ORLANDO, Fla. – The first round of results from last spring's Florida Standards Assessments, or FSAs, were released Wednesday, leaving some parents to wonder what they mean.
This is the first year for the exam, which replaced the controversial FCAT exam.
Because there is no benchmark on the new exam, Wednesday's results compared school districts.
[RESULTS: FSA Algebra all grades | FSA Algebra 2 all grades | FSA Geometry all grades | FSA Language Arts grades 3-10 | FSA Math ]
For example, in the Algebra 2 exam, most of the students in Brevard, Flagler and Volusia schools scored better on the test than most of the students in the state.
Most of the students in Orange and Osceola schools scored worse than most of the students who took the exam in the state.
"They're just pulling numbers out of the sky for a test that is suspect at best," said parent Valerie Radcliffe, who is also a member of Opt-Out Orlando.
Opt-Out Orlando is opposed to high-stakes standardized testing in public schools.
Radcliffe pointed to the computer problems that plagued many students in the state when they took the FSA exams in the spring.
It's a problem that sparked an FDLE investigation into possible sabotage that turned up nothing, but it also prevented results from being released over the summer.
For that reason and others several school districts have come out opposed to the results counting against the district, the schools, the teachers or the students this year.
"As stated previously, these scores provide information of little value about the performance of our district, schools and students due to initial implementation problems and validity concerns," said a spokesperson from Orange County Public Schools.
Parents can expect to see how their students fared when they get personal results in October, but they may not help or hinder the student's grades.
