FCAT 5, Michael Thorne, Page 2


 like our teachers teaching bell to bell. When we get near the test, a lot of schools
 shut down and just go completely to FCAT, and we feel comfortable that we're
 hitting it from August, and continuing after the exam. There is a time where we
 really go at it big time, November/December, because there's almost a month off
 from school in December and January [due to] the semester breaks. So we feel
 that it's comparable.

S: How does the FCAT compare to the HSCT?

T: The HSCT, we discussed/talked about math and reading. The FCAT covers the
 math and reading, but now it's branched off into science and will continue to work
 also with writing. So it covers a lot; it's a more varied curricula or standards for
 students to cover. I think it covers more of a circle of math and reading
 components than the HSCT did.

S: Have you noticed an increase in student performance since 1998, especially in
 the lower quartile?

T: Now this is my [feeling], that the way the test was scored has changed since
 1998. There are a lot of schools that were A schools in the beginning that no
 longer are because the criteria has changed. I'm biased because I love Eastside,
 but I can tell you with the conglomerate or melting pot of students we have here
 with varied levels of academics, we're really proud of our B-would love an A-and
 work hard for that. I think today that it really covers more material that our
 teachers cover in the classroom than in the beginning. I'm not afraid to say that
 it's probably a little more difficult because the average yearly progression (AYP)
 has been thrown in there. It has to do a lot with attendance and how many
 people you're testing. That can be tough in a school like ours where we may
 have a high rate of absenteeism. Sadly, our dropout rate may be higher than we
 want it to be, so we physically went looking for students after the beginning of the
 year. That's why attendance is incredibly important from the beginning to the end
 as teachers. We found those students who were missing ten or more days and
 went after those to make sure they were going to be there for the test, not just for
 the test physically, but also for the reviews. Common sense tells you that if you
 attend school, you have a better chance of passing than not attending, and that
 relates to scores on the test.

S: Do the demographics and the economic status have an effect on the scores?

T: I believe it does, but I'm going to have to tell you as a principal I have to drive on
 from that and take the demographics and the economic situations and know that
 they pay a big role in our situation. A lot of students aren't fed in the morning; we
 offer breakfast here. A lot of students go home and may not have the support at
 home that we'd like. We might be the real deal for them here, so we have to take
 that into our problem and make sure we can solve it for our students more so