TEA might relax test rules
Houston Chronicle

Momentum built Tuesday for Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott to delay for a year a controversial mandate that students' scores on new, tougher state exams count toward their course grades.

Scott had said he was unclear if he had the legal power to postpone the grade requirement, but key lawmakers this week said he has the authority — and they want him to use it.

School superintendents and parents have complained in recent months that counting the test scores as 15 percent of students' course grades would negatively affect their grade-point averages and their chances of getting into top colleges.

The intent of the law was to ensure that students took the exams seriously. Not only would they have to pass the tests to graduate, but for the first time in Texas their grades would be affected.

The first indication that students may get a break came Monday when Scott received a letter from the chairman and three members of the Senate Education Committee urging him to grant a one-year delay of the grade requirement.

On Tuesday, the chairman of the House Education Committee, Rob Eissler, told the Houston Chronicle he agreed with his Senate counterparts and was working with colleagues to send Scott a letter this week.

Eissler, R-The Woodlands, led a charge last year to make the grade requirement optional for each district. His measure stalled in the Senate Education Committee.

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House education chief agrees with delay in grade mandate
Houston Chronicle

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott soon should have enough political backing to delay a controversial requirement that students’ scores on new standardized tests count toward their course grades.

Robert Eissler, the chairman of the House Education Committee, confirmed to the Houston Chronicle Tuesday that he told Scott he agrees with a letter from his counterparts in the Senate that the grade mandate may legally be postponed.

On Tuesday, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee and three other senators wrote Scott to recommend that he delay for a year the requirement that the end-of-course exam scores count for 15 percent of students’ grades. The measure had drawn criticism from school superintendents and parents who were worried students’ grade-point averages would suffer with the more rigorous exams, known as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (or STAAR).

Eissler, R-The Woodlands, led an effort last year to loosen the grade requirement, but after his measure passed in the House, it stalled in the Senate Education Committee.

A spokeswoman for Scott said Tuesday that he he was waiting for a letter from the House to confirm he had the legal authority to delay the grade requirement. Eissler said the commissioner should be clear on his authority given the House action last year but he would talk to his colleagues about sending written confirmation.

“I talked to Robert (Scott) yesterday,” Eissler said. “I said, ‘You remember what we passed in the House. We should be fine with this.’”

State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, was among the senators urging the one-year delay. Patrick said in an interview that lawmakers’ intent was always to give students a year break from the grade requirement, just as school districts will not be given an accountability rating for a year.

“This isn’t a change in policy,” said Patrick, vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee. “It’s a clarification of what was always intended going back to 2007.”

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TWO SIDES BATTLE OVER TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOL TESTING REGIME
The Quorum Report

Bill Hammond at the Texas Association of Business is ready to go toe-to-toe with the top superintendents in the state in a fight to maintain the current path forward on the state’s revamped accountability system.

“There’s more than a war of words under way right now on the topic of accountability and public education,” Hammond wrote in a letter he distributed to lawmakers around noon today. “The rhetoric and the recent actions espoused by opponents of a quality public education system in Texas are poised to set our state on a tragic course.”

The target of Hammond’s ire is a second letter, signed by a consortium of North Texas superintendents, that backed Commissioner Robert Scott’s comments at TASA’s Midwinter Conference recently that the state might do well to step back and take a look at some of the unintended consequences of standardized testing.

“We are not against accountability,” wrote the school leaders in the letter released over the weekend. “In fact, our students have performed well on every test the state has developed. The system of the past will not prepare our students to lead in the future, and neither will the standardized tests that so dominate instructional time.”

Superintendents, as a group, are generally risk averse, especially when they lead conservative suburban districts. To have a group stand up to Hammond is uncommon, but many of these superintendents were advocates of Senate Bill 1557, which created a new state consortium of districts to pilot next-generation testing and accountability standards. Scott praised the bill during his Midwinter speech.

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North Texas Regional Consortium Letter To Legislature

TAB letter to lawmakers

Senator Shapiro to Commissioner Scott

Senators support deferral of end-of-course exams’ effect on final grades
Dallas Morning News

Key senators said Monday that they would support a one-year deferral of a state requirement that would count the new high school end-of-course exams as 15 percent of the final grade in each subject tested.

A letter from the four senators to Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said the commissioner can waive the 15 percent requirement for one year while the new end-of-course exams are being introduced into high schools, starting with ninth-graders this year.

Scott is now considering a waiver even though he voiced doubts about his ability to delay the 15 percent rule during a conference of school administrators in Austin last month.

“We believe that you have authority by virtue of the transition plan authorized [under state law] to defer the requirement that an end-of-course assessment count as 15 percent of a final grade until the 2012-13 school year,” said the letter, signed by Sens. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano; Royce West, D-Dallas; Dan Patrick, R-Houston; and Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo.

All four are members of the Senate Education Committee. Shapiro is chairwoman of the committee and sponsored the 2007 law that created the end-of-course tests for high school students.

“I respect their opinion and want to thank them for expressing their feelings on this, publicly and privately. Obviously, I would also like to hear from the House of Representatives,” Scott said Monday.

“I will carefully review this correspondence and any correspondence from the House.”

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Shapiro backs delay on STAAR grade provision
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott on Monday got some political cover to delay for one year a controversial provision that requires new high school end-of-course exams to count toward 15 percent of students' final grades.
Scott's office said Monday that he is reviewing the situation.

Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said Monday in a letter to Scott that ninth-graders taking the exams this year should be given a reprieve from the 15 percent requirement during the phase-in of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.

"We strongly support the transition to end-of-course assessments as crucial to enhancing the college readiness of our students. We support the waiver of the course grade requirement solely as a transition to the new testing and accountability system," wrote Shapiro, one of the architects of the new accountability system. The letter was signed by three other senators involved in the legislation.

The end-of-course exams will still apply toward ninth-graders' graduation requirements. Most students must take a total of 12 end-of-course exams in four core subjects: English, math, science and social studies.

Parents and school administrators have been clamoring for relief from the 15 percent requirement. They worry that the new exams could harm a student's grade-point average and class rank, which could affect whether the student automatically qualifies for admission to state universities.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said Scott was still reviewing the letter Monday afternoon. But he had indicated to school administrators recently that he was open to waiving the 15 percent provision if he had the authority to do so.

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Lawmakers: Give students a break in new grade law
Houston Chronicle

Several key state lawmakers told Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott on Monday that he has the legal power to delay an anxiety-causing law that students’ scores on new, tougher standardized exams be factored into their final course grades.

The four senators, led by Sen. Florence Shapiro, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said in a letter to Scott that they support postponing the rule that the exam scores count for 15 percent of high school students’ grades. The letter (posted below) suggested delaying the mandate until the 2012-13 school year to give schools more time to get used to the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (or STAAR).

Superintendents across the state have been questioning how to interpret the law — as many districts calculate only semester grades, not final grades — and warning that it could have significant ramifications for students’ grade-point averages, important in college admissions.

Sens. Dan Patrick, R-Houston; Royce West, D-Dallas; and Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, also signed the letter.
A spokeswoman for Scott, Debbie Ratcliffe, said the commissioner will issue a decision regarding the letter soon.

“The commissioner’s reviewing it, as are our lawyers,” she said.

Scott has not addressed the grade requirement specifically but recently made headlines for saying that the state’s testing program has turned into a “perversion of its original intent.”

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Shapiro Says TEA Can Waive STAAR Requirement
Texas Tribune

State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, thanks the Senate for passing SB8 on June 27, 2011.

In the midst of ongoing anxiety over the implementation of the new state student assessment system, education leaders in the state Senate told the Texas Education Agency today that it had the power to waive a requirement that the new tests count toward 15 percent of high school students' final grades.

Many school officials and parents have asked the agency for a delay of the exams' consequences for students. Thus far, the agency has said that it does not have the legal authority to modify the policies surrounding the 15 percent requirement, which many school districts are still figuring out how to apply. 

Education Commissioner Robert Scott recently caused a stir when he told 4,000 school administrators that standardized testing in Texas has become a "perversion of its original intent." Scott said he believed the new system would ultimately be an improvement over the current one, but he expressed concerns about how the transition was playing out in classrooms.

Among the four senators that signed the letter is Sen. Florence Shapiro, who has strongly opposed any retreat from the rollout of the STAAR exams in the past. The letter of intent, signed by Sens. Shapiro, Royce West, Kel Seliger, and Dan Patrick, says that they support a waiver as a way to ease the transition into the more challenging exams for school districts and students.

The letter also makes clear that the lawmakers do not back any change in the requirement that the exams be a part of graduation requirements, and that the measure should be regarded "soley as a transition" to the new system — not a abolition of the requirement altogether. 

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To Read The Letter Itself Click Here

Special session needed to fix school funding flaws
Houston Chronicle

Just back from his failed presidential bid, Gov. Perry has been urged by Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, and by educator groups to call a summer special session of the Texas Legislature to address budget and school finance issues. It's so bad that even Perry's own appointee as head of the Texas Education Agency, Robert Scott, just said he can't certify Texas' ban on social promotion until the current lack of funding is addressed. Perry should heed these responsible calls to fix the problem.

In 2011, $5.4 billion was cut from public education; that's more than $1,000 per child. Those cuts will be felt even more in the fall than in the current school year. In addition, distribution of public school dollars has gotten way out of kilter, with students really the ones suffering.

Last week, Perry ignored the calls for a special session and instead chose to minimize the role of money in education, saying, "ultimately success is about the results that we get out of our schools." Results do measure success, but the fact is that schools receiving the most money are the ones showing the successful results.

Texas schools receive Accountability Ratings each year. The results for 2010-'11 are out and, as Patricia Kilday Hart correctly pointed out in the Chronicle last month, the untold story is the link between money and performance. The highest rated schools, Exemplary, received on average $6,580 per student. Academically Unacceptable schools, the lowest rating, received $5,538 per student. Nearly 20 percent more money translated into better results, and this correlation is the same across the board - Acceptable schools received more money than Unacceptable, Recognized got more than Acceptable, and Exemplary schools got more than Recognized ones. In public education, the results are: More money means more success.

The result of lack of funds is also evident in overall numbers. After a full decade under Perry, reduced support for our public schools has Texas ranked 45th in SAT scores and 50th in adults over 25 with a high school diploma. With more children in school than any state but California, Texas' failure affects the entire nation.

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Listen carefully to education commissioner's critique of standardized testing
Austin American Statesman

Robert Scott is and has been a loyal appointee of the governor, so his critique of standardized testing was not only remarkable but also deserves a thorough hearing.

Scott was appointed the state's top education official in 2007 by Gov. Rick Perry, who places a high value on loyalty.
Scott's critique of the tests — an article of faith for those who demand educational accountability — should prompt an honest review of the effectiveness of the tests that have been around for 30 or so years.

The tests, Scott said, have done some good things, but the overly rigorous preparation for them is a "perversion of what's intended."

The standardized tests have long been a target for the teachers and administrators whose professional futures are often tied to results and even to some parents who question whether their children are learning to answer test questions at the expense of a well-rounded education. School days are spent "teaching to the test" as the examinations approach, critics say.

Test proponents say the exams ensure that students are learning by demanding accountability for the results from teachers and the school districts that employ them.

The commissioner made the critical comments first to the State Board of Education in late January and again earlier this month to the Texas Association of School Administrators.

Scott's comments come as a new standardized test is being unveiled this year. High school students' scores on the STAAR exam will make up 15 percent of their final grades in the subject areas tested.
Parents and school officials have protested, some saying the $4 billion cuts in school funding the Legislature approved last year undercut instruction. The cuts have also attracted lawsuits.

Scott told administrators that he would waive the 15 percent requirement if he could, but he doesn't have that authority.
Though Scott drew a standing ovation from the school administrators, his comments also prompted push back from state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.

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Few Texas students will fail new STAAR test this year
Dallas Morning News

Even with all the uncertainty surrounding the tough new testing program that debuts in Texas schools this spring, one firm prediction can be made — only a small fraction of students will actually fail the first year.

Because of a delay in setting passing standards for the test, the only grade where students can fail the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness is the ninth grade — and those students will have multiple opportunities to retake the exams.

Students in elementary and middle schools will take the STAAR, but there will be no passing standard in effect until 2013. No students will be required to pass the state exam to be promoted — a requirement in grades five and eight last year.

In high school, only ninth-graders are subject to the STAAR’s end-of-course exams. Students in other grades will continue to take the old and easier TAKS test, which is being phased out.

Even the annual performance ratings for school campuses and districts — based mostly on test scores — have been shelved this year while the STAAR-based system is put in place.

So where is the high-stakes testing that school superintendents complained about when they urged the Legislature to delay the STAAR?

House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, who heard complaints about the test during a public hearing of his committee last month, said he is not surprised by trepidation over the STAAR even though its impact will be softened this year.

“It’s really a fear of the unknown,” said Eissler, who authored the legislation creating the new system. “It happens every time a new test is put in place. Most people don’t like change when they have a lot invested in the current system. They’re worried that the new system will be worse than the devil they know.”

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Grapevine-Colleyville district postpones middle school curriculum changes
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

COLLEYVILLE -- The Grapevine-Colleyville district will wait to change middle school curriculum tracks until 2013-14 in response to parents' complaints about a plan to combine pre-Advanced Placement students with those now taking basic courses.

"We're listening to our parents. We're hearing them and adjusting our timeline to make sure we give them full information on these changes," spokeswoman Megan Overman said before a meeting Monday night.

The meeting was called last week, before administrators announced the delay Monday.

"We didn't communicate well, and we pledge we'll do much better," Superintendent Robin Ryan said.

The plan was to merge the present track for students taking primarily pre-AP classes with students in what has been called "on-grade-level" course work into a single "college readiness" track. The curriculum plan for gifted and talented students is unchanged.

The phase-in for 2013-14 announced Monday will have sixth- and seventh-graders starting the new college readiness track, with eighth-graders following up in 2014-15.

The original plan, which would have started this fall, would have affected only incoming sixth-graders. It would have gradually expanded in future years until all three middle school grades were under the plan.

"Districts around us have pre-AP for all," said Ryan, who stressed the need for a change at the middle school level. "We need to increase the rigor for all our kids."

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Lack of funds is harming state's future
San Antonio Express

Texas is shortchanging public education. Advocates such as state Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, have been warning that the Legislature's underfunding of public schools will have serious consequences on educational attainment, student readiness and the state's economic prospects.

Texas is also shortchanging its social safety net for the state's neediest residents. Advocates such as F. Scott McCown, a former state district judge who now heads the Center for Public Policy Priorities, have warned that the state's tax system is inadequate for providing health care and other vital services to individuals who otherwise could not afford them.

Villarreal and McCown are the usual suspects — a liberal legislator and the executive director of a liberal Austin think tank. As Gary Scharrer reported from the Express-News Austin bureau, however, they are not alone. Last week, the leaders of the state's two largest agencies — both hand-picked by Gov. Rick Perry — issued similar warnings.

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said he would not enforce new accountability standards or a 13-year-old ban on the social promotion of underperforming students to the next grade level unless the Legislature provides adequate funding for school districts to achieve such goals. Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs said that the state's Medicaid program will face at least a $15 billion shortfall going into the next biennium.

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Education commissioner calls for money to implement STAAR
Lubbock Avalanche Journal

AUSTIN — Something unusual happened in the capital last week.

Addressing more than 4,000 school officials at the midwinter conference of the Texas Association of School Administrators, state Education Commissioner Robert Scott said bluntly that the Texas Legislature must give more money to public schools to implement a new test debuting this spring.

“As we move into the implementation of the end-of-course exams and STAAR, I believe that additional resources will be needed in the future,” Scott said in reference to the new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Remedies test, which replaces the TAKS test.

“I cannot and will not certify the ban on social promotions unless there are resources to provide interventions to students who need to pass the test,” Scott said.

The commissioner received a standing ovation at the end of his speech because it became clear during the four-day conference that educators remain unhappy with the way the Legislature funds public education and with the $5.5 billion in school funding cuts the lawmakers made last year to offset a $27 billion state budget shortfall.

Scott’s address came an hour after school finance expert Lynn M. Moak predicted at a public education forum that the four education funding lawsuits recently filed against the state will last at least three and a half years.

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In Texas, a Backlash Against Student Testing
Texas Tribune

When Christopher Chamness entered the third grade last year, he began to get stomach aches before school. His mother, Edy, said the fire had gone out of a child who she said had previously gone joyfully to his classes.

One day, when he was bored in class, Christopher broke a pencil eraser off in his ear canal. It was the tipping point for Chamness, a former teacher, and she asked to observe his Austin elementary school classroom. What she saw was a “work sheet distribution center” aimed at preparing students for the yearly assessments that they begin in third grade and that school districts depend upon for their accountability ratings.

Now, with Christopher in fourth grade, Chamness will take a more drastic step: She intends to pull him out of standardized testing altogether this spring, in protest of the system that she said had sapped her son’s love of learning.

Chamness’s approach is more radical than what most parents are willing to do — and district officials are quick to point out that school policy does not permit students to miss test days for any reason. But it is part of a budding backlash against standardized testing in the state that spawned No Child Left Behind and its assessment-driven accountability requirements.

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Funded math mandate new territory for state schools
KDHnews.Com

For the first time, members of the state's Board of Education are asking lawmakers to provide funding to implement new curriculum standards in Texas schools.

The recent decision by the board to tie the funding of textbooks to the implementation of new math standards raised the issue of how school districts cope with unfunded or underfunded state mandates.

"It's a basic fairness issue," said Thomas Ratliff, one of the board's members. "If you are going to require new standards, then you need to equip (districts) with the tools to help students meet those standards."

Ratliff proposed an amendment to the standards at a Jan. 27 meeting, which stated that the math standards would not take effect until new textbooks and other materials were purchased for students in Texas schools. The Texas Education Agency estimated the cost of the books at about $350 million. The amendment passed 13-0 and the standards are set to be approved at the board's next meeting in April.

The new standards are based on a draft of the Texas Essential

Knowledge and Skills, as well as math standards from other states and countries. The new standards are set to take effect in the 2014-15 school year for all kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

Ratliff said it was the first time the board made the implementation of new standards contingent upon funding from state legislators.

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Let's Make New Exams Fair For Students And Schools
Houston Chronicle

As parents who support the public schools and demand high educational standards from our children and our schools, we take issue with Bill Hammond's recent opinion piece about the new Texas STAAR accountability program ("Let's make new exams count," Page B11, Jan. 24.)

In this first year of administration, our 9th grade students are being held accountable for state-issued end-of-course, or EOC, exams - as part of their class grades and in their grade point averages on their report cards and transcripts. In addition, students must achieve certain (as yet undetermined) scores on the exams (12 in total, in contrast to four TAKS exams) in order to graduate from high school. However, our school districts and schools will not be judged on EOC scores until after the first year of testing, leaving our 9th graders in the unfortunate position of being graded while their school districts are not.

Exacerbating the concern, the STAAR tests are brand new and have never been reviewed by districts, teachers or parents. The Texas Education Agency, which is not writing the tests but is instead purchasing them at significant cost, has only released a limited number of sample questions, even though the tests are being administered this spring. In addition, the legislature authorized the TEA to develop study guides for the STAAR assessments, yet it appropriated no funds and thus no study guides are available.

Undoubtedly, the requirement that students must pass 12 EOC exams in order to graduate gives students a genuine incentive to take the test seriously. So then why would it also be necessary for the test score to count for 15 percent of a student's final grade? This is the first time in Texas history that a standardized state test is counting towards a student's final class grade and toward their GPA. Even apart from the tremendous time, expense and logistical difficulties for our school districts to administer these tests, the fact remains that these accountability programs are at heart intended to ensure school accountability, not affect student GPAs.

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Texas Schools Chief: Testing Has Gone Too Far
Texas Tribune

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott said today that the state testing system has become a "perversion of its original intent" and that he was looking forward to "reeling it back in."

Addressing 4,000 school officials at the Texas Association of School Administrators' annual midwinter conference, Scott said that he believed testing was "good for some things," but that in Texas it has gone too far. He said that he was frustrated with what he saw as his "complicitness" in the bureaucracy that testing and accountability systems have thrust on schools.

The remarks, which mirrored those he made at a State Board of Education meeting last week, have been his most forceful on the topic since the last legislative session, when lawmakers slashed state funding to public education by $4 billion. The budget cuts have spurred at least four different lawsuits against the state from school districts arguing they have not received adequate funding to meet increasingly high state accountability standards. The cuts come as the state is rolling out a rigorous new state student assessment system in the spring.

Uncertainty around the implementation of STAAR — and whether students and teachers will be able to meet the new requirements with reduced resources — has caused deep anxiety around the state. With the new system, high school students' scores on exams will count 15 percent toward their final grades in the corresponding course for the first time.

Halfway through the school year, many districts are still determining how they will apply that rule to their grading policies, and the variations from district to district were the subject of a recent House Public Education Committee meeting. At the hearing, parents and school leaders expressed concern that the differing policies would hurt students, and questioned the need to apply the new rules in the first year of the test.

Scott said today that if he had the authority — which he said he doesn't — he would waive the 15-percent requirement in the first year as students adjusted to the test.

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Education commissioner won’t enforce ban on social promotion unless funding restored
Dallas Morning News

Texas’ education chief said Tuesday that he will not enforce the state ban on social promotion of students in public schools unless the Legislature restores funding to help students in danger of failing because of their low test scores.

Education Commissioner Robert Scott, speaking to school superintendents and administrators from across the state, said he does not believe students should be subjected to the promotion standards unless they are offered remedial classes to correct academic deficiencies.

“I cannot and will not certify the ban on social promotion unless there are resources to provide interventions to students who need to pass the test,” he said during a conference sponsored by the Texas Association of School Administrators.

His comments drew applause from the audience.

Current law requires students in grades five and eight to pass the state achievement test to be promoted under a program initiated by former Gov. George W. Bush called the Student Success Initiative. The program includes remedial instruction in English and math for students who have trouble passing the state exam.

Funding for the Student Success Initiative was slashed from $293 million in the previous two-year budget to $23.5 million in the current one — a reduction of 92 percent. That means remedial help offered to hundreds of thousands of students in the past is no longer available.

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COMMISSIONER SCOTT TELLS EDUCATORS THE SYSTEM HAS BECOME A PERVERSION OF ORIGINAL INTENT
Quorum Report

"I cannot and will not certify the ban on social promotions unless there are resources to provide interventions to students who need to pass the test."

Robert Scott, in a speech before superintendents and school board trustees this afternoon, pulled the biggest gun out of the education commissioner’s arsenal to guarantee lawmakers will start sending new money to schools next session.

Scott’s speech to the Texas Association of School Administrators’ Midwinter Conference was probably the best speech ever has given to the group during his years as interim and permanent commissioner. In it, he included an apology for the recent $4 billion in education funding cuts, plus the $1.4 billion carved out of the state education agency, much of which went to raising student achievement.

Too much has been loaded onto the state’s current accountability system, Scott said, a system which is dominated by a growing number of high-stakes tests that Scott generally supports. That includes a new requirement that high school students pass 12 end-of-course tests in order to graduate, starting with the Class of 2015.

“I believe that testing is good for some things, but the system that we created has become a perversion of its original intent,” Scott said, to thunderous applause from the school officials. “The intent to improve teaching and learning has gone too far afield, and I look forward to reeling it back in.”

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DESPITE FLEXIBILITY AND FUNDING, SCHOOLS STILL OVERWHELMINGLY OPTING FOR PRINT OVER TECHNOLOGY
Quorum Report

The vast majority of instructional material allotment funding spent to date has gone to purchase instructional materials and not technology, despite the fears of the State Board of Education.

Opinions on Senate Bill 6, passed during the special session, have been split: The State Board of Education, which is losing power in the deal, is leery of it. The Texas Textbook Coordinators Association has been supportive of it, although the new environment has been called “the Wild Wild West.” And the Texas Computer Education Association, of course, has readily embraced the shift, which gives school districts broad latitude to make instructional material choices.

Jennifer Bergland of the TCEA led a session at the Texas Association of School Administrators’ Midwinter conference this morning. She compared the impending passage from print to digital to the anacronym of her own generation.

“Many of you are thinking, ‘This, too, shall pass,’ but where I think things are going, and what I’m going to share with you today, is that 10 years from now, students will no longer being thinking of printed textbooks,” Bergland. “They’ll talk about printed textbooks the way we talk about party lines.”

But school districts have not been quick to embrace the shift. Given broad latitude to spend the new instructional material allotment (IMA) on printed textbooks, digital textbooks, technological devices, technology training and even wireless hubs, most school districts have clung to the printed and digital material. School districts can even choose materials that are open-source or only conform to part of the curriculum requirements.

In fact, Texas Education Agency data indicates that of the 65 percent of the IMA that has been spent to date, a total of 97 percent has gone to printed and digital instructional materials, Bergland said. Only 3 percent, or $10 million, has gone to technology. Bergland said she was hopeful, with materials now out of the way, districts might begin to think of future additional technology purchases. However, districts can roll forward IMA balances.

Survey data collected in Texas indicate a strong preference to move to mobile Internet usage via smart phones, even more so than personal computers. And the vast majority of parents, regardless of income level, have indicated they would be willing to purchase mobile devices if their children could use them at school.

Students don’t want, as some on the SBOE have suggested, a PDF version of existing textbooks, Bergland said. Surveys indicate their want video chat rooms, online tutors, virtual labs and text with both animation and simulations.

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Texas gets a 'C' for school science courses
Houston Chronicle

Texas public school science courses "pay lip service" to critical content and largely ignore evolution in the middle grades, according to a national education foundation study that gives the state of Texas an overall "C" for science education.

The average grade for Texas science curriculum standards by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in a national report card Tuesday represents a step up from the "F" issued for Texas two years ago by the National Center for Science Education.

Texas science curriculum standards are "just too vague," said Kathleen Porter-Magee, a senior director at Fordham. "They cover a lot of the essential content, but they don't do it in a way that can actually guide curriculum or guide instruction in the classroom or can guide assessment development."

The report offers a mixed review on how Texas teaches evolution. The evolution portion of the new Texas science curriculum standards provoked considerable controversy before the State Board of Education adopted them in 2009.

"In spite of the Texas Board of Education's erratic approach to evolution, the state's current high school biology standards handle the subject straightforwardly," the report says

The authors, however, lament students' ability "to handle this course, given the insufficient foundations offered prior to high school."

Texas middle school students are never exposed to the word "evolution" in the science standards, and the term "natural selection" is never explained, the authors said in the report.

Some State Board of Education members who tried to dilute the evolution portion of the science curriculum standards emphasized the positive portions of the report.

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District 15 GOP candidates weigh in on SBOE decisions
Amarillo Globe News

Texas State Board of Education District 15 Republican candidates Anette Carlisle and Marty Rowley came back from the board’s meetings in Austin with differing opinions on how involved the board should be in district-level decisions.

Carlisle said she is concerned the board gets bogged down in details that should be left to individual districts. Rowley said he thinks the board needs to be involved in details such as curriculum standards, but it must maintain a balance so it doesn’t overpower local districts.

The board gave preliminary approval Friday to new math standards for schools statewide, but moved to block implementation unless the Legislature provides funding for new textbooks.

Carlisle, the Amarillo Independent School Board president, said that is a welcome approach because schools wouldn’t be able to teach the state-mandated Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum and meet accountability standards if the state didn’t provide districts money to buy materials.

“That’s going to be welcome at the local level,” she said. “If you expect students to have specific knowledge and you don’t provide instructional materials to match that set of knowledge, how can you expect them to adequately learn it?”

Rowley, an Amarillo attorney, said the board’s decisions on issues such as the math standards show it is becoming more aware of how the Legislature’s $4 billion funding cut in 2011 affected individual school districts and classrooms.

“I think it’s important that state government recognize the impact of mandates on our school systems, particularly in regard to funding,” he said.

Carlisle and Rowley are running for the seat currently held by Bob Craig, R-Lubbock, who will not seek re-election. Steven Schafersman, D-Midland, is the only Democrat to run for the position but did not attend last week’s board meetings.

Schafersman, a consulting scientist who said he works in the petroleum and environmental industries, said he has long been a critic of the board for how it implements curriculum standards because it often makes adjustments to the standards before adopting them.

“The standards are in far worse shape than they would’ve been if they had just adopted them as given to them by the experts,” Schafersman said.

Based on the textbook provisions included in Friday’s vote, new math curriculum standards from kindergarten through eighth grade would take effect for the 2014-2015 school year when new books are available; and in 2015-2016 for grades nine through 12 when those books are ready, said Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. Lawmakers are not in session currently and don’t reconvene until January 2013.

Ratcliffe said it’s difficult to estimate how much state funding would be needed to purchase new books for the curriculum standards, but that “a very rough estimate for K-12 math material” would be around $350 million.

Ratcliffe said during “the last budget cycle or two, there was a problem with purchasing textbooks,” and that the cuts meant authorities had to postpone a plan to buy science books for all grades last year.

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Texas science standards earn a C
Lubbock Avalanche Journal

The State Board of Education members created a lot of controversy in 2009 when they tussled over how evolutionary theory should be handled in Texas textbooks and classrooms.

It turns out that they might also have created some pretty good high school science standards, according to a new analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based education reform think tank.

"The high school biology course is exemplary in its choice and presentation of topics, including its thorough consideration of biological evolution," according to the report being released today .

But the evaluation also found that evolution is largely absent from middle school and elementary grades, which means that "students are not prepared to learn what they need to learn at the high school level," said Kathleen Porter-Magee, senior director of the High Quality Standards Project at the Fordham Institute.

Last year, Texas officials bristled over Fordham's widely consulted assessment of the state's new social studies curriculum standards, which were also mired in controversy. So a positive review from the conservative think tank was not a given.

In 2005, Texas received a failing grade for its science standards. This year, it earned a grade of C, which was about average compared with other states and the District of Columbia; only 13 got a better grade.

Porter-Magee said that Texas gets some credit for at least addressing evolution, because most states ignore the subject to avoid stirring up controversy.

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Garza: Texas has lost its way
Lubbock Avalanche Journal

Garza said she used to believe Texas was leading the way in public schools.
“I feel like we have lost our way,” she said.

She didn’t like having to join a lawsuit against the state, but she felt it was necessary. History shows the only way to get things done regarding school finance is to file suit, she said.

The Lubbock ISD receives about $5,000 per student from the state under the current target revenue system and the Austin ISD gets about $6,100 per student, Garza told the group.

If Lubbock was funded equally to Austin, the LISD would receive $32 million more per year than it currently gets, she said.

Garza said she is optimistic of the success of the lawsuit the LISD joined.

Success will mean the court would decide the present finance system for schools in the state is unconstitutional and will order the Texas Legislature to fix it, she said.

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School districts are preparing for STAAR tests
Lubbock Avalanche Journal

The latest generation of state standardized student testing is coming very soon — and with less clarity than Texas school districts would prefer.

The new testing is called STAAR — State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. The first STAAR tests will be administered March 26.

When the school year began in late August, school districts knew almost nothing about STAAR, said Lisa Leach, the Lubbock Independent School District’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

The first sample questions for STAAR tests were not released by the Texas Education Agency to districts until October.

The first guidelines about

STAAR end-of-course (EOC) exams, which will be taken by ninth-graders this year, didn’t come out until after school started, Leach said. EOC rule changes were still arriving as late as December, she said.

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Board vote ties new tests to new textbooks
San Antonio Express-News

Texas' annual standardized tests for public school children would not be rewritten or adjusted to cover the state's new math curriculum standards unless lawmakers pay for new books to help teach it, the State Board of Education tentatively decided on Friday.

"We've heard teachers and parents loud and clear that it's not fair to kids and teachers to make them be tested on something that we've not provided the materials for them to learn," board member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, said after a unanimous board vote.

However, David Bradley, R-Beaumont, who was out of the room when his colleagues on the board voted, criticized the policy and said he would try to talk them out of it before a final vote in April.

The Legislature's unwillingness in recent years to fully fund textbooks and other instructional material has been a sore point for the board, which is responsible for developing curriculum standards that guide textbook companies.

Bradley called the board's action "unwanted and misleading," and said it sends the wrong message.

He said that Senate Bill 6, which Gov. Rick Perry signed into law last year, specifically dedicates 40 percent of the Permanent School Fund allocation to go to school districts - distributed on a per-student basis - for instructional material.

"The districts have the ability to buy whatever they want, when they want," Bradley said.

The Permanent School Fund contains land holdings, oil and mineral rights and a variety of investments worth more than $25 billion. The board determines how much of the investment earnings can flow to school districts each year. Currently, that's roughly $750 million a year, of which 40 percent could generate close to $300 million for instructional materials.

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Textbooks tied to tests
San Antonio Express-News

The annual standardized tests for public school children wouldn't be rewritten or adjusted to cover Texas' new math curriculum standards unless lawmakers pay for new textbooks to help teach it, the State Board of Education tentatively decided Friday.

“We've heard teachers and parents loud and clear that it's not fair to kids and teachers to make them be tested on something that we've not provided the materials for them to learn,” board member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, said after a unanimous board vote.

However, board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, who was out of the room when his colleagues voted, criticized the policy and said he would try to talk them out of it before a final vote in April.

The Legislature's unwillingness in recent years to fully fund textbooks and other instructional material has been a sore point for the board, which is responsible for developing curriculum standards that guide textbook companies.

But Bradley called the board's action “unwanted and misleading,” a mistake that sends the wrong message.

He noted that Senate Bill 6, which Gov. Rick Perry signed into law last year, specifically dedicates 40 percent of the Permanent School Fund allocation to go to school districts — distributed on a per-student basis — for instructional material.

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Parents, officials decry new Texas school testing
Associated Press
January 24, 2012

Parents, school and business leaders — and even an ex-lawmaker who once voted for it — expressed alarm Monday about new, more-rigorous standardized testing for Texas schoolchildren, whose results will represent 15 percent of high school students' grades in English, history, math and science courses.
Supporters say the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test will increase accountability for state public schools and that making the results count toward grades ensures high school students take the tests seriously.

But during a five-hour meeting of the Texas House Public Education Committee, lawmakers raised concerns that some youngsters could see their grade-point averages dip if their teachers fail to adequately prepare them for the new tests. Others quizzed school administrators on how they planned to evaluate test results — since doing so will be up to individual school districts.
Then the committee opened the floor to the public, consisting of a long line of parents worried that the new tests could keep their children from getting into good colleges, as well as education and community officials complaining that a lack of statewide standards for scoring and weighing tests could let districts manipulate the results.

The new testing system, mandated by the Legislature in 2007, replaces the much-maligned Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test beginning this school year. It includes tests for grades three to eight, but in high school, 12 tests will be given at the end of courses in Algebra I and II, geometry, biology, chemistry, physics, English I, II and III, world geography, world history, and U.S. history.

This year's seventh-graders will be the first class required to meet STARR testing requirements to graduate.

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STAAR Faces Questioning From Lawmakers
Texas Tribune
January 24, 2012

Texas lawmakers on Monday reviewed how schools are planning to implement a new standardized testing system, and they came armed with plenty of questions.

The new test is called STAAR, which stands for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Questions mainly centered on the end-of-course exams that ninth-grade students will take in May.

Former state Rep. Jim Dunnam has one of those ninth graders at home. He came to the committee hearing because his daughter received a first-semester report card with no GPA and no semester grades for some of her classes.

“When I got it, I sort of scratched my head and didn’t think too much of it,” Dunnam said. “And then ultimately somebody reminded me that I voted for House Bill 3. That made 15 percent of her GPA dependent on a test she’s going to take in May, that the school will score sometime in June. And then we’ll find out what she made last semester, next fall.”

He said the test will not affect students’ GPAs until lawmakers think the system is ready to face the state’s accountability system. STAAR will not count towards schools’ or school districts’ state rankings until 2013.

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ECISD Curriculum Has Teachers Frustrated
KWES-TV, NewsWest 9 / Midland, Odessa, Big Spring
January 17, 2012

The concerns of more than 200 teachers were taken to the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees on Tuesday night by a state agency. What they're asking for is more breathing room to teach the curriculum and more communication from the administration.

It all has to do with the CSCOPE curriculum, designed to prepare students for standardized tests like the TAKS tests.

The Texas State Teachers Association, or TSTA, took a survey of 248 ECISD teachers and employees last week about the curriculum.

47% of those teachers don't think CSCOPE will raise test scores. 56% said CSCOPE moves too quickly for students.

Public comments called CSCOPE a total waste of money and too rigid and inflexible.

Many teachers said there is not enough time to really teach the students the material and it goes by too fast.

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Teachers Resist High-Tech Push in Idaho Schools
The New York Times
January 03, 2012

Ann Rosenbaum, a former military police officer in the Marines, does not shrink from a fight, having even survived a close encounter with a car bomb in Iraq. Her latest conflict is quite different: she is now a high school teacher, and she and many of her peers in Idaho are resisting a statewide plan that dictates how computers should be used in classrooms.

Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.

To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

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Texas Schools Find Ways to Adapt Grades to STAAR
The Texas Tribune
January 12, 2012

In the spring, the state’s approximately 350,000 ninth-graders will be the first to take the end-of-course exams that are part of Texas’ new standardized testing system known as STAAR, or the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.

The tests, which advocates say provide a much-needed update to the state’s accountability system, will be more rigorous by all accounts. There will also be more of them. And, for the first time, students' scores on the exams will count 15 percent toward their final grades in the corresponding course. 

It sounds straightforward. But how some districts are applying the so-called 15 percent rule threatens to spark the next political battle over a test that has seen plenty of them.

Halfway through the academic year, many schools are still figuring out how their grading policies — and the class ranks and grade-point averages that flow from them — will apply the rule. And because the law leaves the implementation largely in the districts’ hands, they are coming up with a variety of methods — some of which have triggered concerns that they are undermining the system.  

Schools must determine how to integrate the exams on two levels: converting the raw score, which ranges from 2,000 to 6,000 points, to one they can use as a grade, and then deciding how to factor that grade on one exam into what is usually two semesters’ worth of courses in areas including math, social studies and English. 

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Hudson ISD superintendent talks school funding woes
The Lufkin News
January 12, 2012

In the midst of a major public school funding crisis in Texas, Hudson Independent School District Superintendent Mary Ann Whiteker presented information and asked for help at the Lufkin Host Lions Club luncheon on Tuesday.

Whiteker showed a PowerPoint presentation that highlighted the funding woes and frustration with the state legislature that local school districts share with much of the state. She urged those in attendanceto help take action against what she said could be a grim future for public schools.

“We need help,” Whiteker said. “Thousands of superintendents are not having an impact in Austin. It is up to you, our parents and people voting to elect politicians who support public education. I have testified before more committees than you can imagine, and they don’t listen to me. They listen to you.”

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AISD outlines end-of-course exam policies
Amarillo Globe News
December 27, 2011

The beginning of state mandated end-of-course exams is near, but some educators fear the state’s rules about how the tests will be used could frustrate parents and cause dropout rates to jump.

“I think it is going to drive some (parents) to flee public education and say, ‘I’m just not going to mess with this,’” Amarillo Independent School District board of trustees President Anette Carlisle said.

Students will start taking new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness tests in March that will be tied to their course grades, as well as their graduation requirements, Amarillo ISD Superintendent Rod Schroder said. The new tests are designed to be more challenging for students than the current Texas Assessments of Knowledge and Skills, he said.

Carlisle said she thinks the new system will drive more students to drop out because they will think it is too hard to recover if they fall behind in their courses and can’t pass end-of-course exams.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said state law requires the end-of-course exams to count for 15 percent of a student’s final grade in a course, whereas students previously had to pass TAKS tests to graduate, but they didn’t affect a student’s grade in a particular course.

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STAAR tests coming this spring with some details still unknown
Abilene Reporter-News
December 17, 2011

The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, debuts this spring as the state's test to determine student academic progress, and anxiety is running high for Texas public school educators.

STAAR replaces Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, which had been used for nine years. TAKS followed Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, or TAAS, for the 2002-03 school year. The first TAKS test was administered spring 2003.

Only ninth-graders this year will tackle STAAR, though some end-of-course testing will be administered as field tests and not count as official assessments.

Tenth-graders and 11th-graders still will take TAKS, scheduled April 23-27.

The increased rigor of the new test is fueling much of the stress teachers and administrators are feeling as the start of the spring semester nears.

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New end-of-course tests will challenge students, schools
Houston Chronicle
December 16, 2011

Freshmen in Texas public high schools are gearing up for new standardized tests come springtime while teachers and administrators struggle with murky rules about how to use the results.

Having sharpened pencils is the least of students' worries. For the first time, the exam scores will influence their grades - possibly affecting overall grade-point averages, class rank and, ultimately, admission into college.

The practical fallout of the 2007 state law mandating end-of-course exams starting this spring became clear to the Houston school board Thursday as the chief academic officer explained the major changes districts across Texas are struggling to adopt.

"We've never had that kind of accountability on the individual students," said Alicia Thomas, the academic chief of the Houston Independent School District. "It's been on the school. It's been on the district. Now we're moving to the actual students. And in my opinion, it's a lot."

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Credits, final averages won’t appear for some MISD students
Midland Reporter-Telegram
December 15, 2011

When report cards go out this month, seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders taking classes for high school credit will notice there’s no semester grade or credit awarded.

Because of a state mandate requiring newly implemented end-of-course examinations to account for 15 percent of a student’s final course average, fall grades will not be finalized until June when exam scores are released by the state, said Elise Kail, Midland ISD executive director of accountability.

At that time, 7.5 percent of the EOC grade will be applied to the fall semester grades. Each of the three grading cycles will account for about 14 percent of the grade, and credit will be awarded based on the student’s final grade, she said.
The additional 7.5 percent of the EOC grade will be applied to the spring semester grades, and the average will determine whether a student receives credit for the second half of the year.

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New STAAR Test More Challenging Than TAKS
KUHF Houston Public Radio
December 12, 2011

Dr. Nancy Gregory, who oversees curriculum and instruction at the Houston Independent School District, appears calm as she sits in an office at HISD headquarters. But she admits the new test, which replaces TAKS, is indeed a whole new challenge.

"It's daunting because we know for a fact across the state that when TEA says the tests will be more rigorous — yes, the tests will be more rigorous."

Gregory has been part of the state process to vet questions on the new test, which begins at the end of March. She says TAKS has been a good test, but not hard enough in some areas.

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List of subpar schools swells Jump of more than 50% blamed on change in reporting system
Dallas Morning News
December 13, 2011

AUSTIN — The number of campuses on the annual list of worst-performing public schools in Texas jumped more than 50 percent this year after the state ended a two-year ex periment that artificially inflated the performance ratings of many schools.

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