Florida — The controversial and stressful Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) has now officially been abolished and will be administered for the last time in the coming weeks.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed SB 1048 — into law, which abolishes the FSA.
During a press conference, DeSantis said, “Today we come, not to praise the FSA, but to bury it.”
Parents and teachers alike have long called for an end to the FSA, a multi-day series of stressful high-stakes exams given at the end of every school year to students in third grade and above that had zero benefits for any student.
In addition to the stress and pressure it puts on children, the results of the FSA didn’t come in until the summer, and oftentimes, would result in a child taking a repeat class that they didn’t actually need because they were stressed during testing.
The FSA will be replaced with a new testing system approved by DeSantis. Three rounds of progress monitoring exams throughout the school year will help better track a student’s performance.
Supporters said this will also dramatically reduce overall testing times.
“Instead of having one major test at the end of the year which provided no feedback to students before the summer came, we would do progress monitoring that would monitor progress throughout the school year,” DeSantis said. “It would be shorter, it would be more individualized, and it would provide good feedback for students, for teachers, and for parents.”
DeSantis said, “We want the parent to be able to be involved in this, to get that feedback alongside the teacher. And then both can work to help remediate if students, in fact, need that.”
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