When I confide my anxiety that I have fewer than 10 students in one of the two classes I teach twice a week, Ryan shares his relief that he has fewer than 30 in one of the six classes he teaches every day. After I express my impatience with students who do not read deeply, Ryan tells me about students who cannot read at all.
Lawmakers grilled Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams on the state’s stagnating test scores, suggesting the conversation hasn’t changed much since big reforms last year.
Two Waco parents have dramatically announced their plans to keep their son out of Texas’ state standardized tests next week.
House Bill 5, Perry said, “strikes an appropriate balance between our need for rigorous academic standards and the student’s need for flexibility, a balance between our needs for accountability and the appropriate level of testing in the classroom.”
The Senate Education Committee took up a proposal to eliminate the STAAR writing test for 4th and 7th graders as well. Lawmakers also hinted at an interim study on the state’s process for developing the standards those tests are based on.
After hearing more than 100 amendments, only Rep. Mark Strama (Austin-D) and Rep. Naomi Gonzalez (El Paso-D) voted against HB 5.
It’s a big day at the Capitol.
House Bill 1423 would lower the stakes of the STAAR test, by removing the requirement, on the books since 1994, that students pass state exams to graduate. Deshotel’s proposal would limit testing to the federal requirements—just math, reading and science, and only one of each test in high school.
Parents, teachers, students and advocates from all over Texas urged lawmakers to limit standardized testing and increase public school funding Saturday.
Today’s hearing on standardized test reform drew an unusually large contingent of students to the Senate Education Committee. Several were particularly glad to be there because Tuesday was a benchmark testing day at their school.