Texas Schools Find Ways to Adapt Grades to STAAR
In the spring, the state’s approximately 350,000 ninth-graders will be the first to take the end-of-course exams that are part of Texas’ new standardized testing system known as STAAR, or the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.
The tests, which advocates say provide a much-needed update to the state’s accountability system, will be more rigorous by all accounts. There will also be more of them. And, for the first time, students' scores on the exams will count 15 percent toward their final grades in the corresponding course.
It sounds straightforward. But how some districts are applying ...
Comments (14)
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
Why are we listening to Bill Hammond? He is a big reason we have greater accountability and expectations and $5.4 billion dollars less with which to meet those accountability standards. I'm pretty sick of "business" leaders dictating policy in areas they know nothing about. After all, these are the same guys that gave us the financial crisis and are fighting any reasonable regulation of the financial industry. Their goal is not to strengthen public education. It is to de-fund it. What they want is cheap, relatively unskilled labor to work in the dinosaur era industries that dominate the Texas economy. If you want good education and good infrastructure, you have to pay for it. Just coming up with a new test isn't going to do it.
Katie Blackmon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This ridiculousness right here is why I chose not to be a public school teacher any more. I've opted out of the whole profession.
gypsy314 ne
This is why we need to go to vouchers to put teachers and unions on notice this crap will not fly.
Anyone but Obama!
Remember a voter for a democrat is a vote for Obama and illegal aliens ,homosexuals and terrorist.
Texascattleco
The major thing wrong with public schools is the test driven curriculum. Gypsy is wrong about vouchers. I also noticed that his second sentence is, "Anyone but Obama," however Bush gave us the "No Child Left Behind," program which is a failed educational experiment. We need strong public schools and not vouchers. Texas public school teachers are being demonized and it is shameful that it is happening to the many thousands of people working in our public schools. Teachers are not being overpaid but in many cases are being underpaid for their dedication and hard work. Texas is a right to work state already and not a union state as far as teachers are concerned. Public education is or should be one of the our top priorities. It is in our state constitution that it is a top priority however many people on the right want to privatize everything. We have an obligation to educate the next generation to be able to go to college or learn vocational skills and not just how to pass a test. The testing companies/ (Peterson) to name one make millions of dollars developing tests plus selling text books and test preparation materials. It is crony capitalization that is hurting our public schools not public education employees. It is and issue that shouldn't be left or right.
gypsy314 ne
I assume you are a union member or have union members for family and friends. What is wrong with the teacher competing so our children end up with the best and the system has failed us all now with Government controlling our schools and we are footing the bill for illegal aliens to attend our schools. Mean while our school boards passing crap for our children to do with less while we educate the rest of the world on the tax payers dime. I for one think there is something wrong with this picture and you liberals sit on it. This is the free world and if the public school system can not compete then I think they should give it up. We need less Government.
Anyone but Obama!
Remember a vote for a democrat is a vote for Obama and illegal aliens, homosexuals and terrorist.
Alice Taylor
Gypsy... I'm sorry school obviously have failed you. But to repeat in simpler terms what has already been said here- teachers in Texas do not belong to unions. It is illegal for teachers in Texas to belong to unions. Teachers in Texas cannot strike.
Vouchers will do no good for the majority of Texan children who live in areas where alternative private schools do not exist. Vouchers will do no good for children in special education classes, because private and church schools don't want those kids. Charter schools as a group have lower education standards than public schools. I can hear you screaming now, but yes, they do. Read the research, not the advertisements from the charter school lobby. Rich people will always be able to afford the best schools whether they have vouchers or not. The poor parents, who are the ones who need the vouchers, will be using them at schools that have fewer qualified teachers, lower academic standards and fewer academic opportunities. Vouchers do nothing to improve public education and from what I can see from the areas that have started up with them, it's not going to change in the future.
Fernando Perez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Da BLIND leading Da BLIND....where nobody sees anything, except their own job security & profitable windfalls at student'$ expense.
Kathi Thomas via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Putting such high stakes on the tests is a set-up for any type of manipulation legally possible, & I don't blame them. Kids aren't widgets & shouldn't be treated like part of a business plan.
tmelinaraab
Texascattleco and Alice Taylor:
I heartily agree with the bulk of what each of you have said on this topic. However, I want to correct a couple of misunderstandings about labor unions and, specifically, unions in Texas for teachers and other public education employees.
First, the term "right-to-work"--a misnomer, to be sure--refers to laws that prohibit as a condition of employment any requirement for membership, payment of union dues, or fees. Such laws do not prohibit union organizing or collective bargaining between unions and employers. What it means in practice is that I can go to work at the GM plant in Arlington without paying anything to the union and still get all the benefits of the contract that union members fought for, including the right to union representation. It's really an invitation to freeloading that dilutes the power of organized workers and leads to lower wages for all of us, which is why some of us use the more accurate "right-to-work-for-less". Again, while these laws certainly act to discourage joining a union, they in no way make doing so illegal.
For any worker, joining a union is a right guaranteed in U.S. Constitution's First Amendment because freedoms of speech and assembly necessarily includes freedom of association. No state may prohibit a teacher or any other worker from joining a union. Probably about half of all Texas public school teachers do belong to a union. Membership among other public education employees is probably lower.
Texas law does prohibit school employee unions and unions of other public employees from organizing strikes. However, such prohibitions are the norm. Even in states that are far more labor-friendly than Texas--New York and New Jersey, for example--public employee strikes are illegal.
[Drum roll] What "distinguishes" Texas and only four other states--Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia is a legal prohibition against collective bargaining between public employees and their employers. Texas law forbids state and local government entities to negotiate a binding collective contract with their workers, except where the law explicitly allows it. Collective bargaining is allowed for police officers and firefighters in a number of local jurisdictions and for municipal workers in the city of Houston.
That aside, I shout "amen and right on" to both of you and to hans5162.
Alice Taylor
to temelinaarab...
Teachers in Texas not only can't belong to a union, if we do ANYTHING that is union related we lose our certifications to teach and our pensions. I'm not kidding. A union activity in Texas is any gathering of more than three teachers to lobby or have a job action for a common cause. It's written in the Texas law and the law is very blunt. That's why the ATPE, etc really isn't a union as much as a lobbying or trade organization. Unions have teeth and that's what makes them unions. You can call ATPE a union if you want, but without any bargaining ability it's just a trade group.
That's why when you see protests in Austin about education, it's all retired teachers and parents and very, very few active teachers. Teachers are scared to death of even the appearance of unionizing and the law effectively hobbles any grass roots efforts to influence our legislatures. It's that "three or more teachers" thing that stops us from even speaking out as a group. Yes, we technically have our right to speak, but our right to assemble is as restricted as it can be.
Dave S
Given that the State of Texas has not defined a passing score, how can anyone in the legistlature criticize what school districts are doing? The STARR is just as much a load of crap as the previous state test, because the passing score is determined AFTER the students take it. The intent of the legislation is to avoid standards, yet appear to provide them.
If we actually wanted to raise standards, we would use a national test that barely changes for 20 years, with passing standards clearly fixed. The Federal government would have nothing else to do with normal education, and there would be no state educational departments at all. Basically push "measurement" to the highest level, and leave all basis of "instruction" to the lowest level, closest to the students.
gypsy314, you clearly have not invested the effort to learn what really goes on in schools. Teachers would be happy to "compete", as you put it, if there a useful measure of teacher skill on which to base such competition. There isn't. The biggest factor in classroom learning is the amount of misbehaving and lazy students. Enough bad students wreck learning for decent students. The biggest factor in limiting those problem students is their parents, and teachers can do almost nothing about them.
The other big classroom limitation is teachers often do not have control over what they teach, or even how they teach it. Federal, State and District bureacracy bombard them with requirements that have no educational value. For example, some teachers I know are required every day to enter a lesson plan in a computer system, and that plan is required to mention so many bs state tecniques that it ends up over a page long. The actual classroom content is barely mentioned. Even worse, no one pays any attention to whether the entered lesson plan and the actual classroom content match! The computer system checks that the lesson plan is entered, and sometimes some district bureacrat checks that the content is formatted properly, but no one compares the plan to the classroom! It is purely a waste of time, and there are numerous requirements like that imposed on teachers.
gypsy314 ne
Dave I think you are confused and lost but being a liberal I know were you are coming from and if you were in touch with what is going on you would the truth will not go away no matter how much you try and support law breakers that enter America illegally. Have a bless day
Anyone but Obama!
Remember a vote for a democrat is a vote for Obama and illegal aliens , homosexuals and terrorist.
Texas Bookworm
Gypsy when you said "put teachers and unions on notice this crap will not fly" are you trying to blame teachers and unions for the implementation of the STAAR test? I can assure you that teachers and unions loathe the STAAR test and are totally against it! Texas lawmakers are responsible for "this crap," assuming the crap you are referring to is the STAAR. And furthermore, if your point about vouchers is that it will keep us from having to spend taxpayer money on educating illegal aliens, how exactly did you come to that conclusion? Vouchers would be given on a need-based and/or lottery system. Unless a law was passed (and enforced) to specifically prohibit the education of illegal aliens in the US, then they would be receiving vouchers. If such a law were passed, then we would have thousands of uneducated illegal children roaming the streets. To prevent that I suppose we would need a law prohibiting illegals from entering the US, and that law would also need to be enforced. Oh wait...I think we already have that law! So I guess the "enforcing" part is what needs work.
Jose Gomez
It seems to me that the Texas Board of Education is placing an undo burden not only on the school districts, but also on the teachers, and most of all on our young children. As you have commented, there is a lot of confusion as to how this test can be applied equitably throughout the state.
What the Texas Board of Education should do along with our legislatures come up with more funding so that more schools are built, more teachers are hired and the teacher-student ratio lowered. By doing this we deal directly with the problem of education. Several articles in different news papers are commenting on the poor quality of education in Texas. Now that the problem has been identified, lets come up with the solution. The Lotto commission claims that it donates millions toward education, where is it? The State refuses to grant monies for education, why? Texas citizens should make the State accountable for this deplorable condition of our Education System.