The purpose and effect of this proposed amendment is to provide guidance relating to the statewide public school student progression law eliminating social promotion by reducing the number of examples per benchmark required for the third grade portfolio, aligning the criteria for the portfolio to the new FCAT Item Specifications, and eliminating the reference to SAT-9 as it is no longer provided by the publishing company. Most recently, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) was revised to align with the current Sunshine State Standards. Due to this revision, Rule 6A-1.094221, F.A.C., will need revisions to align to the new FCAT 2.0. The grade 3 FCAT Item Specifications document was used to revise the existing State Board Rule to properly align to FCAT 2.0. The revisions include the following: An increase in the average passage length from 350 to 500 words and a change in the score for demonstrating proficiency for each benchmark from a grade of C or better to a grade of 70% or better. Due to the number of benchmarks that are now assessed on FCAT 2.0, the rule as it exists would require 5 examples per benchmark for completion of the portfolio, equaling 70 samples of student work from one student to demonstrate proficiency of third grade benchmarks. This is a drastic increase, from 40 to 70 samples, and an unrealistic expectation for students. This will cause loss of instructional time for the most struggling students. Therefore, a reduction of the number of examples required for the third grade student portfolio is proposed.