There is no state that has invested as much time, money, and belief in standardized testing as Texas. The deep belief that regular measurement will produce great results has been a dogma in that state. Its testing regime was the model for No Child Left Behind, which is now viewed as a failed law that set impossible targets and real punishments.
But that confidence has been shaken, as this special report in the Dallas Morning News shows, because test scores foremost districts have been stagnant for three years. Instead of blaming teachers and students, pictmakersare casting a skeptical eye at the tests–and maybe even at their dogmatic commitment to testing as a cure all. This is a state where the legislature it billions out of the school budget, expected schools to do better with larger classes and fewer resources, and counted on testing to make everything right.
Reporters Jeffrey Weiss and Holly K. Hacker write:
“For Texas school districts high-achieving and low, affluent and not, urban and suburban, the lack of progress on STAAR is consistent.
“Three years of stagnant statewide average test scores were matched by flat results in the districts where most Texas students attend, according to an analysis by The Dallas Morning News.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
“When STAAR debuted, state education leaders assumed scores would climb as they did with STAAR’s predecessor, TAKS. But no district larger than a Class 5A high school has shown significant progress on most STAAR tests compared with the state. Even for the smallest districts, about as many have lost ground as gained.
“And that feeds into questions being asked with increasing urgency by parents and politicians: Do these scores mean students aren’t learning? Or are the tests bad at measuring what kids know?”
And the elected officials are turning against the test mania:
“As a practical and political matter, Texas’ standardized tests are in trouble.
“Last year, lawmakers killed 10 of the 15 planned end-of-course exams for secondary schools. More pullback may be in the offing for next year’s session. The Texas Education Agency is even asking for $30 million to develop accountability measures that don’t depend so much on testing.
“Republican and Democratic candidates have all campaigned on cutting the number and use of the tests. Legislators peppered state education officials with tough questions during recent hearings. And many of those questions had to do with the gap between predictions and reality for STAAR scores.”
The reporters note that the tests are defended by the state education comissioner, but he was never an educator. Before Governor Rick Perry appointed him, he headedanagrncy charged with regulating the energy industry. We can assume that in Texas under a Republican governor, the energy industry is a lot less regulated than the public schools.
Weiss and Hacker ask a great question:
“Imagine putting a pot of food on the stove, putting a thermometer in the pot and walking away for a while. When you come back, the thermometer reading hasn’t changed. Is the problem with the stove, something unexpected in the pot or a busted thermometer?”
Mor and more parents, educators, and elected officials are saying that the thermometer is broken.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Even if we take test scores as a valid measure of any kind of meaningful “learning” (which emphatically I don’t), why do we necessarily expect test scores to rise year after year after year? Is each succeeding cohort of kids supposed to know that much more than the previous cohort? The only reason you would expect scores to keep rising is if you assume that schools are crappy to begin with and that something you’re doing differently is somehow making them better. But to use the thermometer in the pot analogy, once the pot is boiling, the temperature will no longer continue to rise. Maybe our educational pot is already at a boil.
I wish the “reformers” reflected as deeply as you do about their misguided initiatives. Then common sense might have a chance to prevail.
From the inception of NCLB testing only two actions resulted in significant change in standardized test scores here in NY: 1) writing easier (or harder) tests; 2) Lowering (or raising) cut scores. That is the end of the story. Any significant increase in CC tests scores will be caused by #1 or #2 or the #1-2 combo deal.
I’m following the Atlanta teacher trial because I think if we ever come to our senses this trial will be a big part of the larger historical story on testing and ed reform.
What really struck me in reading the original report and what continues to come clear at trial is just how toxic the whole testing culture was.
The truth is even if there hadn’t have been cheating, those schools were horrible places to work for adults and they must have been horrible places to go to school for children. The tactics that were used to shame and terrify these people! The witnesses talk about employees leaving meetings crying, where they were constantly threatened and harangued on test scores. The kids HAD to pick up on that. They’d have to be in a coma not to. It must have permeated the whole school.
It is appalling, and that’s WITHOUT what eventually happened (the cheating). The “accountability culture” was ITSELF sick and diseased, prior to any cheating.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/aps-trial-focus-turns-to-cheating-at-kennedy-middl/nhsMQ/
The other thing you take away from the Atlanta teacher trial is how accountability flowed only one way. There was a huge incentive for ed reform leaders to set unrealistic goals, because of all those ed reform slogans; “high expectations. no excuses” etc. The leaders would get kudos from media and politicians, and then they couldn’t “back down” (another slogan!) because that would be terrible for their careers. They KNEW the goals were unrealistic, but there was no incentive to ever admit that and just be good competent managers- they had to promote this lie that it was always up, up, up!
Just a sick, sick organizational culture. Rotten to the core and no one could figure a way out. In a way they were all trapped. It reads like a freaking nightmare and this is A SCHOOL, not some dysfunctional wholly adult atmosphere like a business entity. Kids were in this, every day.
Meanwhile, in DISD, administrators hand picked from TFA and Committ rake in huge salaries under Mike Miles’s “reforms.” Please see article: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20141027-record-number-of-dallas-isd-administrators-make-more-than-100000-analysis-shows.ece
From the article:
“Miles awarded his high-ranking deputies with raises this summer that exceed the 3 percent increase teachers received. Excluding Miles, the 25 highest-paid employees got an average salary hike of 14 percent.”
And yes, there is that strong connection to Teach for America and Commit (funded by, among others, Bank of American, JPMorgan Chase, GE Capital, IBM, And Capital One).
Commit puts a LOT of emphasis on math and science test scores, and PSAT, SAT and ACT scores. As I’ve noted previously, both the ACT, Inc and the College Board were major players in the development of the Common Core, and both brag that their products are fully aligned with it. Commit’s guiding philosophy seems to be –– like that of many “reformers” –- that it’s “unfortunate” that there’s a large “overall disparity between economically disadvantaged schools and more affluent ones.” But “data” can reveal instructional practices that will fix the problem. In other words, schools can fix poverty and all the stems from it.
The Dallas Morning News article by Jeff Weiss and Holly Hacker shows that belief to be not only misguided, but also sheer folly.
Perhaps the stagnant test scores actually demonstrate that teachers and students ARE in fact “giving it their best shot” and have consistently been doing so these past few years. Tests in and of themselves are not accurate in determining all the “goings-on” within a student, within teacher practice, nor within a school or district. They serve only as a window through which one can peer and take a picture of a particular place, at a particular time, with particulars present. That’s it.
Tests should be used in guiding further instruction. They can assist in placement decisions for the current and subsequent academic terms. They are not to be used/abused by any who would use them for self-interest apart from the betterment of students.