Do you ever hear or read of advances in education policy or practice in Texas any more? It was common in the 1990s and 2000s to see research and other notices of significant advances in Texas. No more. As I have posted, to the contrary now, Texas lags in virtually all areas. And our student achievement, as measured by NAEP, college/career readiness, postsecondary completion, et. al., has stalled or actually declined.
See: http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/forever-lowering-the-bar-in-texas; http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/-the-texas-8th-grade-math-drop-is-bad-and-its-statistically-significant; and http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/the-texas-problem-pretending-its-good-when-its-not.
Yet, as unbelievable as it might seem, the legislature is seriously considering policy that would take us even lower. Donna Garner has written an excellent description of a horrible bill that seems to be on the verge of passing the House. Take a look: http://www.educationviews.org/texas-legislators-hurting-school-children/.
Let’s re-cap the new lows we’ll experience, if this bill passes:
1) The state will continue to fail to measure, and hold schools accountable, for students being ready for post-secondary success;
2) The state will now fail to measure for student success in writing, a skill that employers and higher education highly value;
3) The state will now fail altogether to measure student knowledge in social studies in high school by eliminating the end of course exam in US history. This piles on earlier decisions by the state to no longer require, or measure proficiency in, courses in the sciences beyond biology and in math beyond geometry;
4) The state will no longer have statewide comparability in measuring success toward learning to state standards because it will allow districts to adopt tests from a wide variety of assessments that may not be well aligned with each other or the state’s standards.
This means that the foundation for fair and meaningful accountability will be blown up, that is, if the federal government allows the state to depart from the requirements of federal law to do so; and
5) The state, which has sworn off the Common Core standards, will permit districts to use assessments based on the Common Core standards, rather than the standards approved by Texas educators and policymakers.
Sadly, I am 100% confident that these new steps of descent will set our young people back even further. God willing, I will be around to sound the trumpet. But, whether the public will hold the “leaders” who are doing this damage accountable or not, our kids will suffer incalculably. And so will our state.
See: http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/forever-lowering-the-bar-in-texas; http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/-the-texas-8th-grade-math-drop-is-bad-and-its-statistically-significant; and http://sandykress.weebly.com/blog/the-texas-problem-pretending-its-good-when-its-not.
Yet, as unbelievable as it might seem, the legislature is seriously considering policy that would take us even lower. Donna Garner has written an excellent description of a horrible bill that seems to be on the verge of passing the House. Take a look: http://www.educationviews.org/texas-legislators-hurting-school-children/.
Let’s re-cap the new lows we’ll experience, if this bill passes:
1) The state will continue to fail to measure, and hold schools accountable, for students being ready for post-secondary success;
2) The state will now fail to measure for student success in writing, a skill that employers and higher education highly value;
3) The state will now fail altogether to measure student knowledge in social studies in high school by eliminating the end of course exam in US history. This piles on earlier decisions by the state to no longer require, or measure proficiency in, courses in the sciences beyond biology and in math beyond geometry;
4) The state will no longer have statewide comparability in measuring success toward learning to state standards because it will allow districts to adopt tests from a wide variety of assessments that may not be well aligned with each other or the state’s standards.
This means that the foundation for fair and meaningful accountability will be blown up, that is, if the federal government allows the state to depart from the requirements of federal law to do so; and
5) The state, which has sworn off the Common Core standards, will permit districts to use assessments based on the Common Core standards, rather than the standards approved by Texas educators and policymakers.
Sadly, I am 100% confident that these new steps of descent will set our young people back even further. God willing, I will be around to sound the trumpet. But, whether the public will hold the “leaders” who are doing this damage accountable or not, our kids will suffer incalculably. And so will our state.
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