FCAT Explorer and FOCUS Newsletter
The FCAT Explorer/FOCUS newsletter is delivered to all public school teachers in Florida via e-mail. The newsletter is designed to provide teachers and administrators with the latest information about these two free resources from the Department of Education. If you would like to receive the newsletter and have not yet, please send an email to newsletter@fcatexplorer.com and type Subscribe in the subject line of the e-mail.

To see previous issues of the newsletter, click on one of the links below:
ISSUE 1, FALL 2006
ISSUE 2, WINTER 2007
ISSUE 3, SPRING 2007
ISSUE 4, SUMMER 2007

ISSUE 5, FALL 2007
ISSUE 6, WINTER 2008

New Sunshine State Standards
The Florida Department of Education (DOE) plans to provide direction to districts and schools in January about the deployment of the new Sunshine State Standards.

In the current timeline for revision of state assessments, DOE will field test new reading and mathematics test items in 2010 and baseline these new assessments in 2011. Draft Test Item Specifications for these content areas should be available on DOE’s web site, fcat.fldoe.org, in late summer 2008. The revision of Florida’s science assessments will occur at least a year later than reading and mathematics. The revision of the state writing assessments will likely follow science by one year and baseline no earlier than 2013.

FOCUS Enhancement
The FCAT Explorer Support Services Team recently completed an enhancement to FOCUS. Teachers and students now have incorrect-answer feedback for every practice question. After students complete each mini-assessment, they will be able to see which questions they answered incorrectly. The new student score page will list each question, the student's answer, and the correct answer.

Enhancements to the Teacher's Desk allow teachers to view which questions their individual students missed, to review the content of each question, and to see what percentage of their class answered each question correctly or incorrectly.

Teacher Training Available
The FCAT Explorer/FOCUS Support Services Team is available to provide training to teachers and staff across the state. Support Services Staff can train any teacher, media specialist, school administrator, or other school staff in using the FCAT Explorer and FOCUS Teacher's Desk features.

Using a conference call format, Support Services Staff can provide hands-on, step-by-step guidance through the features of the Teacher's Desk, including enrollment, class and student management, reports, program features, and content review. Training can be done on an individual or group basis.

To schedule a teacher training session, call 1-888-750-3228.

FORF and MAZES
The Florida-Achieves Web site (www.florida-achieves.com) offers access to fluency probes for middle school students. These probes, assembled and leveled by the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR), are part of a coordinated assessment plan. In addition to the probes, Florida Achieves also provides access to Mazes, a set of assessments designed to measure fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Florida Oral Reading Fluency (FORF) measures are grade-level passages that students read aloud while being timed for one minute. Two passages are administered at each assessment period and scores are averaged.

Mazes passages begin with a complete sentence. For every remaining sentence, the 7th word is replaced with a choice of three words. Students must monitor the general meaning of the passage to select the correct response.

These fluency assessments will be available on the Florida-Achieves web site according to a schedule established by the Progress Monitoring and Reporting Network (PMRN) assessment calendars.

• Assessment 1: August 10 until October 12
• Assessment 2: December 1 until February 26
• Assessment 3: March 1 until May 28

Yearly Database Renewal & Fall Enrollment
To prepare for the upcoming school year, the Support Services Team has renewed the FCAT Explorer database. Sign-in names and passwords of all teachers have been deleted. Additionally, all student sign-in names, passwords, and performance data have been deleted.

During the fall enrollment period, the FCAT Explorer Team will work with your district office to process student and teacher sign-in names and passwords. Once the enrollment for your district is complete, your district office will distribute new sign-in names and passwords to your School Administrator. The list of Currently Enrolled Districts and School Administrators below allows you to check on the enrollment process for your school or district.

Typically, enrollment is complete within two weeks after school starts. Thank you for your patience as we prepare the database for the upcoming school year enrollments.

District and School Enrollment Status
The list of Currently Enrolled Districts below allows you to check the enrollment status for your district and school. Click the district name to see a list of all schools in the district that are currently enrolled. You may then click a school name to see the FCAT Explorer School Administrator(s) for that school.

Your FCAT Explorer School Administrator will have the sign-in name and password information for students and teachers at your school. Please contact your School Administrator to find out student and teacher sign-in name and password information.