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Good Election News for Public Education from Texas

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
7

Beto O’Rourke lost his race against Ted Cruz, but became a national figure because of his charisma and upbeat goodwill. And he did something else: He helped many down-ballot candidates.

Public education was one of the beneficiaries.

According to the Texas Parent PAC, last Tuesday was “a very good night for public education in Texas!” The legislative candidates endorsed by the group went 42-13, defeating six incumbents who are hostile to public education for all Texans. Among the winners are 16 freshmen who will be seated in January. The only incumbent they lost – Dallas Republican Linda Koop – was beaten by liberal Democrat Ana-Maria Ramos, whose lead campaign issue was public education.

Texas Parent PAC emphasizes that support for public education is bipartisan.

Forty-two candidates endorsed by Texas Parent PAC won their general elections on November 6. It was a very good night for public education in Texas! Congratulations to these candidates and their campaign teams.

Texas Parent PAC helped the winning candidates in many ways, including campaign coaching, mailers, calling services, promotion via email and digital advertising, and funding to pay for TV and radio advertising, signs, canvassing, campaign staff, and more.

Thanks to all the generous Texas Parent PAC donors who made this possible!
Every election has unique drama, and the November 6 general election was no exception. For example:
Beto O’Rourke’s vigorous campaign for the U.S. Senate helped to generate record-breaking voter turnout. While he did not win, Beto’s campaign helped many down-ballot candidates to be successful.

Texas educators and public school supporters were extremely engaged in the election and voted in record numbers thanks to turnout efforts by the Texas Educators Vote coalition, Texans for Public Education, Association of Texas Professional Educators, Texas AFT, Texas State Teachers Association, Texas Classroom Teachers Association, United Educators Association, Pastors for Texas Children, Texas Parent PAC, Texas PTA, and many other groups. This energetic involvement bodes well for the future!

Two incumbent senators lost, which will help to change the dynamics in the Texas Senate. Former Burleson school board trustee Beverly Powell defeated Sen. Konni Burton, and Dallas attorney Nathan Johnson defeated Sen. Don Huffines. These were significant victories! In the Texas House, candidates endorsed by Texas Parent PAC defeated four incumbents: Vikki Goodwin (Rep. Paul Workman), Terry Meza (Rep. Rodney Anderson), Julie Johnson (Rep. Matt Rinaldi), and John H. Bucy III (Rep. Tony Dale).

A summary of the results for endorsed candidates is below. Unofficial primary election returns are at the Secretary of State web site and the Texas Tribune web site.

Endorsed First-Time Candidate Winners
SD 10—Beverly Powell, D-Burleson Web Site
SD 16—Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas Web Site
HD 4—Keith Bell, R-Forney Web Site
HD 8—Cody Harris, R-Palestine Web Site
HD 46—Sheryl Cole, D-Austin Web Site
HD 47—Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin Web Site
HD 52—James Talarico, D-Round Rock Web Site
HD 62—Reggie Smith, R-Van Alstyne Web Site
HD 105—Terry Meza, D-Irving Web Site
HD 113—Rhetta Bowers, D-Garland Web Site
HD 114—John Turner, D-Dallas Web Site
HD 115—Julie Johnson, D-Addison Web Site
HD 118—Leo Pacheco, D-San Antonio Web Site
HD 121—Steve Allison, R-San Antonio Web Site
HD 126—Sam Harless, R-Houston Web Site
HD 136—John H Bucy III, D-Round Rock Web Site

Endorsed Incumbents Re-Elected in the General Election
SD 31—Senator Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo Web Site
HD 3—Representative Cecil Bell, Jr., R-Magnolia Web Site
HD 10—Representative John Wray, R-Waxahachie Web Site
HD 14—Representative John Raney, R-Bryan Web Site
HD 16—Representative Will Metcalf, R-Conroe Web Site
HD 17—Representative John Cyrier, R-Lockhart Web Site
HD 18—Representative Ernest Bailes, R-Shepherd Web Site
HD 24—Representative Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood Web Site
HD 33—Representative Justin Holland, R-Rockwall Web Site
HD 34—Representative Abel Herrero, D-Robstown Web Site
HD 41—Representative Bobby Guerra, D-McAllen Web Site
HD 49—Representative Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin Web Site
HD 57—Representative Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin Web Site
HD 64—Representative Lynn Stucky, R-Denton Web Site
HD 71—Representative Stan Lambert, R-Abilene Web Site
HD 78—Representative Joe Moody, D-El Paso Web Site
HD 88—Representative Ken King, R-Canadian Web Site
HD 95—Representative Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth Web Site
HD 99—Representative Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth Web Site
HD 101—Representative Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie Web Site
HD 117—Representative Philip Cortez, D-San Antonio Web Site
HD 125—Representative Justin Rodriguez, D-San Antonio Web Site
HD 127—Representative Dan Huberty, R-Houston Web Site
HD 137—Representative Gene Wu, D-Houston Web Site
HD 144—Representative Mary Ann Perez, D-Houston Web Site
HD 149—Representative Hubert Vo, D-Houston Web Site

Heartfelt thanks to the other endorsed candidates who campaigned very hard but unfortunately did not win. All were seeking political office to make a positive difference. They are Texas House candidates Joanna Cattanach, Alex Karjeker, Neal Katz, Michael Shawn Kelly, Adam Milasincic, Lorena Perez McGill, Steve Riddell and Texas Senate candidates Steven Kling, Rita Lucido, Mark Phariss, Kendall Scudder, and Meg Walsh.

We are grateful to State Representative Linda Koop for her two terms serving in the Texas House. Her many contributions made Texas a better state, and she will be greatly missed.

This was the first election cycle that Texas Parent PAC endorsed candidates running for statewide office. While Mike Collier and Scott Milder (Republican primary) did not win their races for Lieutenant Governor and Justin Nelson for Attorney General, they made public education an important issue in the election and helped down-ballot candidates to win.

With Texas parents, grandparents, and public school supporters working together on campaigns, we can elect even more advocates for Texas children. Let’s do it. It’s the American way.

Categories Education Reform, Parents, Resistance, Texas

New Hampshire: Parents and Teachers, Please Vote for Molly Kelly for Governor

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
3

If you live in New Hampshire, please support public education by voting for Molly Kelly for Governor.

Chris Sununu is a clone of Betsy DeVos. Maybe they were separated at birth.

He wants to finance charter schools and vouchers, at the e Penske of your public schools.

Sununu appointed a home-schooling businessman to Commissioner of Education.

He has supported ALEC model legislation to introduce vouchers.

He signed a bill to take away the voting rights of out-of-state college students.

Teacher-voters need to turn out in force to flip the legislature and vote Kelly into office.

It can be a new day in New Hampshire, but only if you VOTE.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, New Hampshire, Parents, Teachers, Vouchers

The Progressive: Will the “Save Our Schools” Movement Determine the Election Results?

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
41

Ruth Conniff, editor of “The Progressive,” suggests that the Save Our Schools Movement could be the determining factor in the midterm elections.

She writes:

The “education spring” protests, in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina, won increases in teacher pay and education budgets, launched hundreds of teachers into campaigns for political office, and showed massive support for public schools this year. In Wisconsin and other states, education is a key issue in the 2018 governor’s race. Public opinion has turned against budget cuts, school vouchers, and the whole “test and punish” regime.

“The corporate education reform movement is dying,” Diane Ravitch, the Network’s founder declared. “We are the resistance, and we are winning!”

As the Save Our Schools movement swept the nation this year, blaming “bad teachers” for struggling schools also appears to have gone out of style.

A Time Magazine cover story on teachers who are underpaid, overworked, and have to donate their plasma to pay the bills painted a sympathetic portrait.

“As states tightened the reins on teacher benefits, many also enacted new benchmarks for student achievement, with corresponding standardized tests, curricula changes and evaluations of teacher performance,” Time reported. “The loss of control over their classrooms combined with the direct hit to their pocketbooks was too much for many teachers to bear.”

That’s a very different message from Time’s December 2008 cover featuring Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, standing in a classroom and holding a broom: “her battle against bad teachers has earned her admirers and enemies—and could transform public education,” Time declared.

The idea that bad teachers were ruining schools, and that their pay, benefits, and job security should be reduced or revoked, spread across the country over the last decade. Doing away with teachers’ collective bargaining rights propelled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to political prominence in 2011. In October 2014, Time’s “Rotten Apples,” cover declared “It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Some tech millionaires have found a way to change that.”

But today, demoralized teachers, overtested students, and the lack of improvement from these draconian policies have pushed public opinion in the opposite direction.

Charter schools, it turns out, perform no better than regular public schools. School-voucher schemes that drain money from public education to cover private-school students tuition yield even worse results—and are unpopular with voters. And testing kids a lot has not made them any smarter.

The bold walkouts and strikes of teachers and the determined resistance of parents and students are making a difference.

The public is getting “woke.”

Billionaires have poured many millions into demonizing teachers, attacking their rights, and privatizing public schools, but they have spent not a penny to increase the funding of our nation’s public schools, not even in the most distressed districts. All they have to offer are tests, charter schools, and vouchers.

It’s a hoax, intended to cut taxes, not to help children or to improve education.

We are no longer fooled.

Categories Charter Schools, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Students, Supporting public schools, Teachers

Seattle: The Resurgence of Rainier Beach High School and the Comeback Kids

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
5

The National Education Policy Center reported on the success of a high school in Seattle that adopted the principles of “schools of opportunity.” Open the link for sources and other links. Valerie Strauss posted an article about the school here.


These Comeback Kids Don’t Bake Cookies: The Community-Based Transformation of an Urban School

You could call it the comeback kid.

In 2010, Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School was on the edge of closure. Just 320 students occupied a building constructed to serve nearly four times that number. Its on-time graduation rate of 48 percent was among the lowest in the state of Washington.

Fast forward to today and the picture has completely changed. Enrollment exceeds 700. The graduation rate is 89 percent. And, unlike many other school turnarounds that superficially look successful, the school has continued to serve the same families and community. At Rainier Beach, nearly three-quarters of the students hail from low-income families, and 40 percent come from immigrant or refugee backgrounds. The school’s diverse population is 49 percent Black, 26 percent Asian, 14 percent Hispanic, six percent multi-racial, three percent White, and two percent Pacific Islander/Native American/Alaskan.

In 2016, NEPC recognized Rainier Beach as a School of Opportunity, making particular note of the school’s rigorous but supported classes and its thoughtful and powerful community outreach.
Too often, transformations like Rainier Beach’s are attributed to external forces such as state accountability measures or the introduction of a new and charismatic leader.

But in a recent article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Educational Administration, Ann M. Ishimaru, an associate professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy at the University of Washington’s College of Education, uses interviews, document analyses, and observations to tell a very different tale about Rainier Beach.

Truth be told, some aspects of the Rainier Beach story are not out of the ordinary. It brought in new leadership. It struggled with and benefitted from the implications and resources associated with accountability-based reforms.

But another part of the school’s story is indeed unusual—and offers important lessons for other schools now struggling to improve. Professor Ishimaru traces the school’s transformation to a groundswell of activism led by local families, students, and community members. Working together with educators, these activists were able to benefit from structures of conventional schooling by transforming those structures to better suit their needs. As Ishimaru notes, these were practices and institutions often imposed on low-income, “majority-minority” communities—structures that often do little to engage those communities or respond to their voiced needs.

For example, activists leveraged the power of the PTA, using it to spark change. As one parent leader explained:

We don’t make cookies. We’re not here to fund raise for your school. We’re here to be transformative change agents for the school. We need you to deploy us to spaces that you can’t get to, like School Board meetings and the Superintendent […] No, we don’t make cookies. […] We infiltrate, that’s right.
Other community-based strategies Ishimaru identified included:

Participating in the accountability-based school turnaround/school improvement grant process;

Holding community “cafes” to build support for the school’s new International Baccalaureate program; and

Supporting academic and behavioral interventions (such as introducing Freedom Schools and hiring a restorative justice coordinator) that empower youth.

“This study is a testament to the changes that can unfold when parents and communities drive priorities and action in school change efforts,” Ishimaru concludes.

Still, she cautions that work remains to be done at Rainier Beach: Key community leaders have moved on. Parents worry that African American students are still under-represented in the school’s International Baccalaureate program. And there’s no guarantee that the program itself will continue to attract the resources it needs to operate.

Categories Education Reform, National Education Policy Center, Parents, Seattle, Turnaround Schools

Long Island Is the Opt-Out from Testing Epicenter of New York

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2018 //
14

The test results are in from last March-April in New York. 85% of all 718 school districts in the state did not meet the federally mandated 95% participation rate in the state tests.

18% of the 950,000 eligible students did not take the tests at all. That’s 210,000 students who said no.

Newsday, the main newspaper on Long Island, reports:

Long Island is opt-out central for New York, laying claim to 19 of the 20 school systems statewide with the highest numbers of students boycotting standardized tests, a Newsday analysis shows.

Upstate, the movement has gained a foothold, too, but still isn’t as popular as it is in Nassau and Suffolk counties, the review found.

The biggest boycotts draw students mostly from middle class communities in Suffolk. Comsewogue and Rocky Point, for example, had opt-out rates higher than 80 percent. Commack, Eastport-South Manor and Middle Country had rates of more than 65 percent.

Of 100 districts statewide with the highest numbers of test refusals, 70 are on the Island. All have opt-out rates of 45 percent or higher, according to the analysis. Statewide, opt-out rates averaged 18 percent. The average for the Nassau-Suffolk region stood about 50 percent.

Newsday reviewed the test results in English Language Arts and mathematics, released in late September by the state Education Department. More than 950,000 students in grades three though eight took the exams, while more than 210,000 opted out. Of those who boycotted the tests, more than 90,000 live on the Island.

The opt-out movement, now in its sixth year, appears most successful in middle class communities, which political experts attribute largely to close contacts there between parents and teachers. Many live in the communities; they have children in school and they carry weight with parents when they express doubt about the benefit of state exams. And educators belong to strong unions, which have pushed hard to keep student scores from being tied to mandatory teacher evaluations, the experts said.

The state offered threats and bribes, but to no avail.

Opt out is alive and well on Long Island and parts of upstate New York, driven by parents, not teachers.

Every year the eighth grade ages out. Every year, a new group of third graders is eligible. The fact that the movement has persisted and drawn roughly one-Fifth is a testament to parent power.

Why do parents opt out? They understand that the tests are not diagnostic and serve no purpose other than to compare their children to other children, a function of no value to the children.

Hats off to NYSAPE, New York State Allies for Public Education, which has led the opt out movement.

Categories Education Reform, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Testing

New York Releases Tests, Six Months After Students Took Them

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
34

The New York Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department remain firmly committed to the testing regime that has aroused so much parent rebellion and produced no gains on NAEP for 20 years. The state always finds good news in the test scores, but NAEP has been consistently flat.

Opt outs declined by a percentage point, but still nearly one of every five eligible students did not take the tests.

Long Island continues to be the epicenter of the opt out movement. About 50% of the students in Nassau and Suffolk counties did not take the tests.

Federal law (the “Every Student Succeeds Act”) says that parents have the right to opt out if their state permits it, but at the same time requires that every school must have a 95% participation rate or face sanctions–a flat contradiction.

New York has not yet clarified how it intends to punish the high-performing schools on Long Island where half the students didn’t take the tests.

This article appeared in Newsday, the main newspaper on Long Island.

The number of students boycotting state tests has declined slightly statewide, but Long Island remains a stronghold of the opt-out movement, state officials announced Wednesday.

The state Education Department, in a media advisory, said the percentage of students in grades three through eight opting out of exams last spring dipped to 18 percent, down from 19 percent in 2017 and 21 percent in 2016. Tests, which are mandated by federal law, cover English Language Arts and mathematics.

The advisory provided no specific percentage for Nassau and Suffolk counties, but did note that the bicounty region “remains the geographic area with the highest percentage of test refusals in both mathematics and ELA.” Newsday’s own surveys of Island districts last spring found boycott rates of nearly 50 percent.

Among students who took the tests statewide, 45.2 percent scored at the proficient level in English, and 44.5 percent in math, the education department reported. Agency officials said results could not be compared with those from prior years because the format of last spring’s tests was sharply revised.

Total testing days in the spring were reduced to four, down from six in prior years, in an effort to provide some relief for parents and teachers who had complained the assessments were too stressful.

New York’s opt-out movement has proved the biggest and most enduring in the nation. The movement first appeared on Long Island in 2013, then exploded statewide two years later, and has remained especially strong in Nassau and Suffolk, and in some suburbs of Westchester County and the Buffalo area.

On the Island, more than 90,000 students in grades three through eight refused to take the state English Language Arts exam in April, representing nearly 50 percent of those eligible, according to Newsday’s survey of Island districts at the time.

Across New York, the number of students boycotting the state tests from 2015 through 2017 has hovered near 200,000 of 1 million eligible pupils in each of the past three years.

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Los Angeles: A Father Fights to Save His Neighborhood Public School

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2018 //
22

Torr Leonard, a father of a kindergarten student at the Gault Street Elementary School, was frustrated because so many of his neighbors were sending their children long distances to attend magnet schools or charter schools. He has made it his mission to tell them about their neighborhood public school.

When Torr Leonard moved into his Lake Balboa neighborhood five years ago, he discovered nearly every parent on his street sent their children to schools other than the neighborhood school a block away.

Leonard said he found that just one other nearby family sent their children to Gault Street Elementary, where his son Luc, started kindergarten last month. So, he has made it his mission to advocate for the school and encourage parents to re-think their decision to send their children to magnet or charter schools blocks — or even miles —away from their San Fernando Valley neighborhood.

“Why not try to market this school to the neighborhood to get people to actually send their kid there,” Leonard said in an interview.

Too bad that public schools do not have budgets for marketing, like the charter industry, which sucks public dollars away from public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Parents, Privatization, Supporting public schools

New York: Commissioner Elia’s Misleading Description of State Tests

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2018 //
17

New York State Commissioner of Educatuon MaryEllen Elia defended the state tests in a letter to the editor of an upstate newspaper.

What was interesting was what she did not say.

She wrote:

Your recent editorial “Benefits of Regents testing still unclear” (“Another View,” Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Aug. 28) is riddled with inaccurate information about New York’s student testing requirements. For the benefit of your readers, I am writing to set the record straight.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education approved New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan. It reflects more than a year of collaboration with a comprehensive group of stakeholders throughout the state. Approval of our plan by USDE ensures that New York will continue to receive about $1.6 billion annually in federal funding to support elementary and secondary education in New York’s schools. Had we not received federal approval, that money would have been left on the table, to the great detriment of our students and teachers.

Over the past three years, I have communicated frequently with the USDE about test participation rates and the importance of not penalizing schools, students or anyone else when a district’s participation rate falls below the federally required level.

The editorial states that in June the Board of Regents adopted regulations to implement the state’s ESSA plan — leading your readers to believe, erroneously, that these regulations are now final. In fact, the implementing regulations are temporary. We continue to make changes to the regulations based on the many public comments received.

We anticipate the Board of Regents will discuss these comments and proposed modifications to the draft regulations at its September meeting. The revised regulations will again go out for comment before they are permanently adopted. We hope your readers will participate in this ongoing public comment process.

Your editorial also is misleading in its claim that releasing state test results in September “makes the testing data nearly useless for school districts.” Here are the facts. In early June, schools and school districts were able to access instructional reports for the 2018 state assessments. At the same time, the department released about 75 percent of the test questions that contribute to student scores. The instructional reports, together with the released test questions, are used by schools and districts for summer curriculum-writing and professional development activities. Additionally, while statewide test results are not yet publicly available, we have already provided districts with their students’ score information. Districts can — and should — use this information to help inform instructional decisions for the upcoming school year.

The state Education Department’s stance remains unchanged: There should be no financial penalties for schools with high opt out rates. We continue to review the public comments on this and other proposed regulations, and those comments will be carefully considered as we finalize the state’s ESSA regulations.

Ultimately, it is for parents to decide whether their child should participate in the state assessments. In making that decision, though, they should have accurate information. I hope this letter gives them a better understanding of the facts.

MaryEllen Elia
Albany
The writer is state commissioner of education.

I checked with teachers, and this is what they said.

The test scores are released long after the student has left his or her teacher and moved to a different teacher.

Most of the questions are released, but the teacher never learns which questions individual students got right or wrong.

The tests have NO DIAGNOSTIC VALUE.

The tests have NO INSTRUCTIONAL VALUE.

Apparently, it means a lot to Commissioner Elia to compare the scores of different districts, but that comparison is of no value to teachers, principals, or parents.

One middle school teacher said this to me:

“…the whole exercise is meaningless at the classroom level. Admins might look at the data when it comes to certain skills/content areas, but without looking at the questions/answers, it is not helpful for us in the trenches.”

Another teacher told me:

“…we do not get student-specific results for each question, we are supposed to look at statewide results and then somehow extrapolate that back to our classrooms, the following year, with different kids. So this is a BLUNT tool at best and students get no individual diagnostic benefit.”

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value whatever for individual students.

Every parent in New York should understand that their children are subjected to hours of testing for no reason, other than to allow the Commissioner to compare districts. Their children receive no benefit from the testing. No teacher learns anything about their students, other than their scores.

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value for students—or teachers.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

New York Plans to Punish Students and Schools if Parents Opt Out: A Terrible Idea!

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
39

Gary Stern of the Lohud newspaper in the Lower Hudson Valley, a region where parents are passionate about their public schools, describes New York’s intention to punish students and schools if the opt rate is high.

The state insists that every child take the tests, no matter how invalid and unreliable they are. The children must be measured and labeled!

Stern writes:

“The school year just opened, so the annual state tests in math and ELA seem like a long way off. Testing for grades 3-8 begins in early April, when the Yanks and Mets will be starting next season.

“And yet, the state Board of Regents may soon pass new rules for holding school districts and individual schools accountable if too many families “opt out” of tests. One such rule would allow the state education commissioner to direct a district to spend a portion of its federal Title I funds on “activities” to increase student participation on state tests.

“This is a terrible idea. The Regents should balk.

“Schools use Title I funds on staff and programs to help disadvantaged students — targeting everything from math and reading intervention to supports for homeless children. Taking money away from such efforts for a parent-targeted p.r. campaign? Hardly smart education funding.”

This is a very mean-spirited, stupid idea. Why would the state take money away from the neediest kids to re-educate parents?

Note to the Regents and Commissioner Elia: The children belong to their parents, not to you. Read the Pierce decision (1925).

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Stupid, Testing

Texas: Houston Parent Says Her Child’s School is Exceptional, but State Calls It “Failing”

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2018 //
35

Sarah Becker, a parent in the Houston Independent School District, is thrilled with her child’s public school. It has exceeded her expectations. Yet the state claims it is failing. How can this be? Could it be that the ratings system is wrong? What do you think? Sarah says she will ignore the rating system but the state won’t. They might close her child’s school or even take over the entire school district for failing to do something dramatic to her school. Accountability hawks are no doubt eager to see Sarah’s school closed and handed off to a charter operator. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott would be happy to see the school closed and hand out vouchers to the students to attend a religious school. Sarah Becker says they are wrong.

A couple of weeks ago the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released their ratings of schools and school districts. I am the mother of two children at a school in Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest school district and the seventh largest district in the country. How did my kids’ school fare in this year’s accountability system? The school failed, receiving an “Improvement Required” rating.

Does that give me pause about sending my kids there? Not one bit and I’ll tell you why.

This past year was the first one my children spent at their elementary school. From the moment they set foot on campus, my children were accepted and loved. The physical environment of the school is welcoming, and they have a nice, new building with lots of natural light. And in a time when public school budgets are incredibly austere, my kids’ elementary school found a way to hire a PE teacher, an art teacher, a music teacher, a nurse and a social worker last year. To have all of those is incredibly rare in HISD-in fact, this elementary school was the only one within driving range of our home to offer those. It has a rooftop garden and a makerspace. And finally most amazingly, my children learned AN ENTIRE SECOND LANGUAGE last year. We literally dropped them into new classes having had almost zero exposure to Spanish and they ended the year speaking, reading and writing two languages. The progression has been amazing to watch. Their worlds are bigger and more beautiful because of their new school.

So how did such a great school end up being on the “improvement required” list? The system used to identify “failing” schools is unsound and inaccurate. It is based solely on how certain students perform on a single standardized test on a single day.

You have probably seen the meme floating around social media with the following quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” As cliché as that quote is, I find much truth in it when applied to our “accountability” system. If you judge every school by the standards of the TEA, some very successful schools will receive failing ratings not because they fail to educate, but because the accountability system demands that fish ride bicycles by making children conform to tests.

Which brings us back to my family’s experiences-no part of my kids’ experience at our school last year was a part of any accountability data.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that our school is not perfect—there is always room to grow—but how long do Texas students and teachers have to wait for an accountability system that is fair and looks at something other than narrow, flawed test scores which seem aimed to punish school communities that serve students in poverty? And, in an environment where the state legislature seems hellbent on increasing the stakes around standardized testing (see: state takeover of democratically elected school boards), schools are being asked to sacrifice increasingly more each year in the name of raising said test scores.

Lest I be accused of glossing over real problems, I am not suggesting that all public schools are perfect or even that our district has served all communities well. Quite the opposite. But if we focus only on bringing up test scores, we miss addressing the very real issues that are in front of us because test scores take up all the space.

Until this system is overhauled, I will continue to pay no mind to it and pay attention to the very clear evidence in front of me: my kids are excited to show up to school every morning and love their school. Their teachers are caring professionals. That is enough accountability for me.

Categories Accountability, Hoax, Houston, Parents, Texas
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