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News, analysis and opinion on reforms being offered to improve schools, whether the ideas originate in Washington, Austin or Dallas. The online discussion will take education policy debates seriously, while it connects them to students from grade school through college. We welcome and read all letters from readers. Letters are selected for publication based on their clarity and brevity. They also are chosen to represent a diverse set of views on as many issues as possible. March 2010
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January 26, 2010
State Education Commissioner Robert Scott said Tuesday that the next generation of student tests in Texas will be called STAAR - or the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Scott announced the change from TAKS to STAAR at an annual conference of school administrators in Austin, saying students will first take the new exams in the 2011-12 school year. The STAAR will include the 12 new end-of-course exams for high school students that will be launched with freshmen entering school in the fall of 2011. Students will take three end-of-course tests in each of four core subject areas - English, math, science and social studies. To get a diploma, students will have to get a passing average in each subject area as well as pass their classes. Testing in grades 3-8 also will be modified as the STAAR is introduced into schools and results from grade to grade will be evaluated against performance standards for the English III and Algebra II exams administered to high school students. Scott said the new tests will be more rigorous than the TAKS exams, which have been around since 2003 and which were used in deciding whether to promote students in grades 3, 5 and 8. In addition, Scott said the new performance rating system for schools - based on STAAR results - will debut in 2013.  Comments (20) Leave comment
|  E-mail entryThe entry "TAKS to be replaced by STAAR in 2011-12 school year" has no entry tags. October 15, 2009
Here's what's exciting about Texas' most recent scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam, the best benchmarking of student achievement in any subject:
Anglo students in fourth and eighth grades also beat their peers nationally. Whites in the fourth and eighth grades finished fifth and fourth, respectively, on the math exam. Their average scores also trumped the national average for Anglo students. In a populous, diverse state like Texas, those scores are not something to wave off. They show that peer group-to-peer group, our students are holding their own. Here, though, is the troubling part, which Terry Stutz reports on in today's story about the NAEP results: Texas still has a significant "achievement gap" between Anglo and minority students. Among fourth graders, Anglos in Texas scored 23 points higher than blacks in Texas and 21 points higher than Latinos in Texas. Among Texas eighth graders, Anglos scored 29 points higher than African-Americans and 24 points higher than Hispanics.. That gap is particularly depressing when you consider what UT education expert Edward Fuller told Terry: Scores for black and Latino fourth-grade students in Texas are now where Anglo students in Texas were in 1992. And Texas scores for black and Latino eighth-graders are where whites were in 1990. We've talked here before about the achievement gap and why it's especially important to see more progress among Latino students, who make up about half the Texas public school student body. We'll keep talking about the best strategies, including getting more parents involved in their child's education. For the moment, though, let's both cheer and gulp. Texas still has a lot of work to do with its schools. Comments (8) Leave comment
| E-mail entryThe entry "Here's how to interpret Texas' NAEP math scores" is tagged: NAEP results |
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