FCAT or the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is the most widely uses tests to measure the skills of secondary and primary school children in Florida. This test has begun being used only since 1998. This test has replace the other test widely used in America the State Student Assessment and the High-School Competency Test.
This test is taken one a year in the months of February and March in every public school in Florida from classes’ three to eleven. The test involves students from class three to ten to take math tests and reading tests in every February. Most private schools do not follow the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and instead have their own standardized tests that are followed an example of this test is the Stanford Achievement Test. The 4th, 8th and 10th grade students take the FCAT Write test that is also known as the FCAT Writing + exam. These scores from these tests are used to grade school students.
The students of the fourth grade passing this test are promoted on to the fifth grade. The written part was necessary to promote a student from the fourth grade to the fifth grade. This law was scrapped after the introduction go the No Child Left behind Act of 2001. This made this test only as a passing tool. But a student failing the FCAT in the tenth grade will get an additional five chances to attempt at passing the FCAT exam. These tests are taken in the middle of the school years. If the failed student has enough grades in the high school graduation tests, then he or she will be allowed to move on with a certificate of completion. Even in cases of exceptional cases of education students are allowed to pass without the minimum FCAT requirement.