Patricia Levesque, Executive Director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future, issued a statement in response to the Florida State Board of Education’s recent decision on the Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Program performance metric.
“This week, the Florida State Board of Education voted on a new accountability formula for the Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Program, the first to be used in several years. While we appreciate the reintroduction of accountability into Florida’s VPK program, the bar is set far too low to properly assess provider quality," Levesque stated.
“Under the approved metric, it is possible that a provider could have zero kids ready for kindergarten or zero students making learning gains and still ‘meet expectations.’ This new formula for measuring success could guarantee a passing score for close to 90% of Florida’s VPK providers, capturing 900+ providers that in prior years would not have met expectations."
“In Florida, we should require higher expectations, especially for our earliest learners. Our state has a track record of standing strong on K-12 school accountability and ensuring our students achieve higher standards. We should continue pushing toward that goal with the VPK program,” she added.
Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Program was established in 2005-2006 as one of the first state-run programs providing free prekindergarten for all four-year-olds. The new VPK performance metric is based on a combination of student outcomes, learning gains, and observations of child-teacher interactions. Student outcomes are measured through the Star Early Literacy assessment; learning gains are measured each semester through progress monitoring; child-teacher interactions are assessed through the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS).
Under the new performance metric:
- Program assessment scores from CLASS are statutorily required to account for no less than 50% of the overall score.
- Achievement, or the percent of students ready for kindergarten, accounts for 30% of the overall score.
- Three progress monitoring assessments over the course of a year account for 20% of the overall score.
A provider needs only 28 points on a 100-point scale to “meet expectations.” Because student achievement only accounts for 30% of the overall score, there are multiple ways a provider can receive higher marks in other categories and be rated “meets expectations” despite failing to adequately prepare students for kindergarten. Under this metric, 88% of Florida’s more than 5,500 VPK providers would be rated as “meeting expectations” by attaining at or above just 28 points on a 100-point scale.
The Foundation for Florida's Future can provide examples of performance metric breakdowns upon request.