STAAR Test: Let the Caving Begin

The new high stakes Texas state test to measure accountability in high school education, the STAAR test, takes effect this year with this year’s entering 9^th graders. Starting this year, students  must not only have a cumulative score of some amount to be determined at a later date on all of the STAAR end of course tests taken, but in addition to that, the test is to count for 15% of their grade in the course.

15% is peanuts.

15% hardly affects a student’s grade at all.

Nevertheless, parents from Beaumont to El Paso raised a hue and cry so loud about what this “harder test” will do to their children’s GPA and class rank (which determines which Texas university they get accepted to), that today, TEA Education Commissioner Robert Scott announced: “Never mind.”

Scott was advised that he had the purview to overrule what the state legislature mandated in their legislation that established this new accountability system.

So what he said today is this:

“Based on my conversations with the Governor’s Office and clarification of legislative intent from the House and Senate, I am modifying the Texas Education Agency’s House Bill 3 Transition Plan. The modification gives public school districts and charter schools the ability to defer implementation of the statutory provision that requires performance on an end-of-course assessment to count as 15 percent of a student’s final course grade”

 In other words, “Never mind.”  The high stakes test became less high stakes. He let the districts decide whether they were going to let the grade count or not, but do you think any district will let the test count for 15% of the grade if other districts opt out? In this litigious society of ours, a school district that declines to opt out of the relaxation of the rules is a school district begging to be sued by a parent.

But wait, it gets better. The provision to have the state test count for a percentage of a student’s grade was actually a good idea. Know why? When a test will not affect a student’s grade in the present tense, there is little motivation on the part of students to do their best. The school accountability system is a joke because students have not been given sufficient motivation to do their best.

You see, today’s youth is very much focused on “the now.” They could care less about the future. If a test affects their present grade, they are concerned. If it doesn’t they could care less. That’s why this idea was such a good one. Besides, if a whole instructional day is to be spent on a state test, let it count for something.

But no. The caving has begun. And now looking to the future, I can only begin to predict what percentage correct responses will be assigned to a “mastery” rating. Certainly not 70%. More like 50% or 45%.

Texas education. Making mediocrity work each and every day.

Charter Schools: The Other Shoe Drops

I have long-suspected that it is an agenda item of the Republican Party to end public school education in America. It certainly looks like that is the case in Texas. In Texas, with a $27 billion budget shortfall, and with half of the total budget being in the area of public education, I suspect that this government-created crisis is being used to gut the education system.

And now I see that the other shoe has dropped.

Austin legislators are now talking about raising the cap on how many charter schools can operate in Texas.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“State law caps the number of charters the State Board of Education may grant at 215, and there are currently 210 active charters. House and Senate committees will take up bills related to raising that cap as early as Tuesday. The most ambitious would allow up to 100 new charters per year, with no total limit. A more moderate proposal would allow 10 new charters annually.”

The trouble is, this couldn’t come at a worse time. The TEA is the agency that monitors the performance of charter schools, as it does public schools. Except because charter schools are not subjected to the same testing requirements as public schools – no TAKS testing in other words, the monitoring process is different at charter schools. And the TEA just laid off 91 full time and 11 contract workers. They must make do with fewer staff, but are now going to be expected to monitor the performance of more of these charter schools.

And charter schools have a poor reputation for quality education. While a total of 1.4% of public schools are rated “academically unacceptable,”11.1% of the 210 charter schools operating in Texas were rated at that level.

I just wish they’d  come clean and state the real reason they want to increase the cap on charter schools. One thing for sure it isn’t, and that’s giving a quality education to Texas’ schoolchildren.

Face it, its not quality education we are talking about here. We aren’t concerned with quality education are we? The real concern is clear to anyone, it’s all about making money. Public schools are money sinks, charter schools are a cash cow.

Charter schools: Kids lose, too.

TEA Not Concerned With the Lives of Students

It’s not what you say, but what you do that counts. A friend told me that recently and its truth keeps on echoing around me.

In the last legislative session, the State House and State Senate, in reacting to the tragic loss of life when a Beaumont chartered school bus overturned on the way to a soccer match, passed a law that allocated $10 million to reimburse school districts who pay for the equipping of new school buses with seat belts.

There’s something that I have been wondering about for years. It is state law to belt yourself in, in an automobile, but children are free to bounce off of walls and ceilings when a school bus has an accident. This law was a no-brainer and way past due.

But yesterday the Texas Education Agency pared that $10 million allocation to $3.6 million because they are under a mandate to reduce their budget by 5%.

Now by my math that is a reduction of 64%, not 5%. Obviously they are not going at this budget reduction in a 5% across the board approach.

In other words, in exchange for the health and safety of children who ride the bus every day, the TEA is enabling itself to keep the same funding in other programs. Or maybe even raise the funding.

The TEA spends billions of dollars every year on testing. Billions. Ten million dollars to ensure the safety of our school children is a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Rick Perry’s words when he signed the bill into law included this: “[this law] will not only save lives, it will give parents peace of mind every morning their children leave their home for school and climb aboard a bus.”

Peace of mind? As Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say on SNL, “Never mind.”

2010 Texas School Accountability Ratings Are Out

As promised, the Texas Education Agency has put up its finalized listing of campuses and districts, ratings that are in large part boiled down from millions of test scores. You can find them here. They call these tests “high stakes” not only because they determine whether a student will advance to the next grade at key critical stages, whether a student will or will not graduate, but also whether a campus receives one of four ratings.

In descending order, campuses can be rated as Exemplary, Recognized, Academically Acceptable or Academically Unacceptable.

And for the second year, the Texas Projection Measure, an algorithm concocted at Pearson Education, is being used to predict whether a student will eventually achieve mastery level in a TAKS test. In doing that, if the TPM projects eventual TAKS mastery, the student’s result is moved to the mastery column and this a win for the campus and district toward its rating.

This algorithm has been the subject of much discussion this year, and for good reason. For example, a 10th grade student taking a science TAKS test is not affected by their scores. The TPM looks at the four different TAKS test that the 10th grader takes and from the performance of their peers, uses their performance on the 10th grade test to project whether the student will eventually pass the 11th grade exit level TAKS test.

The TPM, you could say, has served to increase the overall ratings of campuses. For example, just looking at high schools, which are the schools that are typically less likely to obtain an Exemplary rating, in 2010 there are 201 Exemplary schools. Five or so years ago, if memory serves, there were 13.

But this isn’t really the main problem with TPM campus rating inflation, is it? The main problem is at the other end. How many, I wonder, Academically Acceptable high school campuses are there that have been given that rating based on the TPM? In all, there are 347 high school campuses in Texas rated as Academically Acceptable (there are 37 high school campuses rated at Academically Unacceptable). But this is not a thing easily answered because the TEA will not produce a sorted table that includes whether the TPM impacted the rating.

You have to work for it.

So I looked at a 10% sampling and found out of 37 AA schools, only two of them were assigned that rating because of the TPM.

So that’s assuring.

Judge Rules Against Grade Inflation

I read about it first at the Dallas Morning News. Yesterday, Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal of the 200th Judicial District Civil Court ruled in a lawsuit brought against TEA Commissioner Robert Scott by eleven Texas school districts that districts may not require their teachers to issue grades that are higher than a student actually earned.

I have two previous postings on this matter. The reason the school districts gave for flouting what became state law last year was that the provisions in the law were vague and that they applied to individual grades on class assignments but not to actual progress reports or semester reports.

This despite the fact that Commissioner Scott issued a directive to all school districts in the state that clarified the issue, and that State Rep Jane Nelson (R – Flower Mound) clearly indicated the intent of her bill, SB 2033 that became law in unanimous passage last year, was to address grade inflation on report cards.

And apparently the judge had an easier time reading the law than the school boards. From DMN:

“But the judge dismissed their arguments, saying the legislation was ‘not ambiguous’ and reflected the Legislature's intent to protect teachers from having to give grades that weren't earned.”

Significantly, the Houston Chronicle reports that the judge was not deciding the case on the merits of each sides' arguments, both of which, she said, had valid points. The decision was simply a judgment on the merits of the ambiguity in the language of the law as claimed by the school districts.

Asked to comment on the decision to allow teachers to accurately report on their students’ mastery of subject matter, State Senator Nelson seemed pleased:

“This ruling is a victory for Texas teachers, students and parents because now all grades – on class assignments and on report cards – will accurately reflect how well students have mastered their coursework. Knowing the truth about a student's progress is important information for helping all children succeed in school.”

Going forward, what comes next is still apparently up in the air. Richard Morris, the lawyer representing the eleven school districts was rather vague, himself, on possible actions. An appeal was a possibility, he offered. Otherwise the districts might be lobbying the legislature to reverse itself.

But quite frankly, I think Morris might have to look for other cases to occupy his time, otherwise known as “billable hours.” Mainly because in public school education, money is so tight right now that school districts are cutting staff and trimming bus routes. I doubt that taxpayers would take it very kindly if they learned that their school boards were engaged in cutting services but were still spending taxpayer dollars in order to guarantee their continued stranglehold over a teacher’s grade reporting decisions.

Perry Sells Out Texas Education - - - Again

Not happy with his first refusal to participate in the federal education funding program, Race to the Top, Texas Governor Rick Perry has declined for the second time to participate in round two of the program to stimulate education quality, and quantity in America.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“To no one’s surprise, Gov. Rick Perry announced on Tuesday that Texas would not apply for some of the remaining $3.4 billion in federal grant money intended to spur education reform across the country. Texas could have won as much as $700 million, if it had chosen to compete.”

Now having just witnessed a local school district nearby dismiss 463 educators from their jobs, I find this news to be quite frankly offensive. Effectively Perry is telling parents of Texas school children that he will neither allow the state government to fund public education at a level that some deem as merely adequate, nor will he allow Texas to try for some federal funding to fill the widening gap between what is needed to educate Texas children, and what is actually provided.

And the TEA, having spent hundreds of hours preparing documents that they would have submitted to obtain up to $700 million in federal dollars, federal dollars that have already been appropriated, is now thinking that if someone demands a copy of their work, as is anyone’s right under the Freedom of Information Act, that might put them at a disadvantage if for some reason Texas participates in Round 3.

If for instance, Texas acquires a new governor in November that would not deny his own state’s school districts much-needed federal funding.

So they released their horde of documents, found here.

This was a lot of work. A lot of work that adds up to absolutely nothing if it doesn’t even get submitted. And yes, it would have been criminal if the TEA didn’t itself produce this product because their governor, their boss, won’t like it, use it or submit it.

And I have learned from a lifetime of working for incompetent fools that the last thing you do is predict how low your boss can possibly perform, and you work in anticipation of that happening just to make life easier on you.

The Best and The Worst Schools In Texas

Children At Risk, a nonprofit organization that drives change for children through research, education and influencing public policy, has issued its fifth annual Texas schools report card that can be viewed here.

For the first time, they have also rated elementary and middle schools.

The rating system is a little arcane because the group bases its ranking system on data that is gleaned from the Texas Education Agency.

Data we know to be reality-challenged.

But I believe in the extremes. I believe that you can glean information by looking at the poles and not by comparison of things that appear to be similar. So the second thing I did, after looking at where my place of work was ranked, was to compare the highest ranked school to the lowest ranked one.

First, there is some debate on which highest ranked school I should look at, because clearly, the schools right at the top of the list are all specialty schools or magnet schools where they cherry-pick their students. These schools need not be included because their data is skewed.

So using that as a culling criterion, and including only schools who open their doors to all students within their attendance zone, the top-ranked school in Texas is Highland Park High School in Dallas. The lowest ranked school in Texas is L. G. Pinkston High School, also located in Dallas.

These two schools are six miles from each other.

Six miles and 1011 school ranking positions separate them.

Ranked in position 7, Highland Park High School is the highest-ranked school that is open to everyone within its attendance zones. L. G. Pinkston is ranked dead last in position 1018. Comparing them on the rating criteria is illuminating.

Pinkston H S has a total student enrollment of 1,194, Highland Park’s enrollment is 1,934.

65.8% of Pinkston’s students are Hispanic (20.5% Limited English Proficient), 33.1% are African-American, and 0.4% are classified as White. Highland Park’s students are 4% Hispanic (0.1% LEP), 0.3% African-American, and 92.3% White.

The Student/Teacher ratio at Pinkston is 13.4. At Highland Park it is 14.5.

Total dollars spent per student at Pinkston is $7,461. At Highland Park it is $7,806. According to this research group, Texas’s state average expenditure per student is $7,934.

The percent of Pinkston’s students classified as Economically Disadvantaged stands at 78%. Highland Park has no ED students.

The high school graduation rate at Pinkston is 34.9%. Highland Park’s average is 93.3%

54.3% of Pinkston’s students take either the SAT or ACT test as opposed to 100% at Highland Park. Average SAT score at Pinkston is 756. At Highland Park it is 1201. And while 12.8% of Pinkston students take an AP or an IB test, none of them pass them. This is opposed to Highland Park students, 88.3% of them take at least one of those tests and 65.5% pass them (roughly 75% of the test takers).

What did I learn? I learned the obvious. Academic rankings based on anything other than how affluent you are, or more to the point, how un-affluent you are, are completely bogus. How well a school does, or how poorly it does has nothing to do with how much money you throw at it, school size, or what the student/teacher ratio is. It has nothing to do with anything else but how poor you are – everything extends from that one thing.

It’s an old, old story but I guess it bears repeating as we keep hearing the views of consultants who keep coming up with a new flavor-of-the-day on how to improve test scores – and get well-paid for that advice.

Texas Education Commissioner Wants No Part of Federal Standards

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott has a problem with national education standards. Basically the problem settles down along these lines: if education standards don’t have a Texas brand on them, they don’t belong here.

Texas, according to Robert Scott, has education standards that far exceed national standards. No . . . really . . . he said that.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Participation in the ongoing common standards effort is part of the criteria for a $4 billion federal grant program called Race to the Top. Texas and Alaska are the only states not participating in the common standards effort. Scott said Texas is already ahead of the other states in developing tough standards.”

But I guess that simply depends on what your definition of “ahead” is.

“Ahead” might mean a school child’s ability at rote recollection of facts.

“Ahead” might mean a constant climb in standardized test scores year after year.

“Ahead” might mean an ability to mount an argument that Earth is a mere 6000 years old and the existence of fossils embedded in rock is evidence of Noah’s Flood.

Because if that is what Scott’s definition of “ahead” is, then yes, Texas is definitely ahead of the rest of the country in its education standards.

And yes, neither Texas nor Alaska, the latter of whom has an education system that produced the likes of Sarah Palin, are participants in the federal education standards program and as a result neither Texas nor Alaska are recipients of hundreds of millions in federal funds.

“‘Because Texas has chosen to preserve its sovereign authority to determine what is appropriate for Texas children to learn in its public schools,’ said Scott, ‘the state is now placed at a serious disadvantage in competing for its share of (the grant money).’”

Am I reading this correctly? Because of decisions taking place at the highest levels of state government, Texas schoolchildren are being placed at a significant disadvantage compared to students in 48 other states?

I guess all that needs to be asked, then, is why Texans continue to suffer these incompetent fools driving the state’s education system right into the ground. Are Texans that ignorant? What made them so poorly informed?

Ahh.

TEA Lawsuit on Grading Filed

AP has the story, as found here, that six separate Houston area school districts have joined in a lawsuit naming Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott as the defendant in their suit to allow the districts to continue their grading policies without state interference.

The districts include Fort Bend, Alief, Klein, Aldine, Anahuac and Clear Creek. These school districts define the suburban area around Houston proper. That is, they are most definitely not in areas impacted by high dropout rates.

I checked each district’s dropout rate on the Texas AEIS school rating system and recovered 2007 dropout rates for each district – the most recent data available online. This is what I found:

Aldine ISD – 5.9%
Alief ISD – 19.3%
Anahuac ISD – 5.1%
Clear Creek ISD – 2.8%
Fort Bend ISD – 7.6%
Klein ISD – 10.2%

The state average overall is 11.4%

The sprawling Houstion ISD, on the other hand, the inner city that these school districts surround have a reported dropout rate of 22.1%.

So of the six districts joining in the lawsuit, only one, Alief, comes within any shouting distance of having a dropout rate that should concern us all. The other five are to be congratulated for their successes.

Bringing up the question, why are these school districts suing anyone over this? Ostensibly, the grading policy as stated in the lawsuit, serves to prevent students with failing grades from giving up and dropping out. From the filing as printed in the Fort Bend blog found in The Chron:

“[Minimum grading policies] ensure that a student may still gain credit for a course as a whole and, in turn, continue progressing towards graduation, even after receiving a failing grade in, say, the first grading period, provided they can attain requisite grades in subsequent grading periods for the course. As such, minimum grading policies for report cards area key tool for keeping students in school.”

The aim, then, is to provide students with an incentive not to drop out of school.

And while a 5 or even a10 percent dropout rate is in itself tragic, it isn’t headline making.

In truth, the vast majority of students in five of these six districts which have joined in the lawsuit are not at all at risk. Not by a long shot.

But this is the thrust of the lawsuit – that the grading policy will cut down on dropout rates.

State Senator Jane Nelson (R – Flower Mound) commented on the failure of school districts to comply with the new state law, and the resultant lawsuit:

“It is a sad state of affairs when school districts are willing to go to court for the right to force their teachers to assign fraudulent grades. [Administrators] are willing to waste precious education resources on a misguided lawsuit to continue these policies, which undermine the authority of our teachers and reward minimum effort from students.”

The Texas American Federation of Teachers has since weighed in on the controversy as well:

“The recent decision by six school districts to sue the Texas Education Agency over implementation of a new law on minimum grades is disturbing, because these districts are ignoring the will of lawmakers in an attempt to preserve a flawed policy of artificial grade inflation.”

Continuing.

“School districts are free to create a variety of policies to help students who may have gotten dismally low grades initially, but who then make valid efforts to pass their course. Districts can still allow make-up work and make-up exams or extra-credit opportunities to help students who deserve to pass. Mandating that a teacher give a minimum grade of 50 to someone who doesn't put forth the effort—often someone who doesn't show up for class or never even turns in an assignment—doesn't assure that students have mastered the subject matter and gives the distinct impression that districts are more interested in masking failure than improving student performance.”

And besides all of that, the dropout rate cited as the main reason for the grading policy is not a critical issue in 5 of the 6 districts, whose dropout rates fall below the state average.

District grading policies take all of the flexibility out of the classroom and places it squarely in school board rooms. This is not the proper place for that. Having a rigid grading policy is another in a continuous line of evidences that school boards do not trust the professional judgment of their teachers to do the right thing for their students. It is the classroom teacher who is in the best position to judge whether a student is failing due to their attitude toward education in general or due to extenuating circumstances that can be treated on an ad hoc basis.

If the teacher is the problem, there are solutions to that, more intelligent solutions than handing over grades to undeserving students.

But again, I have to ask this in the case of five of the six school districts joined in the suit:

Is there a problem?

Texas Teacher: State-Required Fingerprinting Is a Devilish Affair

On November 3rd Pam McLaurin, an otherwise unassuming kindergarten teacher in Big Sandy ISD filed suit in federal court against Texas TEA Commissioner Robert Scott and Associate Commissioner Jerel Booker.

At issue, according to this posting at the American Constitution Society, is Ms. McLaurin’s rights as a person of faith, a person who, she claims will have her constitutional right to free exercise of her religious beliefs violated because of a new state law that requires all teachers who teach in Texas schools be fingerprinted.

This is the result of a bill passed during the 80th legislative session in 2007 known then as SB 9 but is now embodied within the Texas Education code under Section 22.0831 (scroll to page 18).

And while it doesn’t appear that this applies to all teachers in Texas, and not just to new teachers seeking a Texas teaching certificate, this is exactly what it does.

It applies to all teachers.

But Pam McLaurin, in her federal lawsuit, argues that this requirement violates her freedom of religion because “fingerprinting represents a sign of the beast, a reference to the Bible's book of Revelation.”

That is, that part of Revelation that refers to those who are marked by Satan as one of his own in the end of days.

Going further . . .

“Revelation states that people who worship ‘the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his right hand,’ shall draw God's wrath. McLaurin's attorney says the law, which could prompt the teacher's dismissal, violates her First Amendment free exercise of religion right. The attorney, Scott Skelton, told Wired that McLaurin firmly believes that computerized fingerprinting is the mark of the beast referenced in Revelation. ‘This law prohibits the free exercise of her religion,’ he told Wired.”

Now I have to say that this fingerprinting mandate, which I have known was coming down the pike for some time now is not special to Texas. California fingerprints all of its teaching certificate applicants as well. Texas has gone one better, though, in requiring that its entire teacher workforce, numbering some 600,000 individuals, be fingerprinted as well.

And at $40 a pop in fingerprinting fees, that’s a cool chunk of change ($24 million) going out of the pockets of Texas teachers and into the state coffers. The alternative, as stated in the ACS article, is dismissal.

Talk about pay to play.

Anyway, while I have some trouble with Ms. McLaurin’s main issue with the law, that it violates her religious freedom, and while I doubt it will get very far even in East Texas, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt, I wish Ms. McLaurin and her lawyer well.

Not because I want a bunch of criminals teaching our children, I don’t. But because the law speaks to the level of respect, or shall I say disrespect that the state and society in general has for the teaching profession.

New US Department of Education Policy on NCLB Dings Texas

In an October 19 report on Texas’ compliance to policies outlined in the federal No Child Left Behind law, a law that is set to be rewritten very soon now, the feds have slammed Texas for its policy in classifying its new teachers as “highly qualified.”

From their report, which you can obtain here, this is the root of the problem:

“Citation: §9101(23)”

“Finding: The State allows new elementary teachers to demonstrate competence to determine highly qualified status by passing applicable ExCET (6-12 and PK-12) and/or TExES EC-12 single subject content tests. The State cannot count or report these teachers as highly qualified. Only the broad-field elementary assessment that measures competence across the core elementary curricula can be used to determine the highly qualified status of new elementary teachers.”

Translating, in order to be classified as “highly qualified,” a new elementary level teacher must pass a test that demonstrates general knowledge. Texas hired teachers that only passed tests on specific knowledge in their core area. For example, a 5th grade teacher who teaches math has passed only the math competency test but has been labeled “highly qualified” by the state.

How many teachers are we talking about here, anyway?

The state estimates we are talking about 30,000 teachers.

Now 30,000 teachers is a drop in the bucket in Texas, which has at last count, 600,000 teachers in public service, or about 5%, but this 5% comprises most of the newly certified teachers in Texas.

This has monetary ramifications as NCLB does not allow federal dollars to be spent in school districts that are not in compliance with NCLB. In other words, in the model of the carrot and the stick, it’s the equivalent of the stick. The carrot, federal inducement to improve education in the states, really doesn’t exist.

This has further repercussions in that in order to continue to receive these funds these teachers need to lose their jobs and right quick.

And I don’t know about you, but as a new teacher, I would not view education in a very positive light if I were let go because of this technicality in the law. I would just find another line of work.

The Department of Education report goes on, by the way, and tells the Texas Education Agency that they have 30 days to come up with a plan to implement the “correct HQT requirements” including notifying all parents of children whose teachers are now viewed as not highly qualified, as well as a plan to get these teachers – especially teachers in federally supported Title I and Title II Part A positions rated as highly qualified.

Now on top of not being able to use federal funds to pay these positions, the districts employing these teachers have to pay postage to send a letter to, oh, roughly 750,000 Texas households telling them that their local tax dollars are not at work.

I can’t think of a better way to enrage Texans than to say that their taxes are being used to fund districts that not only hire unqualified teachers, but lie about it to the feds.

Now I just have to wonder whether this would have been the case had Texas not gone for McCain/Palin in a big way last year.

Because all politics is local.

It’s a Tie: Jesus 1 Darwin 1

Things seem to have split down the middle in yesterday’s wrangle at the Texas State Board of Education confab in Austin, where it met to vote on amendments to the 3^rd draft of Chapter 112 of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills document. That document can be found here.

In what seems to have become a miraculous turn of events, the forces for Jesus and The Creator of the Universe seem to have suffered a setback, as the board voted and rejected two proposed amendments to return the “strengths and weaknesses” clause to the document.

A team of teachers and education experts have worked long and hard to come up with 3 drafts of a proposed document that will set the stage for public school science instruction as well as what actually gets written in science textbooks. In the documents 3^rd incarnation, Line 3A was stripped from each and every science discipline included in Chapter 112 of the TEKS.

In the draft currently in force, approved in 1998, this language is found:

“(3) Scientific processes. The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to:

(A) analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information;”

In the 3^rd draft we see this language in the high school document:

“(3) Scientific processes. The student uses critical thinking, scientific reasoning and problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to:

(A) analyze and evaluate scientific explanations, using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing;”

Clearly, the phrase “as to their strengths and weaknesses” was deleted. The group deleted this phrase in a nod to the 21^st century and the Supreme Court which has already ruled that creationism and intelligent design may not be taught in a science classroom. The “strengths and weaknesses” phrase was seen by the TEKS science committee as one that promotes the teaching of those two proscribed dogmatic ideologies that are nothing less than an attempt to teach religion in public school as science.

And yesterday, in two separate motions, two evangelical members of the school board sought to restore this language to the document.

An attempt that was narrowly defeated twice.

So it will not be part of the Texas science curriculum for students to evaluate Darwin’s theory of natural selection as to whether it adequately explains a known fact – that evolution occurs.

But they had to throw a bone to the vanquished, I think.

In a separate and very narrow challenge to evolutionary theory, the board voted 9 to 6 to include a phrase in the biology curriculum that specifically deals with species evolution.

In the 3^rd draft’s section 43 (Biology) Line 7 reads like this:

(7) Science concepts. The student knows evolutionary theory is a scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life. The student is expected to:

(A) identify how evidence of common ancestry among groups is provided by the fossil record, biogeography, and homologies including anatomical, molecular, and developmental;

I guess this language was too strong and forceful for board chairman, Republican evangelical dentist Don McLeroy. He wanted the following idea added to water down what appears to be some factual certainty:

“…evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of scientific theories about common ancestry of different species.”

But at least he is getting away from the word “weakness.”

And at least they are being a little more intellectually honest by including this phrase as a direct attack on these scientific disciplines, rather than putting in every section of the document a “strength and weakness” phrase in some sort of attempt at looking even-handed, when an attack on evolutionary theory was the intent all along.

Besides, I always thought that the developmental evidence for the evolution of the phyla, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was a little hokey.

Reasons Number 9210 and 9211 Why McCain Would Make an Awful President.

The contrast could not be greater between our presidential choices this year. It give me the absolute hysterics seeing that there are still those on the fence over whether to go for Obama or McCain in November.

Hysterics.

Notwithstanding the fact that they are diametrically opposed in ideology with regard to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and war in general, notwithstanding the fact that a vote for McCain is a vote to bring government interference in any woman’s biological function, they cannot be further apart on issues of education.

And McCain is clearly the clueless one, and gets a zero, on education issues.

But you have to admit it, he sure has audacity to show how badly informed he is on issues of education right in front of the annual convention of the NAACP.

That takes cojones.

As paraphrased in this MSNBC article:

“It is time, McCain said, to use vouchers and other tools like merit pay for teachers to break from conventional thinking on educational policy.”

That’s right, highlighting for us reasons number 9210 and 9211 why McCain would make an awful president.

Reason 9210. Merit pay for teachers is the biggest joke to hit the public sector since exit tests with apocalyptic consequences. Just as exit tests do not show how much or how little a student has learned in school, merit pay does not go to the teachers who impact students’ lives the greatest.

Merit pay for teachers has its roots in a fad that took root in the private sector during the 70’s and 80’s. It was called Performance Management. Google those words and you’ll see what I mean.

Performance management has to do with rewarding those who attain their professional goals. Goal setting has three basic assumptions: goals are agreed to by all parties, goals are attainable, and the employee has control over facets that go into attainment of the goals.

In the private sector, this works if the rules are followed. In the public sector, as in public schools, none of these assumptions are possible. Goals are set by the state board, and are forced on educators, whether they are attainable or not. But most importantly, educators have very little control over facets that surround the educational environment. Educators must, by law, attempt to educate all students regardless of their prior experiences, education, language/math skills, and home and economic environment.

A prime prerequisite for merit pay is controllability. If the employee has no control over quality issues, merit pay is unfair on its face.

Reason 9211. School vouchers are a formula for failure of the public school system; something that voucher supporters must know and must secretly wish to bring about.

Vouchers are a way to high-grade schools with regard to motivated students or their parents, concentrating both in localized areas, resulting in an imbalanced student population. Students whose parents don’t opt for vouchers remain in a school, or a district where motivated and talented students are selectively extracted.

Result: more schools don’t meet their AYPs, and more schools are closed.

John McCain, a former maverick politician, is towing the neoconservative line more and more every day, giving those of us with eyes to see a clear choice.

And this give those same people fits as we watch those on the fence first study a pile of stale horse manure on one side, and a bale of sweet-smelling spring-cut hay on the other side, and can’t seem to figure out which one would be better to swallow.

Comer: TEA’s Neutrality on Evolution v. Creationism is Unconstitutional

Former Texas Education Agency Science Director, Chris Comer, has filed suit in federal court charging that her firing was a violation of the US Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

I was waiting for this. This is a neatly-timed lawsuit, I think, filed just as the TEA is set to review the state’s science curriculum. The review comes in advance of Texas decennial textbook adoption process, a process that affects how publication houses present science content in their textbooks, because Texas’ adoption policy is so monolithic, it affects how textbooks are written for national consumption.

Comer was forced to resign, it will be recalled, as a result of an email message that she forwarded internally within the TEA, and externally, that announced a a talk by National Center for Science Education board member Dr. Barbara Forrest, co-author of “Creationism's Trojan Horse”, a critique of intelligent design and its roots in creationism.

Charges were leveled by Lizzette Reynolds, a recent TEA hire, who came to the TEA from an appointed position at the Bush Regime’s Department of Education, that Comer had violated the TEA’s “Neutrality Policy” regarding the teaching of the origin of life and species. Specifically, that she violated the policy by showing a preference that was against creationism and intelligent design. Comer countered at the time that by forwarding the message, she was not indicating a preference, and simply attached the notation “FYI” to the forwarded message.

At first, Comer was given a “30-day suspension,” but as we later found out, this was just to give Reynolds enough time to dredge up other trumped up but related charges, and forced Comer’s ultimate resignation.

Now Comer is back, and with all guns blazing. Gone is the excuse that an “FYI” is not an endorsement, it isn’t but that wasn’t the issue in the first place. The issue is, as stated in Comer’s lawsuit, that

“The Texas Education Agency has a policy of purported “neutrality” on teaching creationism as science in public schools. By professing “neutrality,” the Agency credits creationism as a valid scientific theory. Creationism, however, is not a valid scientific theory; it is a religious belief. The Agency’s policy is not neutral at all, because it has the purpose or effect of inviting dispute about an issue – teaching creationism as science in public schools – that is forbidden by the Establishment Clause.”

This issue has already been settled in the US Supreme Court. In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) the Court held that a Louisana law promoting the teaching of creationism as a science in concert with the teaching of evolution violates the Establishment Clause because “it lacks a clear secular purpose.” The Louisiana law essentially placed creationism and evolution on equal footing, each with equal weight, but in doing so, the Court found that the teaching of creationism had a religious purpose, and not a secular one. In Texas now, we have a similar issue, but with a different angle: the “Neutrality Policy” at the TEA is essentially the same as Louisiana’s law that gives equal weight to both creationism (or intelligent design) and evolution.

Why be neutral on a controversy when the conversants are not considered as equals?

So Comer has a strong case, and Supreme Court precedent behind her. What I hope, and this is very much out on a limb for me, is that the lawsuit will serve as a cloud over the TEA as it takes up its reconsideration of the state’s science curriculum.

If the TEA was not aware of it before, it should be now: the world is watching what they do.

State Closes Sam Houston High School (HISD)

Citing the poor academic record of Sam Houston High School, which has received an AEIS rating of “Unacceptable” for the sixth straight year, the Texas Education Agency has ordered this North Houston school’s doors closed and 75% of its teachers were told that they would not have jobs there next year.

The school will be reopened in August, possibly with a new name, definitely with some new teachers, and, it is said, with “new programs.”

Now looking at the school’s AEIS report on the TEA website I concede the point that the school has had some academic hard knocks. Scoring below the Texas average in all areas, with a dismal 36% of students passing all TAKS tests, yes I can see their point. And a 12% dropout rate, yes I can see their point (it’s probably much higher than that – they usually are no matter what school we are talking about).

Obviously things are broken at Houston’s Sam Houston High School. This is a real shame. This is one of Texas’ oldest continuous secondary schools having been organized in 1878 and having had several name changes and locations since then. The last time the name changed, from Central High School to Sam Houston, was 1955, so I guess it is time for a new name.

But here are the questions I have. Are we going to see a 75% turnover in teachers because they were a) failures at teaching these students enough to pass the TAKS test, or b) not the kind of teachers they will need next year when they reopen the school with “new programs.” Or maybe some combination of the two?

This is getting back to a very sore subject with me. The rating of the worth of teachers, or their skills as teachers, based on their students’ test scores. Based on the culture and economic composition of the community.

It’s like rating the performance of a dentist based on the oral health of their patients. That sounds reasonable but what if you rate dentists from rural areas whose patients do not have dental insurance and make appointments only when there’s something wrong, versus rating dentists in an urban area whose insured clientele comes in twice a year for a cleaning and examination?

Clearly there is more to this than poorly performing teachers.

Now from what I can glean, which is precious little, these "new programs" should by all rights more properly address the needs of the community. It’s obvious that there is very little community buy-in to the state’s academic curriculum by community members. Community members who are parents of failing students.

I think that is reasonable.

However, if HISD emplaces “new programs” and this no more serves the community than the state academic curriculum, I have to ask when are we finally going to realize that we have in this state students who don’t want to learn, who have parents who are unconcerned with their children’s academic failures?

Bottom line: A child’s failure to learn is not necessarily the effect of their teacher’s failure to teach. It can and does, in many cases, reflect back on the students or their parents.

I wonder what will happen at that point. What will the state finally do if it discovers that there are no “new programs” that will cater to that special community that doesn’t value education of any kind?

My best guess is absolutely nothing. It’s better (and I might add, cheaper) just to stick your head in the sand and ignore the problem. Or if not nothing, then school vouchers will rear its ugly head once again. Give school vouchers to these families so they can find better schools for their children to attend, because the problem lies with the schools, not the students, parents or community. And therein lies the rub. Give vouchers, and only those who are concerned about their education will take the time and trouble to find better schools. For the rest it will be business as usual.

Only now, instead of having 36% pass all TAKS tests, none of them will. Because those students in that 36% category will all be attending other schools.

Texas TAKS Attack Starts Tomorrow

With the dawn here in Texas, the most tested generation in history will sit down for the last series of Knowledge and Skills tests of the school year. It’s true you know. While the Great Generation met and mastered the tests of the Great Depression and World War II, the current generation of primary and secondary school children in Texas are, bar none, the most tested generation when you consider the kinds of tests where you “bubble” your answers inside little circles.

The only thing good about that is that at least when they go into their testing rooms tomorrow they pretty much know what is going to take place for the next few hours. I could go on and on about how tedious this is for everyone, and how disruptive it is of the curriculum calendar (all learning comes to a screeching halt), but I won’t. At least not anymore. No, I want to briefly examine what goes into test question development.

TAKS test questions are developed through a partnership between TEA, the Texas Education Agency, and Pearson Educational Measurement. Pearson develops the test questions and the TEA reviews them. Ten questions under review are usually administered to students along with their regular test questions, and student answers are analyzed. Questions that pass these rigors are then included in future tests as actual test questions that the students receive scores on. Test questions originate from individuals who contract with Pearson. I have done some of this with the Educational Testing Service so I have some experience with this. Typically one is asked to write several test questions, provide multiple choice responses, and then review several more questions developed by your peers. It’s interesting work.

Several times in the past, however, I have noticed that Pearson has allowed through a few bungled jobs. This is really through no fault of their own as they typically do not employ PhDs in their fields, unless you count PhDs in Education, and then I’ll bet that they are all over the place. The problem, as I see it, is that it is sometimes difficult to come up with a well-worded question for a concept that you are testing. Sometimes there are complexities that require a question’s words to be carefully chosen.

As an example, I cite a 5th grade science TAKS question that was asked a couple of years ago. A question for which there was no correct response.

Which two planets are closest to Earth?

A. Mercury and Saturn
B. Mars and Jupiter
C. Mercury and Venus
D. Venus and Mars

What is your answer? The question tested on the 5th grade science concept of the order of the planets in the solar system. Students in this case were supposed to reason that Earth lies in its orbital path between Mars and Venus, and therefore choice D was the correct choice. The trouble is, given the actual wording of the question, no response was correct. Had the question been reworded to “Which two planets have the closest orbital paths to that of Earth”, choice D would have been the correct one. The way it was worded, however, the two planets that are most often close to Earth are Mercury and Mars. Mercury, because, as opposed to Venus, it is most often on the same side of the Sun that Earth is, and Mars, because its orbital path brings it closer to Earth than Venus when they are on the same side of the Sun.

No 5th grader could know that, as it is an application of basic astrophysics. Only someone’s father or mother would ever be able to call the TEA out on that question. And they did, as a matter of fact. Texas, after all, has NASA within its borders. No, the question was poorly written and reviewers didn’t catch it. When it was tested with a previous year’s 5th grade class, it seemed to be a good question because 5th graders are not astrophysicists and they answered the question predictably with what they knew about the solar system.

So I think that given the specificity of questions on TAKS tests, especially the science tests, students will occasionally be visited with these kinds of erroneous questions. The problem isn’t having the wrong answers. It’s having correct questions.

TEA Clearing a Path For Intelligent Design?

It is fairly unnoticed, but a singular event occurred recently at the Texas Education Agency. In a fairly comprehensive article by Laura Heinauer at the Austin American Statesman, it was revealed that Chris Comer, the TEA’s director of science curriculum, a 9-year veteran of science wars on the TEA, has been fired recently by the TEA on charges that she showed bias toward one point of view with regards to science instruction.

The charges were leveled by one Lizzette Reynolds, a recent TEA hire, who came to the TEA from an appointed position at the Bush Administration’s Department of Education, and was previously a legislative director for then Governor George W. Bush. Reynolds was recently hired at the TEA as a “senior adviser on statewide initiatives”.

The charge? You’re actually not going to believe it. The charge was that Chris Comer was publicly displaying her bias with regard to a Bushie Science Favorite: Intelligent Design. In an email simply titled “FYI”, Ms. Comer informed a short list of people about an upcoming speaking event by Barbara Forrest, author of “Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse” a book that describes how Creationists are behind the political movement to introduce “intelligent design” into schools’ science curriculum.

Comer was given a 30-day paid suspension for that infraction last October, giving her antagonists enough time to dredge up other trivial charges that were eventually listed as causes for termination.

In short, Chris Comer was fired for having an opinion on science instruction. An opinion that she felt free to share with colleagues.

This is what I know about science: when science becomes a political football, science is doomed. When science is doomed, technology is close on its heels. Our society is in large part based on technology. When science becomes all about a political hack’s personal religious agenda, we all begin to suffer.

The names Chris Comer and Galileo Galileii have probably never appeared in the same sentence ever in history, but they have now. And the reason that they have has everything to do with religious persecution, persecution of a person based on their ideas and opinions that don’t agree with another’s religion.

And again, we find a Texas governmental agency in the spotlight, and again, find Texas to be a laughingstock in the world arena.

TEA’s School Ratings Have Come Out

Well actually they have been out for a couple of weeks but I haven’t had much time or inclination to look at them. I look every year to discover how many Texas high schools achieve the much desired “Exemplary” rating. As we gear up for a new school year, it’s time to take a look at what happened last year.

Last year, as I recall an astounding 13 total high school campuses achieved that rating. This was a huge drop from the previous year. That is because the Texas Education Agency decided to change the rules up. Schools are rated by test scores and drop out rates, but on top of that, they are rated on the percentage who pass within certain demographic groups: African-American, Hispanic, Economically Disadvantaged, a couple of others. If a school has 50 students within any of these groups, the group is treated as a sub-population, and if high numbers of students within the sub-population fail to master TAKS tests, the school’s rating is lowered. This new provision caused many schools across Texas to lose their Exemplary rating.

This year, the number of schools in Texas that achieved the Exemplary rating doubled over last year. By my count, 26. This is no doubt due to the fact that the TEA is not basing their ratings on high school drop out ratings this year.

Why, one would ask?

Well, like the sub-populations change, the TEA will be redefining what constitutes a high school drop out, and maybe they didn’t want to alarm the schools with another sudden definition change that can radically affect their ratings like last time. So they’re giving schools a year off so they can prepare for the changes that are in the air.

So who are the Exemplary schools in Texas? I have a list below. It is very disheartening when you read through the list that the grand majority of these schools are magnet schools that cherry pick their students or whose students are economically disadvantaged but motivated and are volunteers. I may have omitted a school or two based on the fact that the name did not readily identify the school as a high school.

Arlington Classics Academy
Carnegie Vanguard High School
Carroll Senior High School
Cornerstone Academy
Debakey High School For Health Prof
Early College High School
Early College High School
East Early College High School
Falls City High School
Health Careers High School
High Frontier High School
Highland Park High School
Idea College Prep
Lindsay High School
Lovejoy High School
Mission Early College High School
Prairie Valley High School
Richland Collegiate Hs Of Math S
Richland Collegiate Hs Of Math Sc
School For The Talented & Gifted
School Of Health Professions
School Of Science & Engineering
Silva Health Magnet
The Science Academy
Yes College Preparatory - East E
Yes College Preparatory School

Sound Mind, Sound Body, Sound Profits

When Republicans get together to help the children, in Texas at least, you have to follow the money.

Why would state Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville) author a bill (SB 530) to mandate 30 minutes per day of exercise for middle and junior high school students? Is there a genuine concern for their health? Are middle schoolers getting too fat? That’s what Nelson, an ex-teacher ex-state school board member says.

"Anyone who has taught public school knows the old adage of 'sound body, sound mind' really is true. This generation of young people will live shorter lives than their parents unless we change the status quo. We've got to do this”

That sounds completely reasonable, doesn’t it?

Another quote from Nelson from the same article. Follow the money:

"By implementing these requirements and having a tool to measure how increased fitness levels affect learning, Texas is at the forefront of addressing the issue of childhood obesity."

There it is, “having a tool to measure . . .”. The tool, in this case is a piece of software written by one Kenneth Cooper, a Dallas-based “exercise researcher” called Fitnessgram. The program is in use in Austin schools, and is likely to be the program of choice for middle and junior high schools statewide. Why? Jeff Kloster, who is the Health and Safety commissioner at the TEA says “it will probably be chosen because it is the most widely used in Texas and one of the most highly recognized fitness assessment tools nationwide.”

Nelson’s bill provides no funding to purchase a site license for the software at every middle and junior high school in the state. Another one of those “we mandate it you fund it bills” that the legislature likes to foist on already strapped school district budgets.

While Cooper says he is willing to forgo any profits for his software ($260 per site license), he is also working on arranging for grants to pay the balance. Arranging for grants to line his pockets.

According to TEA records there are 1268 middle and junior high schools in Texas’ total of 9083 schools. That means a cool $329,680.00 in gross sales, with a net profit of $291,640.00. That’s not a bad combined return on investment.

Return on investment? Oh, did I mention that Cooper contributed a total of $12,000.00 to the campaigns of Nelson and Rick Perry? So this calculates out to a profit to investment ratio of 24.3. Oil wells are drilled with lower P/I ratios. This is a goldmine.

Well Happy Day. It is Teacher Appreciation Week all over Texas.

We teachers here in Texas sure feel appreciated.

We feel appreciated when we spend hours grading papers at home in front of the TV and then come in to work bleary-eyed the next day to find a small packet of Gummy Bears in our mailboxes with a “Thank You For All That You Do” message.

Gummy Bears? Do I LOOK nine years old?

We feel appreciated when Rick Noriega gets the state House to change the infamous performance pay bill altered to an across the board pay raise for every teacher in Texas, only to have the State Senate put performance pay back in.

We feel appreciated when we try to do something new with our lives, like other non-teacher people do, only to have some rabid, spittle spewing parents call the media and complain about a young single elementary school teacher appearing in a bathing suit on a reality TV show.

We feel appreciated when one of our own, who is now a Texas State Senator, keeps filing bills that are hurtful and hateful to teachers.

And finally, we feel appreciated when some nitwit in the mainstream media petitions the Texas Education Agency through an open records request for the teacher certification test scores of thousands of teachers in southeast Texas. . . and publishes all of them on the internets.

What is it about being a teacher? Don’t we deserve a modicum of privacy? Sure there are some bad teachers out there. There are some real stinkers. But these test scores are not reflective of how good or how bad a teacher is in a classroom. I know. I checked the scores of all my peers and the scores do not match their competency, neither in their content area, nor in pedagogy.

But KTRK reporter Wayne Dolcefino, who was very probably hated by his teachers, thinks this data is newsworthy. Look Wayne, the reason that there are teachers out there who continually fail their competency tests and remain on the job is because NO ONE WANTS TO TEACH ANYMORE.

They can’t find anyone to replace these marginally skilled people. Or the replacements are worse.

And no wonder. When there are people like Wayne Dolcefino and Florence Shapiro out there taking potshots at Texas’ teacher community, who would want to put up with this load of excreta?