SBOE Could Give Schools More Control Over New Exams
In early February, Texas Education Agency chief Robert Scott stood before 6,000 school administrators who had just seen an initial budget from the Legislature that cut $10 billion in state funding from public education.
One question drew cheers from the otherwise grim crowd: If there was no money, would the state still have to roll out STAAR, the new, more rigorous student assessment system?
The answer, it turns out, was yes. Now, eight months later, the State Board of Education may try to modify the system in a way that allays school districts’ concerns.
The first Texas ninth graders ...
Comments (8)
Thomas Ratliff
I agree with Chairman Eissler, this won't address all of the complications, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do what we can to protect local school districts from this significant overreach by the Legislature.
As far as deemphasizing a statewide assessment, that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to do. Almost everyone, including myself, supports accountability and believes the state should have some general measurement of how schools across Texas compare to one another. However, why does that have to bleed over into local grading policy, class rank, etc.? We've talked about the negative aspects of high stakes testing for years. The legislature only RAISED the stakes. I couldn't disagree more with this direction and hope the SBOE can step up to the plate and address one small part of it.
Texascattleco
One of the reasons I left teaching before I really wanted to was because of the high pressure standardized testing. My students that were going to pass the tests or even excel on them could have passed by the Christmas break. The next two to three months were review, drill, take practice tests, and was not an enjoyable experience for the teacher, boring for some students, though a small percentage of students finally mastered the material. We need to move away from a test driven curriculum. Teaching to the test is what all teachers are forced to do under the current system and there is not much learning in areas that are not items on the test. More music, more art, and not dropping physical education requirements would keep students in school. We need to develop more vocational programs also. The legislature deregulated higher education costs in 2003 and the costs to most students and families is beyond their purchasing power. We will always need people with vocational skills as well as college graduates.
Texas Supe
Ratliff is right and the Austin usurpers are wrong and have been wrong for years. What is best for my rural students is vastly different than the state's one-size-fits-all "fixes" that appear designed to address inner city problems. My school board members know what the students in their hometown need; Shapiro and the rest of the Austin brain trust only think they know what's best for us out here. (And, mainly, what they say is best is what testing corporations, charter operators, and online faux-education providers tell them is best.)
"All kids must be college-ready" is translating to "No kids should learn to weld"--in rural Texas, that's hurting kids and communities.
But what do I know? I'm just an educator.
Thomas Darby
Examination are data. The data can be used to understand problems and to correct problems. Teaching is important, but more important is student learning. The data from the examination indicates what has been learned from what has been thought to be taught. Allowing groups of students to move away from an area of study with out learning the material only complicates the education process. In today's environment there are many media that can be used to teach material. The emphasis of the education experience today must turn to learning.
BiffTannen
I somewhat agree on the over testing, but I don't really think local districts should have the final say. School boards are full of blowhards that shouldn't be overseeing anybody's children education.
TD Winner
By all means, TEST the students. See what they do and do not know. But don't make it a do or die situation where it causes a student not to graduate, or a teacher to lose a job or pay! Accountability does not equal learning!
GS Crispus
Shapiro is a moron.
I do "Risk to Intervention" in the public school system. The very idea that "increasing testing standards" helps the most at-risk children is utter lunacy. If the student didn't care about the test when TAKS determined whether they received a diploma or not, they're not going to care with having to pass 12 end-of-course tests that will undermine any accomplishments they made during the class year. We've gone from four tests that determine graduation to 12 that determine graduation from class and high school. These tests will only encourage drops out to, well, drop out.
Ratliff, you need to get it across to the people that we have gone from an exit-level TAKS that took a week out of the school year (two for jumpers/out of schoolers, TAKS failures), to a system that will eat up a month of classtime because we decided to double down on testing standards. I thought the Republicans were all about empowering the classroom teacher when they were justifying their slashing of the education budget? Why such an emphasis on testing?
When you add this to AP testing, TAKS testing, PSAT/PLAN, and other extra-curricular testing standards, a 1/3rd of the school year has become testing. Has our public education system become a government subsidy to the testing corporations?
TD Winner
GS Crispus - I couldn't agree more. It's ridiculous. Not only does it cause more failures/dropouts, more testing also causes teachers to leave the profession. Good teachers do not want to teach to a test. As it stands, it is getting more difficult for teachers to teach everything students need to know because the students are missing so many days for testing. At my campus this year we are testing 45 days out of the school year because we are a pilot school for the EOC exams. 45 days! That is 45 days that students are not learning anything. It's madness!
I am sure that the 90+ million dollars that are spent on the TAKS test will be a bargain compared to how much the STAAR/EOC exams will cost. We can't put a dollar value on what it will cost our students.