There’s a New STAAR on the Horizon

Yes, two “As” because we’re not talking about a celestial body, nor are we talking about a celebrity. We are talking about the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, the state’s new assessment of knowledge instrument that will replace TAKS over the next 4 years.

STAAR will be administered this spring to 9^th graders for the first time, and passing it just might make or break their walk across the stage 3 years hence.

In short, if before we had 4 TAKS tests that a student needed to pass, now we have 12 STAAR tests that they must pass. Yes, high-stakes testing has just gone to a new level.

Trouble is, according to this article, the state has not yet decided what the passing standard will be. And unfortunately once that standard is decided upon one wonders whether they will stick to that standard throughout a student’s secondary education, or whether it will be adjusted year by year as TAKS standards were.

But most alarming to some is that the STAAR test is more rigorous than TAKS. I think the biggest criticism I have of state mandated tests is that the tests are not necessarily written in the language that the content was taught. Textbooks that are adopted in each district differ from one to another. So the language and the context that the content is taught differs from district to district. In addition, many students attempt to pass courses by rote memorization, but when presented with a STAAR test, all of a sudden they are expected to think at the highest order, something that only the 1^st quartile are capable of doing.

But perhaps the biggest concern I have with implementing a new high-stakes testing regimen just now is also the concern of Gayle Fallon, the American Federation of Teachers president in Houston:

“The biggest problem we've got is it's a significant jump in difficulty in a year to be followed by another year where we're seeing the largest class sizes we've ever seen. We're seeing resources disappear on a daily basis. I'm not saying our teachers can't do it, but it's kind of like saying run this race and we're going to tie both your hands behind your back. Now good luck.”

The sad fact is, the state is requiring students to pass a new high-stakes test at a time when the state failed to deliver the resources to public schools as demanded by the state’s own constitution.

And Oh Yeah . . . One Ticketing for a Messaging Issue

Oh Yeah.

I almost forgot to mention that as I was leaving the protest rally to Save Our Texas Schools, I came upon a scene that had developed just outside the capitol grounds.

One of us was getting a ticket.

A small crowd had gathered just outside the south entrance gate and a woman was asking for crowd volunteers who had witnessed what had just happened. Now as it turns out, what had just happened was that a young woman, a teacher, was being ticketed for her illegal usage of chalk.

A teacher being ticketed for writing on the sidewalk with chalk.

How ironic is that?

She was surrounded by eight, count ‘em, eight Department of Public Safety officers, several of them were on bikes and wore blue bike helmets. The rest of them were in their regular khaki uniforms and cowboy hats.

One of them was busy writing on a ticket book. The rest of them were watching.

And no, the DPS has not been able to find and arrest the nihilists who torched the governor’s mansion a couple of years ago, but gosh darn it, they caught this teacher writing pro-education messages on the sidewalk with her chalk.

Caught her red-handed.

Now the irony deepens because what could have gone unnoticed and un-regarded by the public and the police have now not gone unnoticed. In fact, photographs of her messages now appear on the internet.

Thanks to the DPS.

Here is a shot of the crowd that formed. See? Two sets of DPS troopers.

Here is another shot. The guy in the blue helmet has the ticket book and he is receiving a lesson in government relations and first amendment rights from a teacher.

Here are shots of the results of this teacher’s dastardly act. Nice block handwriting. A practiced hand with chalk as a messaging tool I think.

Simple messages conveyed in a simple way that will wash away with a spring rain now enshrined on the internet.

Fox News: The Lesser of Us Edumacating the Lessers of Us

Media Matters has it on their website here. When they say that 20% of Americans can’t find their own country on a world map, the people at Fox News might just find themselves in that number. According to this screen grab, Fox News continues to educate their viewers with stuff that is just wrong.

Like identifying the position of Egypt where Iraq should be in their screen graphics.

You know, Egypt, that entity that has been identified as a sovereign nation for 5000 years that we know of.

A country that was a country before most people had any national identity at all.