Title page for ETD etd-03272007-175620

Type of Document

Thesis

Author

Kent, Richie

URN

etd-03272007-175620

Title

Contextualizing the FCAT in Florida: A Spatial Investigation of Neo-Liberal Educational Reform

Degree

Master of Science

Department

Geography, Department of

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Barney Warf	Committee Chair
Jan Kodras	Committee Member
Jonathan Leib	Committee Member
Mark Horner	Committee Member

Keywords

Florida
Neo-Liberalism
Education
Standardized Testing
Geography
FCAT
Inequality

Date of Defense

2007-01-26

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) is part of an educational reform strategy that initiates competition and market forces among public schools in Florida. Students take a standardized test and their scores are aggregated at the school level, which is intended to be a normative measurement of the average “quantity” of education that a school imparts to its students. The school grades are then tied to a punitive system designed to create increased incentives for teachers and administrators to provide a more rigorous education to students. The school grades do not however, consider the impact of local demographics and socio-economics on FCAT scores. I theorize that the educational attainment measured by the FCAT is affected by the daily webs of interaction that extend beyond the school doors and official education. By situating public education in Florida within the historical evolution of spatial inequality of public education, it suggests the potential impacts of the topological relief in the geography of education today. I performed empirical analyses, including correlations and regressions between FCAT school grades and socio-economic variables. The results show that FCAT school grades are significantly influenced by the socio-economic standing of the students of a school. This geographic contextualization problematizes the neo-liberal economic assumption that the FCAT is founded upon. The ignorance of social, political and economic inequality, which is reflected through the public education system, results in the failure of the FCAT to be an effective reform for the improvement of public education in Florida.

Files

Filename		Size	Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
Filename		Size	28.8 Modem	56K Modem	ISDN (64 Kb)	ISDN (128 Kb)	Higher-speed Access
	fcatthesis05142007.pdf	5.10 Mb	00:23:35	00:12:07	00:10:36	00:05:18	00:00:27