TAKS evasion? School chiefs weigh in

By Angela Weatherford Staff Writer

October 31, 2008 09:52 am

— Area superintendents are chiming in about a proposed change that could alter state public school testing in a major way.
An Oct. 21 proposal by leaders of the Texas House and Senate education committees would mean students would no longer have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test (TAKS) to advance to the next grade level.
Currently, students in third, fifth and eighth grade must pass the state achievement test. Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro told The Dallas Morning News school districts would be able to decide their own criteria for promotion of students, using test scores, grades and whatever else is considered appropriate. However, the new plan would still make passing the TAKS mandatory to graduate from high school.
According to The Dallas Morning News, the new accountability program would base school performance ratings on three years of test scores. Currently, school performance is based on a single year’s scores.
“I have mixed feelings about this,” Brownsboro Independent School District Assistant Superintendent Vicki York said, “because I don’t know what they’re going to put in its place.”
York said administrators have gotten used to the current system, and a change would lead to confusion for a while.
“Just when you start getting things down it gets changed,” York said. “The accountability system needs to be simple and straight forward.”
LaPoynor ISD Superintendent Dr. B.L. Davis feels that a test shouldn’t be the only thing that determines whether a student is promoted to the next grade level.
“All of us in the school business understand the importance of a test,” he said, “but we also know you cannot measure accurately how much a student has learned from a single test. (LaPoynor ISD) believes the TAKS test is too restrictive.”
Davis also agrees with York that the state’s current accountability program is too restrictive. They both feel that there should be an equal partnership between the state and local district in determining criteria for student promotion.
“If you don’t have some kind of guidelines it will be harder for a district to decide what grade level a student is in when they transfer,” York said.
Athens ISD Superintendent Dr. Fred Hayes is not sure the proposed plan would be beneficial.
“If the state is going to mandate that students still have to pass in order to graduate, then it could be counterproductive for them to experience a situation like that before,” he said.
Hayes said some people agree with the plan because they don’t want students to be overly stressed due to “high-stakes” testing.
“We give the test to students multiple times to find out what they need in order to pass it,” Hayes said. “If we don’t have anything like that, then how are we going to know what intervention they need?
“Does it have some flaws? Sure, but that’s not the issue for me,” he said. “I think the worst thing we do is when we know a kid is missing something and we let them go on. That is what the state could be opening the door to.”