“'Each year, we raise the bar to push our schools to keep growing and improving. These changes will help prepare schools and districts for the new accountability system in 2013, which will be based on the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR™) and in response to House Bill 3 passed by the Texas legislature in 2009,'” (quote from Commissioner of Education Robert Scott).
As a result of these changes, in 2011 we have seen changes in Eanes ISD, Round Rock ISD, Austin ISD, Leander ISD, Lake Travis ISD--in all Greater Austin area school districts and across the state.
Some of what has changed includes:
• Elimination of the Texas Projection Measure (1); this may be the single largest impact to the standard from the past couple of years.
• Inclusion of results for more than 119,000 students receiving special education services who were tested on the TAKS-Modified and TAKS-Alternate assessments
• Inclusion of a measure for English language learners based on TAKS passing standards and progress on the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) reading, an assessment that measures a student’s English reading proficiency and progress
• Increasing the TAKS indicator standards for the Academically Acceptable rating by five points each for mathematics and science.
• Adding a new commended performance indicators
• Increasing the annual dropout rate riggor for grades 7-8 from 1.8 percent to 1.6 percent for the Recognized and Exemplary rating categories.
So, Texas standards for testing and rating is becoming more demanding on several fronts. In the end, this should give us a clearer picture of how well our schools are performing, with a rising bar of excellence.
Reference TEA press release:
http://www.tsta.org/news/current/accountability2011.pdf
(1) According to an article in the NY Times, July 23, 2011, TPM rating worked like this: Instead of using students’ actual scores on standardized tests, the TPM ratings formula gauged students’ future test scores based on a campus-wide average.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/us/24ttaccountable.html
Rating standards for each category:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2011/manual/table8.pdf
In some ways, the previous "adjusted standard" was a better indicator of the kind of education that your child could receive in a Texas school. What the old standard told us was whether or not the average student was getting a great education or not. We don't always need to know who is at the very top or the very bottom to know whether or not our children have the opportunity to get a great education. If the schools' teachers are doing a great job for the average student, then my kids have a equally good shot if they apply themselves. So, being the very best, or 2nd or 3rd best is really not going to help or hurt my child. As long as the teachers are doing a great job, and some significant population of the children at the school are learning and doing well, then my kids have the same opportunity to learn and do well. Is my school rated #1 in Austin? You know, even if it is or is not, my children have great schools, great teachers, and have an equal opportunity to do well this year.
ReplyDeleteEven real estate schools change in their rankings as students shift from school to school and quality of education changes from school year to school year.
ReplyDeleteI think there should be really a standard set to every school, and that a very good clarification about such standards will have to be done as well.