New name, same old TAKS test pressure
STAAR expected to be better judge of student progress
http://www.caller.com/news/2010/feb/06/new-name-same-old-test-pressure/?partner=RSS
- By Elvia Aguilar
- Posted February 6, 2010 at 9:53 p.m. , updated February 7, 2010 at 9:54 a.m
CORPUS CHRISTI — The state test students pass to advance to another grade level will have a different name, but essentially it will be the same concept, education officials believe, with the same pressure and high stakes for students and educators.
And some aren’t sure enough changes will be made to better measure academic progress.
The new testing system, State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, replaces the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in 2011-12 as mandated by the Legislature. This is the state’s fifth academic testing system since 1980.
While the state transitions to the new tests, academic ratings will be suspended for the 2011-12 school year and a new rating system will debut in 2013, according to the Texas Education Agency.
“The lack of ratings for one year won’t make a difference in the level of pressure on the students, teachers and administrators,” said Arturo Almendarez, Calallen Independent School District Superintendent. “There will always be tremendous pressure to succeed.”
STAAR includes 12 end-of-course exams in English, math, science and social studies in high school. It will take several years to fully transition into the new testing system. Students in high school now will continue to take the TAKS, which was introduced in 2003, through 2014. This year’s seventh graders, the Class of 2015, will be the first class required to meet end-of-course testing requirements to graduate.
New tests also will be developed for students in third through eighth grade.
The concern is teachers will still have to teach for the test. Instructors have been disappointed with TAKS because they have had to reduce their instruction to accommodate it, said Ray McMurrey, local president of the American Federation of Teachers.
“Changing the name is not sufficient enough for this type of high-stakes testing,” McMurrey said. “It is not a viable solution to measure academic and achievement progress.”
The new tests will be more rigorous and measure subject knowledge better, education officials said. The tests are supposed to allow students to focus on one subject at a time, Corpus Christi Independent School District Superintendent Scott Elliff said.
For example, this year under the TAKS system, a ninth-grader enrolled in Algebra I might see questions involving geometry in part of the state-mandated test. With STAAR, a student taking Algebra I will be tested only on that subject. The test also will count as 15 percent of a student’s grade in a subject.
Elliff said there are a lot of questions that have to be answered such as the exam’s timeliness. Because the test will count toward the student’s final grade in class but won’t be administered until the spring semester, nontraditional students who could attend school certain days of the week, such as Coles High School students, may not fit this schedule.