PART II in a Series: Bypassing the traditional education materials adopted by the SBOE.
By Bill Ames
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas By September 1 2016 the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments & Accountability (NGAA) is scheduled to submit its finalized report to the governor and legislature that recommends statutory changes to improve the states systems of student assessment and public school accountability.
House Bill 2804 84th Texas Legislature (2015 by State Rep. Aycock) established
the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments & Accountability (NGAA). The purpose of the commission is to develop and make recommendations for new
systems of student assessment and public school accountability.
On July 28 2016 the Commission indicated that new assessments will not replace the STAAR tests. This has been a controversial item in the negotiation and likely the STAAR tests will eventually be phased out as a program of more frequent computer based tests is implemented.
The new assessments take the form of computer adaptive assessments (CAAs) that would be taken online periodically throughout the school year. The assessments would test against new digitized unvetted instructional materials obtained by district curriculum developers.
The new curriculum is supposed to eliminate the alleged mile wide and an inch deep" TEKS standards set by the state board of education (SBOE) with input from hundreds of citizens of Texas. We have already seen what happens to basic U. S. history knowledge if the story of Francis Scott Key is exorcised from the history curriculum.
Using CAAs students will not be allowed to progress until they demonstrate mastery of current lesson materials. This approach is fraught with danger.
Why? When the creator of the CAAs wants to change the way a student thinks the creator simply keeps giving the student the same question (in different words) over and over until the student finally submits to the creators desired answer. It is only then that the student is allowed to move on.
CAAs are psychologically dangerous particularly when feelings emotions opinions or social engineering rather than facts are allowed to control the assessment questions. In such an approach facts do not determine the right-or-wrong answer. The correct answer is decided by the creator of the CAA.
For instance a CAA question might be based on climate change or gun control. A student may believe that climate change is unproven and the 2nd Amendment is the law of the land. If the creator of the CAA has a different belief system the student may not be allowed to move on to the next online question until he/she submits the answer that the creator of the CAA wants.
All of this happens online away from the eyes of parents and bypasses the traditional education materials adoption role of the SBOE.
Legislative actions:
Amend the NGAA proposal to require online CAA materials to be reviewed vetted and adopted by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) as part of their education materials adoption process.
Require that CAAs are constructed to test for factual material rather that shaping students values and beliefs.
Establish a requirement that prohibits CAAs from collecting and storing personal data about student beliefs and values.
Read more by Bill Ames:
Bill Ames is an education activist who lives in Dallas. His book TEXAS TROUNCES THE LEFTS WAR ON HISTORY" (WNAenterprises.com) tells the story of his experience in developing Texas U. S. history standard in 2009-2010.
Ames reviewed CSCOPE lessons as part of the State Board of Educations Ad Hoc Committee Project. His work in his local school district resulted in Board reviews of both its Social Studies Curriculum and Project Based Learning implementation as well as securing a superintendent commitment to modify the AP History course to be Texas standards (TEKS) compliant. He welcomes reader comments at billames@prodigy.net
