Editorial: Education

Florida Education Commissioner John Winn begrudgingly acknowledges two Democratic Florida Senate leaders were right when they exposed problems with the scorers of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCATs).

This spring the lawmakers charged scorers were paid only $10 an hour and some lacked teaching experience or degrees related to the subjects they graded.

The senators sued to get the records, and Winn last week came forward to confirm their suspicions — and promised to fix the problems, even though he said there is no evidence that any tests were improperly scored as a result of any of this.

Winn went on to accuse the lawmakers of being on a fishing expedition — a nicer choice of words than “witch hunt.” The lawmakers said they landed a whale.

Actually, Winn ought to be thanking Walter Campbell of Tamarac and Les Miller of Tampa. They compelled the state to fix shortcomings that the FCAT needs to do in order to provide quality service and bolster public confidence. The FCAT is not the perfect instrument of accountability, but it is the only instrument we’ve got.