Growing up in Florida, the sunshine state, virtually all of my school years were determined, in the months of February and March, by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, more commonly known as Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test FCAT The Florida Department of Education (2005) presents (to parents and guardians of students), the FCAT as a test administered to Florida students to measure what they know and are able to accomplish in reading , writing, mathematics and science. This test is part of Florida's plan to improve student achievement. Measure challenging content standards, called the Sunshine State Standards. The FCAT is said to consist of two types of tests. One of the tests is a criterion-based test or CRT, the other type of test is a norm-based test or NRT. The CRT meets the standards of the Sunshine State Standards, implicating only Florida in reading, writing, mathematics and science. On the other hand, the second type of NRT test is a comparison of Florida students' performance in these areas nationwide. The FCAT test was created by the Florida Department of Education, in collaboration with teachers, curriculum specialists, administrators and Floridians. The Florida Department of Education says the FCAT test serves to conclude the knowledge students should learn to be prepared for the "complex challenges of today's workplace." It also mentions that the test helps teachers, principals and superintendents check students' level of success against Sunshine State standards. The FCAT can be seen as a great assessment of how teachers are performing in their teaching skills and can also show you how students are doing in a particular subject. The test was sup...... middle of paper ......used by students to succeed or fail. Teachers across Florida have standards by which they are expected to teach. If they taught each subject in a standardized way, then the student's wealth would not have to be related to the learning they are acquiring in class, excluding of course the homework and extra study time a student might apply. For this reason I would say that I do not agree with the FCAT as it is a standard that is not reciprocal to the actual level of knowledge possessed by a student. In conclusion, the FCAT is a test to measure student knowledge and teacher skills in classrooms in the subjects of reading, writing, mathematics and science. The test has received positive and negative feedback from many, my position on the fairness of the FCAT is that the FCAT is not a fair assessment of a student's individual knowledge.