Archives for category: Texas
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Dallas Morning News: We Love Testing (Other People’s Kids)

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2016 //
15

The Dallas Morning News published an editorial praising high-stakes testing. The News thinks the tests are necessary and valuable, even though parents don’t.

 

You can tell that no one on the editorial board has children in public schools, because they can’t understand why parents object to the state’s obsession with standardized testing. They congratulate patents got not opting out. They say nothing about the billions of dollars cut from Texas schools in 2011.

 

They just love that data. The kids, not so much.

 

They write:

 

“Dallas Morning News education writer Corbett Smith reports that only about 2,000 Texas families refused the test in 2015-16. That number is tiny compared with New York, where 240,000 opted out of the assessment, or Colorado, where 100,000 didn’t take it.

 

“Opting out of STAAR tests isn’t easy in Texas — but it is possible. So the low number leads us to hope that, despite the massive dislike of accountability exams, parents recognize STAAR’s importance.

 

“This newspaper shares that belief. That’s why our goals for 2016 include advocating for accountability and making a renewed case for the importance of testing, despite the system’s flaws. We have pledged to listen carefully to critics and bone up on best practices so we can urge reform that works.

 

“The first cleanup falls squarely on the state’s new testing vendor. New Jersey-based Educational Testing Services, which won a $280 million contract from the state, has left campuses mired in computer glitches and exam flaws. Just Thursday, it was accused of losing all the elementary and middle school tests in a small Central Texas school district.

 

“Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath assessed the mess this way: Those problems are “unacceptable” and must be fixed.

 

“But the solution isn’t to throw out the whole system, and it’s encouraging to see that most families and school districts get that.

 

“Families deserve to know how their students are progressing against the state standard; without a consistent scorecard, too much is left to chance. That can be a special problem as children move into the later years of elementary school and into middle school, where students most often slip.

 

“Likewise, school districts need to know not only how their students are performing, but how to evaluate teachers and help them grow to be the best possible educators.”

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Texas

ETS Loses All Test Scores for a Texas District

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2016 //
30

As the new vendor of testing for Texas, ETS is off to a rocky start. It lost all the grades 3-8 test scores for Eanes, Texas. Think of all the weeks wasted on test prep: for nothing!

 

“The state’s new testing vendor reportedly lost all tests taken by elementary and middle school students in central Texas district of Eanes, according to a report from The Texas Tribune.

 

“The site reports that Educational Testing Services told officials at that district that it lost tests taken by students in third through eighth grade, potentially impacting up to 4,000 students.

 

“This is yet another problem in an ever-growing list of concerns for New Jersey-based ETS in its first year of administering the STAAR test. Problems have ranged from the tests missing a correct answer to scoring problems to security concerns.

 

“The problems started getting reported in March with computer glitches that gave students the wrong version of tests, locked up or even erased answers. About 14,220 students across the state were impacted.

 

“In the Burkburnett school district, for example, some students had to rewrite their essays as many as three times after the system repeatedly kicked them back to earlier questions in the test English I end-of-course test.

 

“One student, after redoing her essay several times, finally typed ‘whatever’ in her essay out of frustration,” superintendent Tylor Chaplin wrote in a letter to the Texas Education Agency in April as he expressed his growing frustration.”

 

If a teacher or a school did this, they would be in deep trouble.

 

Mistakes were made!

 

Who will be held accountable?

Categories Education Reform, Failure, Standardized Testing, Texas

Congratulations to Luis Govea, Valedictorian of Irving High School in Irving, Texas

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2016 //
8

The Dallas Morning News wrote an editorial praising the valedictorian of Irving High School, in nearby Irving, Texas.

Luis Govea is the personification of the American dream. He came to Texas from Mexico in 2010, knowing only a few words in English. He is now the valedictorian of his class and has received a full scholarship to attend Stanford University.

When he first arrived in the U.S. from Mexico, Luis Govea knew only a few English words, including red, white, blue and apple.

Six years later, he’s been named Irving High School’s valedictorian and got to pick from full-ride scholarships from Yale, Harvard, Rice, Stanford, Dartmouth, the California Institute of Technology and Princeton.

“I applied and thought, ‘I got nothing to lose,’ ” said Luis, who will head to Stanford in the fall. “I never saw myself even last year choosing between those schools, and it’s a beautiful feeling.”

He won the scholarships through QuestBridge, a program that matches high-achieving students from low-income families with selective schools.

Luis is humble and self-effacing.

His personal motto:

“I hope someone sees my story, and it pushes them to try even harder,” Luis said. “Do your best; even if you fail, at least you tried. That’s my motto.”

He learned English by using the Rosetta Stone program on a school computer.

Irving High counselor Laura Zimmer said Luis’ parents have been instrumental to his success.

“I’ve never seen a student like him, and I’ve been teaching for 13 years,” Zimmer said. “When he got the letter from QuestBridge that day, he just sat there and he just cried because he was so happy. He’s not afraid of anything.”

Zimmer first met Luis during his sophomore year when he asked her for a list of clubs. He joined 20, from French club to Keep Irving Beautiful.

“He wants to be a part of everything, but he doesn’t feel the need to be in the limelight,” Zimmer said. “He’s very genuine, and he’s always smiling.”

Luis was on the academic decathlon team, and he was the first in school history to make it to the state competition, coach James Newman said.

“He never let any of us down, and then once he realized that we had complete 100 percent confidence in him, he took on the leadership role, especially this year as a senior,” Newman said. “It’s been an unbelievable journey with Luis, and I am so proud of him. I really am excited about this next chapter in his life.”

Luis is a National AP Scholar and has taken 20 AP exams, earning nine perfect scores of 5 and three scores of 4. He’s awaiting results of this year’s tests.

After poring over pamphlets, websites and lists of majors, Luis thought heavily about Princeton but changed his mind to Yale.

Then, late on May 1, the deadline to commit to a school, he was hovering over the “accept” button for Yale when a Facebook message popped up from a freshman at Stanford. They chatted for two hours, and Luis decided California was where he wanted to be — close to Silicon Valley.

Luis wrote at least 40 essays in the past year for scholarships on topics including chess, tacos, hamburgers, underwear, love letters and his journey from Mexico to the U.S.

He plans on majoring in bioengineering and computer science, and he said he hopes to become a researcher or a professor.

Next time you hear someone complaining about public schools, tell them about Luis. He came to Texas not speaking or reading English, and now he is first in his class at Irving High School, with a full scholarship to one of the nation’s greatest universities.

Categories Education Reform, Texas

Texas Parents Sue State to Stop Use of Test Scores to Punish Students and Schools

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2016 //
6

A group of parents in Texas has filed suit against the state education agency to stop the use of this year’s scores to punish students and schools.

 

The legislature passed a law requiring the tests to be shortened, but the state education agency did not comply.

 

Its failure to abide by the law invalidates the tests, the parents believe.

 

Commissioner Mike Morath does not agree and intends to use the test results for accountability purposes, continuing the test obsession in Texas.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Parents, Testing, Texas

Texas: School Board Candidate Who Called Obama a “Gay Prostitute” Defeated

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2016 //
6

Mary Lou Bruner was defeated in her race for state school board in Texas.

 

She gained about five minutes of fame after saying that President Obama may have been a “gay prostitute” in his youth.

 

She lost badly.

 

Given its current governor and legislature, Texas doesn’t need any more embarrassments.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Texas

Texas Court Rejects Appeal to Fix State Funding Formula

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2016 //
10

Nearly two-thirds of the school districts in Texas filed a lawsuit against the state formula for funding public schools. A lower court judge ruled that the state’s funding formula was unconstitutional. Hopes were high that the lower court ruling would sustain that decision.

Unfortunately the state Supreme Court sustained the current methodology.

The legislature cut $5.4 Billion out of the schools’ budget in 2011. Many districts have never recovered from those draconian cuts.

“Houston lawyer Mark Trachtenberg, who represented 88 property-wealthy school districts in the case, said the ruling “represents a dark day for Texas school children, especially given the Legislature’s repeated failure to adequately fund our schools.”

“A recent study by the National Education Association found that Texas ranks 38th in the country in per-pupil public-education spending.”

Pastors for Texas Children issued the following statement:

“Pastors for Texas Children Executive Director Rev. Charles Foster Johnson on Today’s Supreme Court Decision

“The Texas Supreme Court’s ruled today that the Texas public school funding system technically meets “minimum constitutional requirements”—a ruling belied by the direct professional experience and expert witness of hundreds of thousands of Texas educators.

“The Court’s conclusion may be based on legal technicality, but the burden of this sophistry will be borne by our 5.3 million schoolchildren.

“We hover near the bottom nationally in monetary support for our schools. It is sinful for a society as rich as Texas—an economic “miracle,” as a recent governor put it—to make our schoolchildren eat the crumbs that fall from our state’s table of bounty.
Our Lord famously said, “To those whom much is given, much is required.” But, the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas State Legislature have perversely revised that moral dictum: “To those whom much is given, less is required.”

“Of particular moral offense is the arrogance shown by certain state leaders whose cynical tactics seek to divert our attention away from the grave injustice of inadequate school finance.

“Pastors for Texas Children will not fall for these ridiculous distractions.
80,000 new schoolchildren enter our public school system every year, in classes that are overfilled, with teachers that are underpaid, in schools that are underfunded. Over 60% of our Texas schoolchildren are poor. Our dedicated teachers work long hours at low pay to provide God’s gift of education for them while enduring demoralizing attacks from the very leaders constitutionally charged and Biblically sworn to support them. This is the moral outrage of our day.

“We recommit ourselves to holding our Governor, Lieutenant Governor, 31 State Senators and 150 State Representatives accountable for the “suitable provision of free public schools,” as our own Texas State Constitution mandates, as the American civil tradition establishes, and, most importantly, as the Biblical call to justice unambiguously announces.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Texas

San Antonio Express-News Calls for Halt to Use of Botched Tests for High Stakes

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2016 //
9

The San Antonio Express-News published a blistering editorial calling for a halt to state testing until all the errors and computer glitches were resolved. This may mean forever, given the track record of testing companies that produce online assessments.

 

Fifty superintendents from the Houston area wrote a letter to the new state superintendent Mike Morath outlining the problems their students and teachers had encountered.

 

As the editorial states:

 

There are inherent problems in any massive project, but this is no simple undertaking. The STAAR test — the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness — is high stakes. The scores impact schools, teachers and students. Failing grades can cause students in the fifth and eighth grades to be held back, and high school students who don’t pass three of the five end-of-course exams will not get a diploma. Teachers’ evaluations will be based in part on how well students perform on the STAAR test.

 

Until all the problems are resolved, school administrators are asking the Texas Education Agency to delay use of scores for the alternative test for students needing special accommodations due to a learning disability. They make a valid point.

 

It appears that the state’s new testing vendor, New Jersey-based Educational Testing Services, commonly referred to as ETS, was ill-equipped to take on the four-year $280-million contract. There is no excuse for the company to ask test takers not to answer a question because there was no correct answer or having to scramble at the last minute to certify personnel to grade the test.

 

School districts can ask that tests be re-evaluated, but that action comes at their own expense. Lewisville ISD appropriated $50,000 to have thousands of English tests retaken by their high school students after many high performers scored a zero on that portion of the test. School districts should not be forced to pay that expense because the state made a bad call when it awarded the testing contract.

 

There is something terribly amiss here, and it needs to be fully resolved before the test scores can be given much weight. Morath has said ETS will be held financially liable for the problems and could lose the state’s business if the issues are not adequately resolved. That is good news for Texas taxpayers but does not adequately resolve all the issues.

 

Too much is at stake to merely assure everyone it will be done better next time. The state should not go forward with a testing system few have confidence is working properly. There is no do-over for students who get held back, the high school seniors who won’t walk the graduation stage or teachers whose careers are damaged.

Categories Failure, Testing, Texas

Texas: “Moms Against Drunk Testing” Call for Moratorium on State Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2016 //
7

Texans Advocating for Meaningful State Assessments (TAMSA) is known in Texas as Moms Against Drunk Testing. In the past, they successfully lobbied the Legislature to drops plan to require students to pass 15 high school exit exams to graduate. The number remained five.

 

They issued this statement, called ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

 

 

“TAMSA Calls for Moratorium due to Testing Errors

 

 

“In his news release today, Thomas Ratliff, Vice Chairman of the State Board of Education, brings to light serious issues of misalignment between the STAAR US History EOC and the state mandated curriculum. Based on these and ongoing concerns with the validity of the test, Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA) calls for a moratorium on using the STAAR tests, and at the very least, the US History EOC, for high stakes purposes related to student graduation and school accountability.

 

“It is fundamentally unfair to hold students or schools accountable for questions that are not contained explicitly in the curriculum standards” said Dineen Majcher, President of the Board of Directors of TAMSA. Ratliff describes two questions on the US History EOC that asked for information about historical figures, but those specific historical figures were not included in the current TEKS. In one case, the figure, Shirley Chisholm, was removed from the TEKS in 2010.

 

“The logical conclusion is that 1) either the testing vendor was utilizing an outdated version of the TEKS on which to base questions, or 2) there is an underlying assumption that any historical figure fitting general criteria, whether or not they are mentioned in the TEKS, is fair game. “Neither conclusion is acceptable,” said Majcher. “If students are not given a full opportunity to learn what is tested, there are serious consequences for the system. It is completely unfair to students and teachers to have a high stakes test that is not based clearly and unequivocally on known material that is required to be taught, and instead on information not specified in the curriculum.” Already on shaky ground when legislators like Jimmie Don Aycock, Dan Patrick, Larry Taylor, and Kel Seliger have declared that the current STAAR system is broken, further proof has parents across the state declaring that “enough is enough.”

 

“Based on concerns over test alignment with curriculum standards, and fundamental fairness to students to learn what will be tested, TAMSA is requesting:

 

“1. An immediate moratorium on the stakes associated with STAAR tests.

 

“2. A complete review of the tests to ensure the vendor has utilized current TEKS and that the test questions are properly aligned with state curriculum.

 

“3. An exploration by the attorney general, or other appropriate state official, of whether the test questions not aligned with the curriculum should be the basis for action against the testing vendor, particularly if outdated standards were the basis for the faulty questions.

 

““We cannot continue to hold our students and schools accountable for performance on these tests when the State cannot guarantee that these tests are valid.” Putting a moratorium on the high-stakes means that the STAAR tests would still be administered and scores reported, but performance on the tests would not prevent students from being promoted to the next grade or from graduating. Also, schools’ ratings based on STAAR test scores would not be altered during the moratorium. “If we are to continue to administer state-designed assessments, we must have 100% certainty that the tests are aligned with the curriculum that the State has required” said Majcher. Without a guarantee that the tests are completely aligned with the curriculum, a moratorium on using those tests for high stakes purposes is essential.”

 

Go, TAMSA!

 

In your next action, dare the legislators to take the tests they mandate and publish their scores. Double-dare.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Parents, Resistance, Testing, Texas

New Texas Commissioner Brings in New Faces from Charter Industry for Top Jobs

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2016 //
13

Texas Governor Greg Abbot selected Dallas school board member Mike Morath as State Commissioner of Education. Morath is one of the privatization advocates who wanted to turn Dallas into a so-called “home rule district, which was meant to clear the way for charters.

Now Morath is cleaning house, replacing experienced high-level staff with newcomers whose experience is strong in the charter industry.

Among others, Morath hired the former chairman of the Kansas City school board as deputy commissioner in charge of governance. In his former life, he was known as Airick West. Not only does he have a new job, he has renamed himself A.J. Crabill.

“The Dallas Morning News recently reported Morath had named AJ Crabill, a former chairman of the Kansas City (Mo.) School Board, to the position of deputy commissioner for governance. Crabill was known as Airick West during his time in Kansas City. He and the commissioner have declined several requests for interviews and questions about how Morath met Crabill and the circumstances surrounding his hiring in the last several weeks.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Texas

Texas Follies: Special Education Students Tested Online, with No Accommodations

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2016 //
25

This comment was posted a few days ago from a school principal in Texas who just earned his doctorate. He wonders what happened to the noble profession he entered.

 

 

I wanted to share some good news with you – I completed my dissertation in education and received my doctorate! It was the most stressful and rewarding experience of my life, and despite all the angst and anxiety, I survived intact!

 

However, the world of education has changed radically since I began my doctorate. Here in Texas, education is still not funded adequately or equitably. The school that I’m principal of just spent the last of our budget, and we know we don’t have enough supplies for the rest of the year. Costs went up, but the budget stayed the same. We’re still short 40 science books, because the district didn’t account for the growth our campus experienced this school year, but hey, science isn’t tested in the grade affected, so, and I’m not making this up, the book coordinator asked we could just photocopy 40 books. No wonder we don’t have enough paper to make the year!

 

More disturbing is the fact that state testing remains the gotcha that dooms teachers, administrators, schools and districts. Though some understanding the escalating standards are unsustainable, there are still enough pitfalls to trap educators. For instance, how special education students are assessed.

 

If you didn’t know, the state expects ALL students to test on grade level and meet the state expectations for students. In the past, testing for special needs students included accommodations and modifications to provide equity in the assessment for them. Now, they take the exact same test as all general education students, just online instead of accommodated.

 

I recognize the goal to measure every student the same, but it is unrealistic to expect special needs students to perform at the same level as general education students. Several of my colleagues and I liken this to expecting all students, both able bodies and differently-abled, to run the mile on the track at the high school. It’s not just or equitable to maintain a set standard for success in that case, but for the state assessment, we’re doing just that.

 

Of course, the ramifications of this expectation affects the schools and districts, not the students. In fact, the way the assessment rules have been amended, it is perfectly reasonable for a student to meet the required standards less than 50% of the time 3rd grade through high school, and still be promoted and even graduate. No, it’s how it impacts the schools and the districts. That is so demoralizing.
Since the state demands we get all students to grade level, if we don’t, we are considered Improvement Required (IR), or as I call your school sucks. The hoops you have to jump through are endless and pointless. And, since we are rated on an entirely new and unique population every year, it’s not like there’s a reasonable standard we can ever meet.

 

So, in four short weeks, the state will demand we test our students over standards that are constantly changing, on a test that has nothing to do with what we should be doing in our classrooms, to please bureaucrats who I believe are truly intent on destroying public education.

 

I once thought education was the most principled and noble profession, and I think it can be, and it should be. But, right now, I can only feel a target on my back.

Categories Special Education, Testing, Texas
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »