FCAT Information

The Florida State Department of Education’s website houses many informative documents for the FCAT. Below are some of the links that will help teachers and students understand the expectations and prepare for this assessment.

• FCAT Homepage

FCAT Overview, Publications, Results, Preparation, and Dates are found on this page.

• FCAT Update

This document gives the most recent information about changes for FCAT as of September, 2004.

• FCAT Scores and Reports

This page contains many tables about results for educators to use. In addition there are explanations to help with understanding the results.

• 2004-05 FCAT Sample Test Books and Answer Keys

The Sample Test Books are designed to help students become familiar with FCAT by providing helpful hints and offering practice answering questions in different formats. The Sample Answer Keys are designed to be used by teachers to explain to students the answers and solutions to the questions in the Sample Test Books and to identify which Sunshine State Standards benchmark is being tested by the question.

• FCAT Test Item and Performance Task Specifications

This resource describes the test items and performance tasks found in the FCAT assessments. The specifications are guidelines for item writers and reviewers. They are also a source of information about FCAT for educators and the general public.

• Lessons Learned—FCAT, Sunshine State Standards and Instructional Implications

This publication provides an analysis of previous years' FCAT results and contains analyses of state data for the years since the first administration. Student performance data from FCAT Reading and Writing (Grades 4, 8, and 10) and Mathematics (Grades 5, 8, and 10) are examined. A task force of Florida educators, Department of Education staff and FCAT contractor staff examined data to determine statewide trends and used these trends to gain insights into student performance. Instructional implications sections have been included to assist educators in improving instruction in the classroom.

• FCAT Scoring Rubrics

Rubrics are the scoring guidelines or criteria used to evaluate all FCAT Reading, Mathematics, and Science performance tasks and FCAT Writing essays. The rubric describes what is required for each possible score point. Six separate documents provide rubrics for FCAT Reading, Mathematics, and Science, and three separate documents provide rubrics for FCAT Writing.

• FCAT Explorer

With great interactive resources for parents and teachers, the FCAT Explorer helps students learn about and practice the skills tested on the FCAT. OCPS has already entered the student and teacher information. Use the following guidelines to access this program:

For Students:

Login is Student ID number. 

Password is: 6 digit birth date (00/00/00)

For Teachers:

Login is NT user name (what you log into the network each morning, i.e. smithj2.

Password is personnel number (found on paycheck stub).

Contact the school administrator for help if difficulty in accessing the program occurs.

• FCAT Publications for Teachers

This site contains other FCAT resources for teachers to use with their students.

• FCAT Parent's Guide

This brochure is an updated HTML version of the FCAT Parent Brochure that was delivered in print to districts in 2002. It provides general information about the FCAT in addition to links to other DOE resources like the Sunshine State Standards web page.