Part 5 in a Series: Strategies for Reforming American Education
By Carole Hornsby Haynes Ph.D.
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas The Texas budget war rages on as school administrator groups stage rallies to pressure the Texas legislators into delaying implementation of the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests. These tests accompany the excellent new Texas curriculum standards for English Science & Social Studies that were approved by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
What is the motive behind this outcry to delay implementation of STAAR tests? And can we afford to delay implementation of the new End-of-Course STAAR tests?
A review of the chronology of the new standards gives us a clue.
Fall of 2008 was the transition year. The new English Language Arts/Reading Standards (ELAR) were passed in May 2008. During the 2008-2009 school year English teachers were supposed to become familiar with the new standards.
In the fall of 2009 the new ELARs were to be implemented in K-12 classrooms.
In the fall of 2010 new reading and literature textbooks for grades 2-12 and reading textbooks for grades K-2 were placed in the classrooms
In the fall of 2011 new ELA textbooks for grades 2-12 will be placed in classrooms. The new End-of-Course STAAR tests are being piloted and then will be administered to students in the spring of 2012.
Following that will be the arrival of the new Social Studies textbooks in the classrooms.
There has been much public criticism about the excessive number of testing days -- 25 for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) -- and the inordinate amount of time spent teaching to the test" instead of teaching the knowledge and skills that students must acquire to become literate.
The U.S. Department of Education and No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) bipartisan federal legislation must bear the blame for this.
NCLB is a punitive law based on the assumption that higher test scores are synonymous with good education. If students do poorly on tests teachers and principals can be fired and schools closed.
Therefore teachers must teach to the test."
In order to pass the TAKS tests students must be taught how to game" the tests. Teachers have little time to encourage creative thinking because students must be taught how to earn a 3" or 4" on the personal essay by playing the TAKS game instead of developing the necessary skills to write persuasive and expository papers.
Students receive higher scores when they reveal something personal about themselves give their opinions and feelings and tap into emotion usually by showing themselves to be victims of society. Because the goal is to catch the readers eye students have learned to fabricate persona. The style is informal and welcomes dialect without penalty for poor grammar and errors in spelling capitalization and punctuation.
With so much time spent on teaching to the test" there is little time left for learning how to write formal research papers.
Is it any wonder then that 38 of our Texas graduates are not prepared to take college English courses?
Businesses bemoan the low level of their employees English proficiency.
Teachers obviously will continue to teach to the test." However the rigorous new STAAR tests will require teachers to teach grammar together with other foundational elements such as spelling handwriting persuasive/analytical writing research skills and the various genres of literature along with their characteristics.
The STAAR tests will include an entire section of specific multiple-choice grammar questions that did not exist on the TAKS tests. The new emphasis on explicit English skills will also help our Texas students to become much better prepared to take the SAT and ACT both of which contain specific grammar questions.
So back to the question---why do administrators want to delay implementation of the STAAR tests?
Teachers have continued to teach for the TAKS tests using the old ELAR- TEKS and are not prepared to teach for the more rigorous knowledge-based grade-
level-specific STAAR tests.
It seems that panic has set in. Using the budget crisis is an escape hatch for the schools to kick the tin can down the road.
The argument is being made that we cannot afford the cost of implementation of STAAR when so many cuts are being made in the education budget. Some also are concerned about the additional days that will be devoted to testing--45 with STAAR.
On the surface delay sounds plausible and even advisable. But there is a severe consequence for delay.
Our kids are caught in the middle.
Along with the lack of good reading skills our Texas students from 1997 to the fall of 2009 were not taught correct spelling handwriting grammar/usage research strategies/research writing and expository/persuasive writing.
Because the TEKS standards were generic unclear not grade-level-specific and not based upon knowledge-based academic content that was measurable the TAKS built upon them were poor quality tests.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released its 2007 eighth-grade writing scores on April 3 2008.
Texas ranked as follows:
- At or above Basic -- 33 states scored higher than did Texas.
- At or above Proficient -- 32 states scored higher than did Texas.
- At Advanced -- 17 states scored higher than did Texas.
Texas also fared poorly in a comparison between 2006 and 2007 SAT scores. (The SAT writing section has two sub-scores: multiple choice MC and essay.)
- Number of states with higher MC scores (all students) than Texas:
36 states (2006) -- 40 states (2007)
- Number of states with higher essay scores (all students) than Texas:
43 states (2006) -- 41 states (2007)
We cannot permit this downward spiral of the literary rate among our youth to continue. To do so places the future of our children our state and our
nation in peril. Our liberty is dependent upon our citizenry being educated.
The facts make the choice quite clear.
Instead of the millions of dollars being paid to superintendents and a top heavy administrative staff we must direct our taxpayers money to where it rightfully belongsin the classroom.
Texas has no choice except to stay on course with the implementation of our new curriculum standards and funding for textbooks and the accompanying STAAR tests.
Carole Hornsby Haynes welcomes comments at chaynes@teapartyforkids.org. Additional information is available by visiting www.TeaPartyForKids.org.
