Shapiro Says TEA Can Waive STAAR Requirement
In the midst of ongoing anxiety over the implementation of the new state student assessment system, education leaders in the state Senate told the Texas Education Agency today that it had the power to waive a requirement that the new tests count toward 15 percent of high school students' final grades. (Download the letter to the left.)
Many school officials and parents have asked the agency for a delay of the exams' consequences for students. Thus far, the agency has said that it does not have the legal authority to modify the policies surrounding the 15 percent requirement, which many ...
Comments (9)
Texas Parents Union via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yes, let's start listening to parents!
Kathy Kennemer Genet via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Delaying the punitive 15% rule for current 9th graders is a great start (I have a 9th grader)....now let's discuss whether the increasingly strident standardized testing itself is helping or hurting our educational system. With three kids in the public school system, I know that teaching to the test does occur. Kids get pulled out of class for coaching not just to pass the test but also to promote more kids getting "commended" scores so that the school is ranked better. It adds undue pressure to the kids and professionals when the time spent on "bubble worksheets" and "test taking skills" could be more appropriately be used on actual learning.
Proud Texan
Ironically, Shapiro undoing something she did herself is the best thing she's done for public education in a long time. What took so long?! Did Sandy Kress finally say it's OK to take a year off? Parents, keep the pressure on!! Next we need to pressure members of the Texas Association of Business and the Greater Austin Chamber to get their organizations to focus on BUSINESS issues and let people who know education focus on education issues.
LLC LLC1923
It's not about education. It's about protecting Pearson's multi-million dollar testing contracts and subcontracts with TEA. Lobbyists and others are working together to slow the backlash against the testing nonsense.
gypsy314 ne
This why we need vouchers so we can put our children in the best schools. I say teachers will short change our children for there own profit.
Anyone BUT Obama and democrats!
Alice Taylor
Here's the law. Has anyone, including Shapiro, actually read the thing? According to the law, TEA does not have the right to waive and they are reading it correctly. This is pretty straightforward. A school district must follow TEA rules regarding the 15% EOC requirement. This says nothing about TEA having the right to rewrite, delay or change the rules in any way.
" For secondary-level courses in
Algebra I, Algebra II, geometry, biology, chemistry, physics,
English I, English II, English III, world geography, world history,
and United States history. The Algebra I, Algebra II, and geometry
end-of-course assessment instruments must be administered with the
aid of technology.
A school district shall comply with State Board
of Education rules regarding administration of the assessment
instruments listed in this subsection and shall adopt a policy that
requires a student's performance on an end-of-course assessment
instrument for a course listed in this subsection in which the
student is enrolled to account for 15 percent of the student's final
grade for the course.
If a student retakes an end-of-course
assessment instrument for a course listed in this subsection, as
provided by Section 39.025, a school district is not required to use
the student's performance on the subsequent administration or
administrations of the assessment instrument to determine the
student's final grade for the course"
Alice Taylor
Some more thoughts about the law as it's written and the unintended consequences. Again, I have to wonder if anyone in the lege actually read this thing before they voted on it.
This says "a student", NOT “a 9th grader”. That means that a senior could take the biology course (which is usually a 9th grade course in Texas, but we have any kids who move in to the state and haven't taken biology yet) and if they FAIL the STAARS and it's used as an EOC even though they don't need the STAARS to graduate, being a senior who takes the TAKS, they can still fail, not get credit and not graduate. So the STAARS test will determine if a senior graduates IF they are in a lower level course, which happens more often than you think.
The law says nothing about the grade level of the kids in the class, just that they must take the EOC functions of the STAARS tests. People seem to think that the STAARS test and the EOC are yoked and will only affect the 9th grade and don’t count for the upper grades. But from what I read in the law Shapiro wrote, it’s not.
The EOC function is different from the state testing-for-graduation function. This year we have Algebra 1 and 2, Geometry, World History, World Geography, US History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics that are STAARS tests. Not one Senior must pass the STAARS to meet the state requirement to graduate, they take the TAKS, but any Senior who does not pass the STAARS as the EOC might not get credit for the course if his total grade is not high enough to carry a failing final and therefore he will not graduate. Graduation is June 6th at my school. The test results won’t be back until late-June, so a kid can walk at graduation and then get a notice in July that says he failed and didn’t graduate after all, which will mess up college and military entrance.
This is the first year we’ve given the STAARS. Teacher have had resources severely cut, the information to teachers on what to expect on the tests from the state has been slow or non-existent, a kid who has never taken this test, which is advertised as much more demanding, will now need to pass it as an EOC in order to graduate. The teacher won’t be able to modify the STAARS to meet legal requirements for 504 and SPED requirements. Just because a kid has a legal modification doesn’t mean he’ll get a modification on the STAARS. A teacher can modify their own EOC, not these. But that doesn’t matter, we’ll have a group of kids who fall on the wrong side of the line and who would have graduated and this year they won’t.
This is a hot mess.
GS Crispus
Let me correct you on a few things Ms. Taylor.
Only students that are entering 9th grade in the 2011-2012 school year and forward are required to take STAAR exams. Repeat 9th graders, as well as, students that were enrolled in high school at some point last year all are scheduled to take TAKS testing.
This does create trouble long-term, as now students are testing based on the individual courses they are taking, rather than by grade level. With no 9th grade TAKS, repeat 9th graders may not test at all until they make it to the 11th grade. When you get into new arrival students from out of country, out of state students, and private schools (private schools can hold back transcripts for lack of payment under the law), you get into a mountain of paperwork and research on students and just where they fall testing wise. It is a mess.
Now, 504, LEP/ELL, and Special Education students will continue to have testing accommodations. There are fewer allowable accommodations than what was allowed under TAKS; TEA due to serious budget cuts has also lagged behind clarifying/writing many of the rules provided for testing procedures/accommodations.
Regardless, with the budget cuts that have fallen upon many districts for the last several years, it is absurd to double down on testing standards because our Republican supermajority believes the private testing sector needs to be subsidized at the expense of our public school system and the tax payer.
Why is Pearson not being required to provide remediation, testing preparation, professional development, and additional personnel to bolster our academic endeavors at the local level? If we are buying their tests, why are they not providing more services efficiently for our tax dollar? Why do we insist on such a double standard for our public employees and not our private contractors?
Mrs. Donnelly
I tried to help illustrate the cause for concern about how different school districts plan on applying the 15% on my blog. http://the21stcenturyclassroom.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/texas-staar-testing-explained/