What We Refuse to Learn About Standardized Testing: Dr. Gerald Bracey and the 89th Legislature, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

What We Refuse to Learn About Standardized Testing: Dr. Gerald Bracey and the 89th Legislature

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 4, 2025

Learn more about Dr.
Bracey here.

When I revisited Gerald W. Bracey’s 2009 commentary in Educational Leadership, I was struck by how uncannily prophetic it feels in this political moment—especially in light of the sweeping changes enacted by the 89th Texas Legislature in 2025. Best known for his famous "Bracey Reports," his critique of the nation’s “test mania” reads not as a relic of a bygone era but as a warning flare we failed to heed, one whose consequences unfolded vividly during last session’s battles over testing, accountability, and privatization (see Valenzuela, 2025, for discussion).

While public school advocates secured incremental gains—slightly less disruptive testing policies, quicker turnaround on results, the elimination of a handful of assessments, and improved transparency—the underlying system remains largely intact. Schools are still judged primarily by test scores, accountability frameworks remain narrowly defined, and the deeper structural reforms that advocates have long demanded are once again deferred (Valenzuela, 2025). In this vacuum, the push for charterization and privatization only accelerates. 

Even so, there was a brief moment of meaningful political possibility: Texas lawmakers introduced proposals to overhaul or even eliminate the STAAR exam altogether. Raise Your Hand Texas, in particular, deserves a shout-out for leading the charge. For the first time in decades, a major statewide assessment regime came under serious legislative challenge, and the House even passed a bill to move the state away from STAAR. Yet despite the symbolic significance of this breakthrough, the effort stalled—revealing just how entrenched the test-based accountability system remains.

Bracey began with an observation so commonsensical that many policymakers today still stumble past it: no standardized test can ever know a child better than the teacher who sees that child every day. Yet over a fifty-year span, he noted, the United States managed to devolve from viewing tests as occasionally useful tools, to treating them as compulsory, and finally elevating them into the dominant—almost exclusive—measure of educational quality.

Even though tests like NAEP, PISA, TIMSS, or STAAR were never designed to evaluate teaching, curriculum, or the complex, relational work of schooling, policymakers have repeatedly misappropriated them for exactly those purposes. The result, Bracey argued, has been a national preoccupation with numerical indicators that flatten the human reality of learning, obscure the deeper conditions shaping students’ educational lives, and induce undue stress on teachers and the teaching profession.

That critique feels especially urgent in Texas today. This year, the Legislature passed a statewide voucher program that redirects public funds into private schools, one that rests on the long-standing assumption that public schools are failing (Edison, 2025). This assumption gets reinforced year after year through simplistic interpretations of test scores. 

These debates echo Bracey’s core argument: when policy decisions hinge on flawed measures, those decisions inevitably warp the system they intend to improve. Vouchers, sold as a remedy for supposedly failing schools, rely on the very test-based narratives Bracey spent a lifetime challenging. The claim that low standardized test scores reflect poor teaching ignores the deep structural factors shaping learning in Texas—poverty, segregation, underfunding, and what we are by now discovering as the soaring costs (or "price") of privatization. 

Yet these structural realities rarely appear in the public conversation. Instead, test scores are brandished as evidence that public schools are beyond repair, clearing the political path for vouchers, school district takeovers, and the redirection of taxpayer dollars into private hands.

The fight over STAAR reveals a similar contradiction. Legislators across the spectrum have acknowledged that STAAR tells parents little about what their children actually know and does nothing to inform day-to-day instruction. These critiques echo Bracey almost word-for-word. Still, unless Texas reimagines assessment from the ground up—beginning with teaching rather than measurement—any replacement risks replicating the same distortions. Bracey insisted that the best assessments are those built by teachers and anchored in teacher-made curricula, not imposed from above. 

Bracey also challenged the persistent belief that national or international test scores determine economic success. He reminded readers that Japan continued to dominate global assessments even as its economy faltered, and that countries like Iceland maintained high scores while facing economic collapse. 

The notion that bubbling in answers on a fourth- or eighth-grade exam shapes global competitiveness is, to use Bracey’s word, “easily refuted.” Yet Texas, like much of the nation, continues to tie student outcomes to broader narratives about economic health and workforce readiness, despite overwhelming evidence that economic forces are far larger than any test score.

Bracey’s insistence on returning to the human, relational work of teaching feels especially vital. Public schools are not failing; they are absorbing the accumulated burdens of inequality, political interference, and relentless underfunding—burdens that privatization schemes will only intensify. Vouchers will not solve the challenges facing Texas students. Nor will another standardized test, no matter how politically appealing.

Bracey’s enduring message is that education is not a number. It is not a rank, a percentile, or a scaled score. It is the web of relationships, communities, and possibilities that unfold when schools are supported rather than scapegoated. If Texas is serious about creating a stronger and more equitable education system, then we must move beyond the illusions spun by test scores and invest once again in teachers, teacher-made curriculum, and public schools as public goods.

In this critical moment, Bracey’s voice reminds us that the greatest danger is not that our tests show too little—but that we have come to believe they show too much.

Reference

Bracey, G. W. (2009). Multiple measures. Educational Leadership, 67(3), 32–37.

Edison, J. (2025, May 3). Private school vouchers are now law in Texas. Here’s how they will work. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/03/texas-school-vouchers-greg-abbott-signs/

Valenzuela, A. (2025, September 15). Accountability without justice: The continuing agenda to demonize K–12 public schools to set the stage for further privatization. Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas, https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2025/09/accountability-without-justice.html 

"The Long Fight for Meaningful Assessment in Texas: From TAAS to HB 4 and Beyond" by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Long Fight for Meaningful Assessment in Texas: From TAAS 

to House Bill 4 and Beyond

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

House Bill 4 represents a promising and long-overdue step toward meaningful reform of Texas’ public school accountability system, which currently relies too heavily on the STAAR exam. The late Rice University professor, Dr. Linda McNeil, and I published on this very topic 25 years ago (McNeil & Valenzuela, 2000). 

I authored an anthology on this in 2004, published by the State University of New York Press (Valenzuela, 2004). We worked with former Texas State Rep. Dora Olivo, filing a bill on holistic assessment in the 2001 legislature. It actually passed out of the Texas House. This, despite personal phone calls from President George W. Bush to House members in real time. 

Rep. Olivo’s bill stood little chance. After all, "W" was on a mission to pass what would become the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping federal mandate that ushered high-stakes testing into every classroom and codified accountability as the cornerstone of public education policy.

Believe me when I say—I’ve given over two decades of my life to this struggle. My older daughter, then just an elementary school student, testified before the Texas Legislature about the harms of high-stakes testing. On the day she courageously refused to take the exam, she wrote a heartfelt letter to President George W. Bush, pleading for change. This fight is not just professional for me—it’s deeply personal. In fact, the very origins of this blog are rooted in that resistance.

By the 2013 legislative session, Dr. Linda McNeil and I had joined forces with Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA), standing alongside a growing coalition of scholars, parents, and advocates committed to transforming our state’s accountability system. Over time, that chorus of resistance only grew louder. I’ve been especially heartened to see Raise Your Hand Texas (RYHT) take a leadership role in this movement, and I’ve had the privilege of attending several of their events and press conferences that continue to shape the public conversation.

Several aspects of Raise Your Hand Texas’s 2025 report, “Assessment and Accountability: HB 4 Back in the Spotlight,” are especially noteworthy and speak to the significance of this moment (Raise Your Hand Texas, 2025).

First, with all the multi-year, RYHT efforts and data on public opinion on the Texas STAAR System of testing and accountability, House Bill 4, a bipartisan bill, died this legislative session, failing to arrive on the Governor's desk. It was a bipartisan bad idea to begin with.

Second, meaningful assessment was a priority of the entire Texas House of Representatives, as evidenced by the lower bill number, and it still didn't make it.

Last, and relatedly, the show of support by so many authors and co-authors is more than I have ever seen on testing legislation in the history of the legislature, and for that, we should be very encouraged.

Educators, parents, and students have long argued that a single high-stakes test cannot capture the full picture of student learning, school quality, or teacher impact. It's also costly and has filled the pockets of Education Testing Services and Pearson, Inc. to the tune of literally hundreds of millions, probably billions by now, over the past decades (e.g., see McGaughey, 2015).

As Dr. McNeil would often say, "Every testing dollar for the testing companies is one less dollar for public education in Texas."

In a political climate where entire diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and centers are being dismantled and faculty governance stripped away, one has to wonder: if the testing regime is so untouchable, then whose interests beyond the testing companies does it serve?

The truth is, the testing infrastructure is far from neutral. It operates as a powerful mechanism of control—determining what counts as legitimate knowledge, who is deemed successful or deficient, and which schools are rewarded or punished. It elevates compliance over curiosity, standardization over critical thinking, and reinforces a relentless hierarchy that ranks students, educators, schools, and, by association, entire communities as winners or failures.

So yes, we must ask—why not dismantle the testing regime too? In a moment when so much is being undone in the name of “reform,” let's turn the mirror on the system and ask who benefits from the tests, and who is harmed when they have an undue influence on our children’s future?

Enough is enough. For over two decades, we have fought against a testing system that punishes children for the conditions they were born into—a system rooted in racism and classism that reduces vibrant, complex human beings to numbers on a piece of paper (Valenzuela, 2004). 

How many more children must carry the weight of a single test? How many more will internalize failure as casualties in a testing system that is, at its core, both racist and classist (Valenzuela, 2004)? We must begin organizing now for the 90th Texas Legislative Session in 2027. The path to justice in education demands persistence, preparation, and the collective will to dismantle what never served our children in the first place. 

All told, a revised version of HB 4, passed unanimously out of the House Public Education Committee this session. It addressed concerns about limiting the weight of STAAR in A-F campus ratings and introduced more formative assessments that provide timely and actionable data. It also included innovative changes, such as updating postsecondary success indicators and launching local accountability pilot programs, allowing districts to design systems that reflect community values and student engagement beyond the classroom.

The bill’s pivot toward a student-centered accountability system—one that, in addition to academic performance, values growth, character, and civic engagement —is not just a policy shift. It’s a moral course correction. I commend Raise Your Hand Texas for its tireless advocacy in helping us reach this turning point. We now have every reason to be hopeful—and even more reason to keep pushing for a future where every child is seen, heard, and valued far beyond a test score.

References

McGaughey, L. (2015, May 19) Texas set to switch testing vendor, reducing role of British education giant: Pearson had held contract for 15 years, Houston Chronicle, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-set-to-switch-testing-vendor-drops-6271843.php

McNeil, L., & Valenzuela, A. (2000). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED443872.pdf

Raise Your Hand Texas. (2025, May 5). Assessment and accountability: HB 4 Back in the Spotlight. https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/assessment-and-accountability-hb-4/

Valenzuela, A. (2004). Leaving Children Behind: How "Texas-style" accountability harms Latino Youth. New York: State University of New York Press.

Op-Ed: Our schools, teachers deserve accountability reform by K. Moulton & A. Valenzuela

We desperately need educational accountability and assessment reform in Texas and here is how Raise Your Hand Texas (RYHT) is leading this legislative session. Then scroll down below to read my co-authored op-ed with Kelli Moulton of RYHT. All of this falls on the heels of advocacy last week as follows (from RYHT's Friday, April 21 Weekly update):

On Thursday, the Texas House Committee on Public Education heard 

 (Bell, K.) and (Allison). Both bills improve the public school assessment and accountability system by limiting the effect of STAAR tests on school district and campus A-F ratings. The bills also add new non-STAAR indicators to the A-F rating calculations in order to paint a more holistic picture of school quality.

Today, Friday, April 21, HB 4402 was voted out favorably from the Texas House Commitee on Public Education. The bill now moves to the Calendars Committee, where members of that committee will schedule a date for the entire House of Representatives to vote on the bill. Here are some key provisions of each bill:

Committee Substitute HB 4402

HB 4402

HB 4514

• Adds three new non-test indicators: Extra- and co-curricular success, parent and student satisfaction, and participation in middle school accelerated math
• Prohibits STAAR scores from accounting for more than 80% of elementary and middle school accountability ratings
• Formalizes through-year assessments starting in 2027-28 school year
• ISDs may offer the STAAR tests in paper format to no more than 1% of their enrolled students
• Creates grants for the development of local accountability systems
• Creates an extra- and co-curricular allotment

Committee Substitute HB 4514: 

• Removes the social studies STAAR test in grade eight
• Adds new PK-8 indicators starting in the 2023-24 school year, including access to enrichment curriculum, participation in extra- and co-curricular activities, state-developed school and student safety surveys, teacher mentoring programs and professional development, chronic absenteeism rates, participation in full-day pre-K, completion of career and technical education courses, and completion of advanced courses
• Removes the overall, aggregate A-F district and campus performance rating
• Prohibits STAAR scores to account for more than 50% of any A-F rating

The research cited within on the public's attitudes toward schools, testing, and accountability is accessible on this February 4, 2022 blog post titled, "Connected Through Our Schools" [Report] on Strong Public Support for Public Education in Texas. Texans with children in schools strongly support public education, in general. Now let's move the needle further and be more holistic and complex in our assessments and understandings of student performance and school performance together with the ratings that attach to them.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

Opinion: Our schools, teachers deserve accountability reform

Kelli Moulton and Angela Valenzuela

April 23, 2023 | Op-Ed | Austin American Statesman

April marks the beginning of STAAR testing season for Texas public school students, and it’s also the start of the final two months of the Texas legislative session. 

We have an opportunity to reimagine a critically important system of public school accountability to ensure greater transparency, reduce the overreliance on one test to assess students, teachers and campuses, and provide a more holistic, meaningful assessment of school performance and student preparation for future success.

Last year we celebrated the gains Texas students demonstrated after two years of online or interrupted in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw students in grades 3-8 notch improved scores in reading and math, a credit to the grit and perseverance of students and their teachers. The progress of our students has impacted their campuses, with 33% of schools and 25% of school districts across the state improving their respective Texas Education Agency (TEA) ratings since the last time ratings were given in 2019.

While we should celebrate the academic gains made under challenging circumstances, we may want to question whether new TEA ratings tell parents everything they want and need to know about their child’s school. Under the current system, our elementary and middle school campuses receive their A-F rating from the TEA based entirely on the STAAR Test – one test, taken on one day. Texas’ accountability system neglects other important measures of how a campus contributes to a students’ academic growth, as well as any measure that would give insight into students’ mental health, campus culture or safety, family engagement, or teacher quality. 

A single test cannot measure what matters about our students’ academic success and campus effectiveness. We can and must do better.

Thankfully, state lawmakers have a chance to improve the system by hearing and passing several key bills, some which reflect an evidence-based and comprehensive effort to examine and recommend improvements to the state’s accountability system for public schools.

For more than 18 months, Measure What Matters connected with more than 15,600 parents, teachers, students, business leaders, policy experts and community leaders to learn what should be added to the equation for a more thorough, thoughtful and useful system of testing and accountability. 

Among the four key findings of this effort that are addressed in pending legislation: The state overemphasizes the STAAR tests in its current accountability system. High-stakes consequences of one test on one day place unnecessary, excessive pressure on students. By excluding highly valuable indicators of school quality and performance, parents receive an incomplete assessment of a school’s and student’s performance. A single, averaged letter grade of A-F oversimplifies the work of teachers, students and campus leaders. 

Yes, Texans believe in accountability. We can and should assess our public schools and students, but we can and must do better in doing so. More than 80% of respondents to Raise Your Hand Texas’ survey said they do not believe the STAAR test alone can effectively determine if their child’s school is good or not, and only 1% felt like the STAAR was a very accurate measure of school quality.

As lawmakers finish their work in Austin this spring, let’s encourage them to measure what matters and do right by public schools and their students.

Moulton serves as the Measure What Matters Council Chair, as well as executive superintendent at the Texas Association of School Administrators. Valenzuela is a professor at the University of Texas.

INVITATION: "Examining the Moral Injuries and Oppressive Impacts of High-Stakes Tests," Wed., Feb. 8th at 6PM CST

***Open to the Public: Please Disseminate Widely***

Dear Friends, Students and Colleagues:

Want to share this virtual panel presentation that Dr. Ricardo Rosa—on behalf of Uniting to Save Our Schools (USOS) and organizations in solidarity with them—has organized an important event. Dr. Rosa works at the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Register here to attend the event via Zoom on Wednesday, February 8th from 6-7:30PM CST / 7-8:30PM EST / 4-5:30PM PST.

I am so very honored to appear on this panel with Congressman Jamaal Bowman and such great scholars and advocates addressing, as the title says, the "Moral Injuries and Oppressive Impacts of High-Stakes Tests." Boy, do we know all about this here in Texas. 

Though not necessarily in this order on the day of, here is the presentation lineup:

• Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Educational Leadership and Policy,University of Texas at Austin
• Wayne Au, Ph.D., School of Educational Studies, University of Washington Bothell
  
• Congressman Jamaal Bowman, 16th Congressional District of New York 
• Deborah McCarthy, Vice President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and long-time conscientious objector to administering the state test
• Harry Feder, Executive Director, National Center for Fair and Open Testing (or FairTest)

To prepare for this event, I encourage everyone to read this earlier blog post titled, "Why the Academic Achievement Gap is a Racist Idea By Ibram X. Kendi." Check out the FairTest website, too, as they have carried the water on the battle against high-stakes testing at the national level for decades. Test-based entrance exams like the SAT and ACT, in higher education, as well.

Finally, if you're in Texas and want to know what we're advocating for here in the context of the 88th Session of the Texas State Legislature currently underway, check out the Raise Your Hand Texas Legislative Agenda.

-Angela Valenzuela

"Connected Through Our Schools" [Report] on Strong Public Support for Public Education in Texas

“Hear, hear!” To All Education Policy Advocates for Great Public 

Schools in Texas

Don't buy the neoliberal hype that parents are opposed to public education and should therefore support either school vouchers or opt for market-based solutions to so-called "failing schools" from right-wing privatizers touting the so-called "virtues" of education management organizations [EMOs]—meaning corporations running far too many of our schools and in the process, robbing taxpayers of precious, hard-earned, dollars that funnel to corporate heads to line their pockets and rob our children of the education they need and deserve. 

Instead, I encourage you to take some time to educate yourself on what Texans themselves are saying about public education. These survey results provide a current and timely sense of not only strong, but growing, support for public education in the state of Texas that the pandemic itself appears to have, in part, motivated as indicated herein:

"Nearly all Texans want their public schools to provide extracurricular opportunities, and roughly nine in 10 support programming such as universal pre-kindergarten and on-site mental health services. Signaling that some pandemic practices may be here to stay, broad majorities support remote parent-teacher meetings and remote instruction when desired for any student in the long term."

This timely report provides plenty of ammunition to, among other things, challenge vouchers and high-stakes testing while supporting universal pre-K and mental health services in anticipation of the 2023 Texas legislative session. 

Urge everyone you know to read this downloadable report [pdf].

Congratulations to the Charles Butt Foundation and research director Jennifer Jendrzey, Lauren Cook, and UT Education Policy and Planning master's student, Victoria Wang, as well as to Langer Research Associates Steven Sparks, research analyst Allison De Jong, and project director Gary Langer for their incredible work on a truly well-conceived survey study and report.

-Angela Valenzuela

#SupportPublicEducation #SupportPublicSchools #TxEd #MeasureWhatMatters @RYHTexas @TAMSATX

"Connected Through Our Schools" 

The 2022 Poll on Texans' Attitudes Toward Public Education

Letter from the

Charles Butt Foundation

Anyone connected to a public school is well aware of the difficulties our schools and educators faced over the past two years as they navigated uncertainty after uncertainty. As we approached this year’s survey, we considered deeply what information is most helpful to educators and those who work to support Texas public schools. We chose to explore how Texans view their schools, the long-term implications of adapting to pandemic schooling, and what Texas families value about their connections with public schools and educators. What we found gives us great hope: Texas parents’ ratings of public schools and teachers are the highest in the history of our poll.

We are pleased to release our third annual report on Texans’ attitudes toward public education, presented by the Charles Butt Foundation, previously published by the Raise Your Hand Texas® Foundation. We value random-sample statewide polling because it reveals Texans’ perceptions of public education from all geographic areas, ideologies, and demographics of this great state. At a time when the loudest voices and the headlines don’t often reflect the experience of everyday Texans, this data is more important now than ever.

With each survey, we ask Texans to self-identify and share their demographics, including their race and ethnicity. When we identify racial and ethnic data in our report, we categorize Texans in the following ways: Black Texans, Hispanic Texans, White Texans, and Texans of color, who include Texans who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, multiracial, and another racial background or origin. We recognize these are imperfect categorizations and are working to find more inclusive methods of amplifying diverse Texas voices.

Our hope is the Charles Butt Foundation poll report continues to be a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and our countless partners working to make public education excellent and equitable for all Texas students. As we look forward and apply these data to catalyze further learning, facilitate authentic conversations, and spark bold ideas, we will keep Texas students and families at the center of our work, as they will drive the future success of our communities and state.

About the Poll

The third annual Charles Butt Foundation poll – previously known as the Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation poll – was produced for the foundation by Langer Research Associates. Data collection was conducted Sept. 24-Oct. 4, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random statewide sample of 1,154 Texas adults via the Ipsos KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based online survey panel. Results have a margin of error of four points for the full sample; error margins are larger for subgroups. All differences described in this report have been tested for statistical significance.1

Detailed results follow in nine sections: The role of public schools, pursuing school quality, belonging and inclusion, rating the schools, attitudes toward teachers, testing and accountability, equity barriers and school funding. A digital download and additional resources are available at CharlesButtFdn.org/2022TXEdPoll.

The 2022 Charles Butt Foundation poll was directed by Jennifer Jendrzey, vice president of learning and impact; Lauren Cook, senior strategist; and Victoria Wang, research associate. The report and user interface were designed by Joel Goudeau, art director; and Marcela Giraldo, senior designer; with visualization support by Kurt Lockhart, data insights manager; and web development support by Karen Wang. The lead author of this report is Steven Sparks, research analyst at Langer Research Associates; with Allison De Jong, research analyst; Sofi Sinozich, research analyst; and Gary Langer, project director.

Key findings

Texas public school parents’ ratings of their community’s public schools have surged since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, signaling broad appreciation of schools’ – and teachers’ – efforts to respond amid closures and controversy.

The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on public education by the Charles Butt Foundation. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools.2 Forty-eight percent of non-parents now give their local public schools As and Bs, versus 56 percent a year ago. That makes for a 20-point gap between parents and non-parents in their ratings of the state’s public schools.

About three-quarters of public school parents also report that their child has a very or somewhat strong sense of belonging at school. And if other options were available, eight in 10 would choose to keep their child in their current school rather than send them to a different one.

On teachers, public school parents also are now more likely than Texans overall to give A or B grades to the public school teachers in their community; 76 percent do so. And they’re slightly more apt than all Texans to say they’d like a child of theirs to have a career as a public school teacher. These are shifts from the past two years, when views among parents and non-parents were similar.

Other results find substantial confidence in teachers. More Texans trust teachers to make decisions in the best interest of public school students than trust principals, local school boards, district administrators, or state elected officials. Seventy-six percent of Texans trust teachers to assess and monitor students’ academic progress; 67 percent, to develop and choose curriculum; and 65 percent, to support students’ self-management, interpersonal skills and decision-making skills.

Alongside these results, most Texans recognize an array of obstacles facing teachers today, ranging from a high level of work-related stress to too many administrative burdens. Notably, nine in 10 Texans see pressure to have their students do well on standardized tests as a challenge for teachers. Eighty-four percent say the same about work-related COVID-19 health concerns.

In ongoing concerns, the share of Texans who thinks public school teachers are undervalued in society today remains high, as does the share who thinks their salaries are too low. More than half also think the public schools in their community have too little funding.

Other results underscore Texans’ broad preference for public schools that serve diverse needs of students and their communities alike. In terms of what students should learn beyond the basics, large majorities think students should receive all surveyed items from public schools, ranging from critical thinking and problem-solving skills to exposure to different cultures and communities.

Nearly all Texans want their public schools to provide extracurricular opportunities, and roughly nine in 10 support programming such as universal pre-kindergarten and on-site mental health services. Signaling that some pandemic practices may be here to stay, broad majorities support remote parent-teacher meetings and remote instruction when desired for any student in the long term.

When it comes to standardized testing, more than half of Texans lack confidence that the state’s STAAR exams effectively measure how well a student is learning. Among negative perceptions, 70 percent think the tests require students to focus on test answers rather than deeper thinking, and 64 percent think they force teachers to “teach to the test.”

Separately, more parents say the pandemic had a positive rather than a negative impact in three areas – their child’s technology skills, their own communication with teachers, and their knowledge of their child’s educational progress. Parents are roughly divided between seeing positive or negative impacts in other areas, ranging from their child’s emotional health and well-being to engagement in coursework.

On equity gaps, fewer Texans perceive various barriers to learning for low-income students, or on the basis of students’ race or ethnicity, than did so a year ago, with declines somewhat more concentrated among Republicans and White residents of the state.

Click here to continue reading.

Important action item from RYHT: Our schools desperately need these federal stimulus monies

Friends, 

Here is a very important action item from Raise Your Hand Texas. Our schools desperately need these federal stimulus monies.

-Angela Valenzuela 

#FundTxEdRecovery

#SupportPublicEducation

Texas public schools are due $18 billion in federal stimulus. The Texas House will consider whether schools will receive this funding during the budget debate on the floor this week. Please contact your legislators one last time during budget week and tell them money intended for education should stay in education! Schools desperately need these dollars to help students, staff, and families recover from the pandemic. This money is essential to preventing the public health crisis from becoming a generational education crisis.  Here are a few samples of how much money hangs in the balance or use this link to learn more and to look up other school districts.    Austin ISD $74,326,485 and $167,234,591 Dripping Springs ISD$1,060,346 and $2,385,778 Georgetown ISD $3,945,125 and $8,876,532  Hays CISD  $7,907,386 and $17,791,619 Liberty Hill ISD $548,289 and $1,233,650  Marble Falls ISD $3,131,432 and $7,045,722 Round Rock ISD $12,485,459 and $28,092,282 San Marcos CISD $7,288,208 and $16,398,467 Waco ISD $22,110,591 and $49,748,831 After you make contact, please share with your network and social media utilizing the #FundTxEdRecovery. Remember that our schools are counting on us.  Respectfully,  JoLisa Hoover Central Texas Regional Advocacy Director Follow me: Facebook | Twitter    PS - I’d like to extend an invitation to continue this conversation with a one on one zoom call so we can get to know each other better and make some plans for advocacy in the area.  An easy way to schedule with me is my Calendly link.