on its test results. Improving schools or schools maintaining an A rating have received annual grants amounting to $100 per student, which are typically distributed as teacher bonuses.

Changing the school testing dates to later in the year would provide more flexibility, but then the tests, portions of which are written, could not be graded by the end of the school year, officials said.

The effort to change the calendar in Miami-Dade began about three years ago, a schools spokesman said, after the board compared its schedule with others around the state. Nearly all of Florida's 67 other counties were starting school earlier.

"The board at the time took the position that our students were being disadvantaged educationally because their performance on the FCAT and SAT would suffer because they would have fewer days prior to the tests," said Joseph Garcia, director of communications for the Miami-Dade school district.

He said school districts in Florida were competing to schedule the most instructional days in advance of the exams. "It's like the educational equivalent of the arms race -- 'if you start the 15th, we'll start the 13th,' " he said.

The calendar aside, Miami-Dade schools are already seeking to broaden their focus beyond the tests. New policies have restored recess at elementary schools. And Superintendent Rudolph Crew has encouraged teachers to find measures of success apart from the exams.

"This is not about an FCAT score," Crew said in his opening of schools message this year, delivered on July 29. "I'm asking you to break the tradition of thinking that this is about your year of getting another FCAT grade."

That attitude is welcomed by many parents who have become active in Save Our Summers efforts around the country.

Tina Bruno, a mother of three in San Antonio, said going to school in August takes away from other childhood essentials: summer camps, visits with out-of-state relatives -- even summertime boredom.

"Basically, my kids need time in the summer to be bored," said Bruno, who started fighting the school dates issue in Texas and now helps other groups. "If they're not bored, they're never excited about going back to school."