www.dallasblog.com
August 1, 2006
By William Lutz
Reprinted with Permission

   Only at the Texas Education Agency is 35 percent a passing grade. 

   That’s right, schools rated “acceptable” this week by the Texas Education Agency only needed to have 35 percent of their students pass the science portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). But there’s another story lurking behind the curtain. The reality of the Texas public school system varies dramatically from all the “happy talk” Texans have heard from successive commissioners of education.  

   Here’s how the Texas Education Agency assigns accountability ratings:
Generally, a school’s rating is based on two main factors: scores on the state’s standardized test and completion rates, which measure the percentage of ninth graders who complete high school four years later (i.e. don’t dropout). 

   The Texas Education Agency issues four ratings: Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable, and Unacceptable. The latter rating is given to a small number of schools each year and has serious consequences for the school district and personnel, up to and including state takeover of the school. Campuses and districts get rated. (A more technical explanation of accountability ratings can be found in the Texas Education Agency’s accountability manual available here: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2006/manual/index.html) 

   In 2006, schools must show a 75 percent completion rate. This rate is measured for all students and each student group (white, African American, economically disadvantaged, Hispanic). In other words, 75 percent of all students must complete, and 75 percent of African Ameircans, and 75 percent of Hispanics, etc.  

   In addition to the completion rate, schools must have an acceptable passing rate on state’s standardized tests. In 2006, schools needed to have 35 percent pass the science test at all grades. In math, schools needed 40 percent. For the other subjects (reading, writing, and social studies), schools needed a 60 percent passing rate to get an acceptable rating. Again, this passing rate applies for each student group and grade level. 

   But there’s another feature of this system the Texas Education Agency doesn’t like to discuss. The percentage of correct answers required to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is often small. 

   On the seventh grade math test, a student only had to get a raw score of 28 out of 48 (58 percent) to pass. On the eleventh grade science test, a student need only score 29 out of 55 (53 percent) to pass. 

(The full raw score conversion tables can be found here: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/scoring/convtables/2006/index.html) 

   To put it another way, in order to get an acceptable rating, a high school has to get 35 percent of its students to answer 53 percent of the questions correctly on the state’s eleventh grade science test. A similar story can be constructed for most tests at most grade levels.
   But even these low standards cause a few schools problems. So the TEA grants exceptions to schools that are improving or come very close to passing.
   Remember, only the TAKS is used in assigning accountability ratings. The ratings do not reflect college entrance exam scores, are not used in the college admissions process, and do not reflect how well a school’s vocational education programs do at imparting work-related skills.
   In short, state accountability ratings do not impart much useful information. 
   How did this problem get this way?

   Politics.

   The theory behind the Texas Accountability System (which is the model for the federal No Child Left Behind Act) is test everyone, set a really low bar, and put on a huge public relations show when many students pass.
   Perhaps in chronically underperforming schools this forces school administrators to pay attention to some kids who were written off in the past. But it also results in the overemphasis on one type of standardized test and the dumbing down of curriculum in the majority of schools, because scores on the state’s tests often determine administrator salaries and career prospects.

Whether this is good educational policy is debatable, but until recently, it’s been great politics. It produced wonderful headlines for Gov. George W. Bush’s presidential campaign about “improving schools.”

During the 1990s, some of the elected conservative members of the Texas State Board of Education began to criticize this system. Then-board member Richard Neill (R-Fort Worth) lambasted then-Commissioner of Education Mike Moses for the ease of questions on the state’s standardized test.

One such question asked students how many legs are on an insect. If they did not know, an accurate picture was provided. Another question asked students which region of the U.S. had the most silver mines in the late 19th Century. If they did not know, a map of U.S. Silver Mines was provided.

In response to criticism about the ease of the test, Moses proposed the reaction of a new test – to take effect after Bush left office.

The TAKS, which is currently used in Texas public schools, is an improvement over its predecessor. The high school math test now contains algebra, for example.

But the number of correct answers to pass the test is still way too low, as is the required passing rate. Additionally, for the two higher ratings at the high school level, the agency ought to consider college entrance exam scores.

The current accountability system was not designed by the current governor. The Texas school accountability system is a bad joke, but Texas newspapers and broadcast media aren’t laughing anymore. The press is finally doing stories on the low accountability standards and rampant cheating.

Texas is in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign right now. It’s time for the current governor and the other candidates in this race to take a long-term view of the situation. The political benefits of manipulating the state’s accountability ratings are beginning to wane. It’s time to stop providing incentives to dumb down the public schools and be honest with the public. If that means more schools get a negative label, so be it.

Only then will Texans get the public schools we truly deserve.