Accountability Without Justice: The Continuing Agenda to Demonize K-12 Public Schools to Set the Stage for Further Privatization

Accountability Without Justice: The Continuing Agenda to Demonize K-12 Public Schools to Set the Stage for Further Privatization

by

Angela Valenzuela

September 15, 2025

Students attend a math and reading workshop at a STAAR summer camp held at Dobie Middle School on July 23, 2025. Texas lawmakers are again trying to revamp the state's standardized test during this year's  special session. Photo credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Texas Tribune

After a grueling regular session and two special sessions, the Texas Legislature finally passed House Bill 8 (HB 8), birthing what they are calling the Student Success Tool—a revamped statewide assessment system set to roll out in the 2027–28 school year. The current STAAR contract remains in place through 2026–27, ensuring no immediate change. This is the story of progress that sidesteps transformation.

The new system shifts away from the single, high-stakes STAAR exam toward a series of three shorter tests administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the year in reading/language arts, math, science, and social studies, with a dedicated writing component. Only the end-of-year exam will count for accountability purposes (Houston Chronicle, 2025; Texas Tribune, 2025). The legislation also sets strict testing windows to reduce classroom disruption, limits the number of district benchmark exams, and guarantees parents access to results within 48 hours (Houston Chronicle, 2025; Good Reason Houston, 2025). It eliminates the English II end-of-course test, allows students to substitute qualifying scores from the SAT, ACT, AP, or IB in place of state tests, and mandates automated rescoring for certain writing responses (Raise Your Hand Texas, 2025). Additionally, the Texas Education Agency must define cut scores earlier and with greater transparency.

There are glimmers of relief here—less redundancy, faster feedback, and a nod toward flexibility. But they do not add up to the seismic shift advocates hoped for. HB 8 may reduce some burdens of testing, but it adds more high-stakes checkpoints and keeps the same fundamentally punitive system alive. As one major editorial put it, this is “not real reform—merely a rebranding of STAAR, expanded under a new label” (San Antonio Express-News, 2025). Educators continue to warn that the bill “overemphasizes high-stakes testing and punitive ratings… forcing teachers to teach to the test rather than focusing on critical thinking, creativity, and deeper learning” (Texas AFT, 2025). The so-called advisory committee on accountability, established under the bill, has also been criticized as underrepresentative and largely preordained to affirm TEA priorities, meaning community voices may not drive the process (Texas AFT, 2025).

Why, then, does this fetish for high-stakes testing persist, even as it fails our students and schools? One answer lies in the broader political narrative it enables. By repeatedly labeling public schools as “failing,” the system creates a crisis frame that makes it easier to justify diverting public dollars to charter schools, vouchers, and private alternatives. 

Indeed, in the very same session that produced HB 8, lawmakers advanced a $1 billion voucher plan, offering families up to $10,000 per student for private tuition. Critics note this policy disproportionately benefits wealthier families, lacks meaningful accountability, and threatens to drain already scarce funds from neighborhood public schools (Houston Chronicle, 2025; Texas Tribune, 2025). In this sense, HB 8’s surface-level reforms play into a broader agenda that demonizes public schools and sets the stage for privatization.

So, did public education advocacy organizations succeed? They secured incremental wins: less disruptive testing, faster feedback, cancellation of some exams, and improved transparency. Yet the core system endures. Schools are still judged primarily by test scores, accountability remains narrow, and meaningful change is postponed yet again.

References

Churchill, L., ProPublica, & Simani, E. (2025, Aug. 13). Some Texas private schools hire relatives and enrich insiders. Soon they can do it with taxpayer money, Texas Tribune.

Dey, S. (2025, Sept. 2). Texas is poised to replace STAAR. Here is what schools’ new standardized tests would look like, Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/02/texas-staar-standardized-test-accountability/?utm

Good Reason Houston. (2025, September 2). Texas Legislature passes HB 8, ushering in the next phase of assessment and accountability for Texas students. Good Reason Houston. https://goodreasonhouston.org/texas-legislature-passes-hb-8-ushering-in-the-next-phase-of-assessment-and-accountability-for-texas-students/

 

Houston Chronicle. (2025, August 13). Texas House passes $1 billion private school voucher plan. Houston Chronicle. https://link.houstonchronicle.com/public/39469102--

Raise Your Hand Texas. (2025, September 4). Statement on House Bill 8. Raise Your Hand Texas. https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/news-release/statement-house-bill-8/

San Antonio Express-News. (2025, August 27). Editorial: Expanded STAAR testing is not reform. San Antonio Express-News. https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/editorial/article/expanded-staar-testing-21017783.php

Texas AFT. (2025, August 28). Texas educators oppose woefully inadequate STAAR reform proposal. Texas AFT. https://www.texasaft.org/policy/testing/texas-educators-oppose-woefully-inadequate-staar-reform-proposal/

"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.

A Christmas Eve Reflection: Educational Ice Cream and Making the World Anew

I want to thank John Tanner for his blog, "Educational Ice Cream," as it got me to reflect on where we are as a state and nation after two decades of so-called "educational accountability." I, too, have been a constant critic throughout this entire time period. 

I read him as tongue-in-cheek on trading out the toxic phrase, "educational accountability" with "ice cream" since the former is so toxic and freighted. If we trade out this phrase, this might at least get us to smile and have a constructive conversation on the matter.

It merits mention that I got my Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University where one cuts one's teeth on scholarship that considers how stratification occurs in modern society. One can hardly understand this without looking at the role of policies surrounding the implementation of standardized tests, a focus that, at least for myself as a younger scholar, also entailed an in-depth examination of the history of standardized testing and test development that exposes for me—alongside reputable national educational organizations, as Tanner himself mentions—the inherent unfairness and lack of validity of high-stakes testing.

Underscore "high stakes" in the phrase high-stakes testing. This is not at all to say that there isn't a role for standardized testing, but rather that they should be administered responsibly and never in a high-stakes manner that can profoundly impact teachers,' and most particularly, students' lives and well-being. As folks at the Intercultural Development Research Associates in San Antonio have been saying for well over 20 years, as well, we don't need "census testing," but rather "sample testing." We could even simply default to the National Assessment for Educational Progress as a new direction in policy. The "NAEP" is already considered "The Nation's Report Card."

So why the excess? One doesn't need a blood transfusion to know the health of the human body. Rather, a simple blood test does the job. 

Twenty-plus years of this system makes it abundantly clear that the intention actually is to be a punishing racist and classist system that discredits schools and public education and in so doing, paves the way to charters and privatization while yielding eye-popping profits to the high-stakes-testing-industrial complex? 

It's so telling that across five Texas legislative sessions this year of 2023, none of Gov. Greg Abbott's "voucher bills" required any high-stakes testing or accountability. None. Zero. Nada. What's good for the goose (public education) is clearly not good for the gander (private schools). Such hypocrisy. At least it's all out in plain sight.

When I first got to UT in 1999 and operated a "listserv" for about 6 years that focused on high-stakes testing and privatization, I then switched to blogging in 2004 with this very idea of launching a critique and like Tanner, shifting the discourse surrounding Texas-style accountability. After all, it had just gotten rolled out to the nation in the form of federal policy in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002 which later became the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015. We have had some success, but more must be done, beginning with eliminating high-stakes testing and accountability altogether, as Tanner suggests.

The late Rice University professor, Dr. Linda McNeil, MALDEF attorney Al Kauffman, Dr. Gary Orfield, Dr. Mindy Kornhaber, and myself, research in hand, lobbied the U.S. Congress in 2001, letting them know that the proposed NCLB policy augurs an era of great harm, particularly considering that opportunities to learn the curriculum were woefully uneven within districts, within states, and across states. Linda and I even published a widely-read piece on the matter long before the "jury was in," so to speak, on just how harmful high-stakes testing and accountability systems are (McNeil & Valenzuela, 2001). 

While in Washington, D.C., I remember hanging out in the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's office as he was one of the few truly powerful voices at the time pushing back on NCLB. Based on data we had gathered (McNeil & Valenzuela, 2001; Valenzuela, 2004), we testified at a press conference in the Rayburn Building on how the proposed federal policy would deepen inequalities by structuring out enrichment opportunities, particularly for low-income, marginalized youth that if anything, needed more, not less, enrichment.

I remember it being a very hostile audience comprised largely of civil rights organizations that simply couldn't hear the evidence we had provided. They attacked and demeaned us scholars engaging in "Texas bashing" and for being spoilers to what they were heralding as their glorious achievement. I kid you not. I was glad that we got out of there in one piece. This experience of getting attacked by a mob of so-called progressives was shocking to me and has never once repeated in my entire professional career.

After this majorly unsettling experience, we met with all of the members of the congressional Texas delegation to warn them about the harms of this system but to no avail. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee's fateful words still ring in my ears today: "You're too late. Unless there are dead bodies on the tracks, the train has left the station." 

I could only think of the children and youth in my research at the time and the oppressive mental testing to which they were already subjected. Linda and I were deflated. Not even ice cream could have lifted our spirits.

On January 8, 2002, the brilliant Congressman Paul Wellstone died in a fiery airplane crash and by October 25, 2002, NCLB became law. As Linda said, "Now everybody's become Texas." 

Dr. Linda McNeil passed away on April 1, 2021. Boy, do we miss you, Linda.

Linda and I saw this top-down, remote-control, reform then and see it now today as not just a neoliberal (or market-based ideal) of student, school, and district "success," but also as a mechanism of control that works to preempt marginalized groups and the lower- and middle classes to conceptualize, or "think," their way to freedom. 

It is through this same lens that I see other attacks on education in the form of voucher bills, so-called anti-Critical Race Theory legislation, and the current attack on DEI. These all double as harmful policy and weapons of mass distraction by structuring out critical thought, creativity, and imagination.

To consider this further, change cannot be left in the hands of the "reformers," many of whom are found within our K-12 and higher education institutions, as well as in our legislatures or nonprofit sectors, because they are either controlled by, or are themselves, elites that adhere jealously to our high-stakes systems of testing and accountability. Still today, some organizations that claim to be about civil rights support this vastly inequitable and punishing system. We must address the power structure that sustains this regime.

Again, as Linda would say, "If this were just a test, that would be innocuous. But rather, it's a 'system of testing' that makes it so harmful."

Drawing on Scott (1987) and Rossatto (2019) whose writings come to mind this morning, real change must come from the very people whose lives are profoundly impacted by this system. The first step is to decouple "high-stakes" from testing and then to consider alternatives like portfolios, performance-based assessments, and system-wide approaches as currently exist within the New York Performance Standards Consortium (NYPSC) schools. Accordingly, read a 2015 blog post "This Is What a Student-Designed School Looks Like." There are alternatives. However, we need a more just government together with the political will to consider these.

We must also fully fund public education since policymakers still haven't fully addressed how students' opportunity to learn the curriculum is what test results reflect, namely, a lack of opportunity for poor schools and lower-income, Black and Brown youth. As far as civil rights are concerned, groups and organizations must know from here on out that we will never test our way to equity. If this were so, it would have happened by now.

Finally, the ice cream that puts a smile on my face is of the kind that departs from the premise that only a "transformative," as opposed to "reformist" consciousness can guide us out of this conceptual quagmire. Reformist ice cream won't do the job. Transformative ice cream will, as we've had enough "reform." We now need to shift from tinkering at the margins and make the world anew.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Rossatto, C. A. (2019). Manifesto for New Social Movements Equity, Access, and Empowerment. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Scott, J. C. (1987). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press.

Valenzuela, A. (2004). Leaving Children Behind: How 'Texas-style' Accountability Fails Latino Youth. State University of New York Press.

McNeil, L. M. & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. In Orfield, G., & Kornhaber, M. L. (Eds). Raising standards or raising barriers?: Inequality and high-stakes testing in public education.  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED443872.pdf

Monday, December 18, 2023

Educational Ice Cream

by John Tanner, An Educational Contrarian Blog

The challenge in talking about educational accountability is twofold. First is that no one in their right mind would suggest that they are unwilling to be accountable for the work they do, especially when that work is as important as the education of a child.

But second, the way accountability has been done in education is so embarrassingly dumb that it isn’t an accountability worth being accountable to or for. That leaves educators in the untenable position of saying that they are happy to be accountable, just not in the way that states and Federal government want them to be accountable. Which leaves educators vulnerable to accusations of wanting to cherry pick among systems for the one that puts them in the best possible light. Or of not wanting to be accountable at all.

Let’s be clear about how dumb the current system is. It is something done punitively and authoritatively. It is done to schools by those outside schools, most of whom lack any expertise regarding educational processes. Its negative judgments are concentrated on the poorest communities. It is based largely on standardized test scores, which few understand, especially the policy makers making the rules. It creates judgments that differ a great deal from what the educators in a building know to be true. It comes with sufficiently negative judgments that it interferes with and often corrupts what educators know to be best practice. It is stressful and forever the 600 lb. gorilla in every school. It uses complex compliance-based formulas to assign labels. Almost no one would classify what passes for educational accountability as a system that promotes anything resembling excellence.

In short, what passes for educational accountability follows a formula that has been roundly rejected by virtually every other profession for the simple fact that if understanding an organization and its efforts is the goal, this won’t get you there.

The challenge in talking about fixing educational accountability is also twofold. First, the paradigm of test—judge—punish is so powerful that improving accountability almost always occurs under the assumption that standardized testing is a fete accompli, something as commensurate with accountability as the terms bunny and hare are to each other. 99% of the effort that goes into trying to fix state and federal accountability programs and policies is about trying to lessen the negative impact of a demonstrably bad (dumb) system. Or find a better way to test. Or tweak the formulas to hurt a little less, which of course will be met with accusations of (ironically) dumbing down the system.

And second, it has proven almost impossible to imagine something other than our compliance-driven test-based accountabilities. Whatever the reason, there has never been a concerted and sustained effort to ask and research what accountability could have and should have looked like, and then ask how we might move towards it. I interact with people all the time about a future state of educational accountability, and it never ceases to amaze me how challenging it is to see beyond narrow educational metrics and thinking that compliance with them somehow signals effectiveness.

All that weight anchored to a single phrase, educational accountability, means that the instant the phrase is invoked so too is the negativity and the sense that getting out from underneath it will be near impossible. That weight makes it challenging even to imagine what something else might look like. Or that there could even be a something else.

When I say educational accountability I’m talking about the most transformational of all the leadership disciplines, more capable of supporting a great work environment, creating trust between an organization and its stakeholders, and helping to shape strong organizations well into the future than any of them. Do it well and the big issues that seemed unsolvable in the past can become solvable going forward. No other leadership discipline can make that claim.

I’m talking about the way great organizations of all stripes account for what they do such that it leads and guides them as effectively as possible into an uncertain future.

Does that sound like what currently passes for educational accountability?

Real accountability looks nothing like what currently passes for educational accountability. It doesn’t need or require standardized test scores. It doesn’t require census metrics. It is not data-led. It is high stakes, but its goals are not punitive. It is based upon the hopes and dreams parents have for their children, or in slightly different terms, on the benefits parents expect for having entrusted their children’s lives and educations to a school. It tells the truth. It focuses on the future. It is easy to understand by every single stakeholder.

However, when I invoke the phrase, educational accountability, and start to point to the research that outlines a better way to do it, what people are understandably conditioned to hear is that I’m yet one more person with a slick strategy to help a school avoid sanctions, or I’m offering a different test or data point, or I’m claiming some policy tweak will help make a lousy system a little less lousy. Because up to this point that is all anyone has offered. And none of those, to be frank, is worth a moment of anybody’s time. If that were what I was really offering, you should ignore me.

I know this is how people view the phrase educational accountability because of the thousands of people I’ve asked what they believed what was about to happen when they first walked into one of my courses or seminars. Their answers are almost the same: they expected to hear yet one more way to deal with the current accountability mess, and that given the choice they would rather be anywhere else. Again, if I were in their shoes, I would feel the exact same way.

My goal going forward is to help people see at the outset something very different indeed. I’m better at it than I was, but I’m not there yet.

When I talk about making educational accountability right, what I am signaling is the need for something entirely different than the corruption currently claiming that name. I am arguing for accountability that is good for schools, students, parents, and communities, which is a far cry from what we have. I’m accusing the current system being so bad and poorly conceived that it cannot be salvaged, but also—and this is a bright spot—of being so narrow and short-sighted that you can run a great accountability alongside and eclipse it, meaning we don’t need a policy change in order to make a huge dent in the problem—although make no mistake—a policy change is absolutely the goal.

And I’m stating, as loudly as I can, that if the public understood the technical details of what a standardized test score is designed to do and as a result, could see what it cannot also do, they would reject it as an accountability tool outright, as a terrible and stupid mistake. It needs to become clear that trying to use standardized testing as an accountability tool is akin to trying to pound a square peg into a round hole with a mackerel. I hope that image stays with you because it really is that dumb.

When I talk about making educational accountability right, it is not through a set of acronyms or quippy phrases that were created to sell books or consulting hours. Rather, accountability is an almost universal function in organizations, and when done well, follows a handful of underlying frameworks, each of them replete with common sense. Doing accountability right requires learning those commonsense frameworks, a shift in mindset regarding what accountability is and is not, and a few hours a month. Accountability is not supposed to be your job, or the 600 lb. gorilla. Rather, it is how to account for your work and effectiveness, including how you intend to be effective going forward. That is, as I said, high stakes to be sure, just as it should be with any and all work that is meaningful and worthwhile.

For someone who now researches and studies accountability and has discovered its wondrous possibilities for improving the health of organizations, meeting the needs of stakeholders, shaping the organization for the future, and making it a great place to work, the fact that I have to start with the word, accountability, automatically puts me at a disadvantage by bringing with it its mountains of baggage. A disadvantage I must spend weeks and sometimes months trying to overcome.

The alternative is to find a different word, but that puts me at risk of being accused of not caring about accountability. Of being an apologist for under or poor performance, or of not caring about kids. That would put me outside the conversation and prevent my mission of solving this accountability mess once and for all.

So, I’m not going to dismiss the term, but rather, embrace it. But I need every educator to meet me halfway, so that we can start with a shared set of assumptions at the outset. And here’s a strategy to do that. Every time I say the phrase educational accountability the first few times we talk, or you read something I wrote, please read it as educational ice cream. Ice cream makes people happy. It's delicious. We’re happier to have than to not. We can look forward to the next flavor of the month. We leave our experiences with ice cream feeling better than before we had it. Any negative feelings we have about the calories are almost always offset by how good it is.

Educational ice cream creates the right denotative flair for that old and weighted term accountability, which can serve as an emotional placeholder until I can show you how truly transformational real accountability can be.

And I like saying that I’m something of an expert when it comes to educational ice cream. My bet is that our conversations will start off at a more advanced stage, and on a more positive note, which gets us much closer at the outset from discovering that a better accountability really is out there.

"Scholarship and Civil Rights: Claiming a Progressive Voice in Texas Politics and Policy Making," by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

I had forgotten about this piece published back in 2011 in the Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy. By the way it reads, I almost could have published it yesterday. Thanks to LULAC for this organization's support over the years. We NEED our civil rights organizations still today.

Our work and the struggle continues. 

Thanks to Dr. Eliza Epstein for sending it my way.

-Angela Valenzuela

Scholarship and Civil Rights: Claiming a Progressive Voice in Texas Politics and Policy Making Angela Valenzuela 

ANGELA VALENZUELA University of Texas at Austin 

What is to be done to counter the current conservative political climate and how do we claim a progressive curriculum and pedagogy in our practices? I write from my perspective as a researcher, scholar, and legislative and community activist. Perhaps more through artistry and experience rather than through science or technical know-how, I further combine these roles in my current position as Education Commit-tee Chair of the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization (www.TxLULAC.org). 

Writing strictly as a scholar, it is tempting to answer this question with an analysis of larger political currents, not the least of which en-tails a serious consideration of minority and majority relations in our state and nation and their significant implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and policy development in these areas. I deploy these concepts of minority and majority not in a numerical sense but rather in the sociological sense of unequal power relations between Anglos and communities of color as reflected in uneven political representation—and thusly, civic participation—at all levels of government and decision-making. This imbalance institutionalizes a tragic divide between actors at the state level where conservative standardization policies originate and the communities and children who are targets or objects of such policies. 

As a researcher, I could similarly address the injurious divide between academic researchers and policymakers. To my university’s credit, this concern is echoed in a series of recent introspective and self-critical essays regarding the positive, bridge-building role that a “citizen-scholar” can play in response to pressing policy issues (Cherwitz, 2005). 

Stated simply, it matters enormously that university researchers are overwhelmingly ensconced in an ivory tower existence where their accountability is mainly to their profession along an open time frame in which to generate policy relevant results, if at all. In contrast, policy makers are accountable to their constituents and they operate within determinate time frames in which to develop solutions to pressing problems. As a consequence there exists a tragic gap between the academy and policymaking that is nonetheless being filled by mercenary, agendic researchers who work for a massive array of well-funded conservative think tanks that in the area of education seek to discredit and then privatize public schools under the guise of expanding choice to taxpayers (Valenzuela, 2004a; Shaker & Heilman, 2002). 

In an absence of both visionary leadership and effective grassroots mobilization, it will be difficult to leverage a significant challenge to this conservative turn in educational politics engendered by the in-creasing influence of both the religious and business right (Valenzuela, 2004a). However, since effective policy development demands a decades-long, committed, political response that civil rights organizations typically embody, I impart my work with Texas LULAC as a model for social action. This activity addresses these two fissures, namely, that between the state and a poor and minority polity whose children are increasingly concentrated in the public school system, as well as that between the academy and policymakers. 

As Education Committee Chair of Texas LULAC, I have had the pleasure of organizing several legislative events that have brought university researchers together with legislative staff, teacher associations, and civil rights organizations to discuss issues related to high-stakes testing and student retention. Through our research, presentations, and publications (Valenzuela, 2002, 2004b), we have made the case that when the test is the sole or primary arbiter in decisions with such long-lasting consequences for children, they have a right to be assessed in a complete and fair manner. This has translated into a legislative remedy that calls for the use of as many criteria as may reasonably indicate children’s cognitive abilities and potential whenever making high-stakes decisions like graduation/non-graduation or promotion/retention in grades 3, 5 and 8 (the state’s new retention policy went into effect in 2003). 

Although for the past two legislative sessions our proposed legislation has been quite specific, it addresses the linchpin of the accountability system—student testing. It should be noted that despite support for the legislation in the Texas House of Representatives, we have encountered political roadblocks with the current and previous chairs of the House Committee on Public Education. As scholars, we nevertheless remain resolute that children are entitled to fairness and validity in assessment. Indeed, this position flows directly from our review of the evidence, including that provided by the state itself. 

As observers of the inner-workings of the accountability system, we further contend that the testing system is performing two incompatible functions in one (McNeil and Valenzuela, 2001). That is, it doubles as both an “assessment” (testing) and “monitoring” system. Particularly in poor and minority schools that are subject to the “gaze” of central office, numbers-based accountability manages the behavior of the adults in the system by pressuring them to perform. The rhetoric gives the impression that all children are finally being taught; however, the reality is that this edict often translates into dumbed-down routinized pedagogy with disastrous implications for student learning and growth. This conflation of functions logically corrupts the assessment since official test results do not control the extent of coaching, cheating, or the marginalizing of those youth who become liabilities under the cur-rent design. By utilizing a more robust evaluation process, our pro-posed multiple criteria legislation addresses this built-in problem of test validity while promising fairness in testing children when so much is at stake to them personally.

Politically, LULAC has been engaged in a protracted effort to educate its base about the harmful effects of high-stakes testing. Our success is evident in the fact that assessment is at the top of our 2005 legislative agenda. Just as importantly, LULAC also spearheads a multi-ethnic, statewide coalition of university faculty, graduate students, and grassroots advocates for fairness and validity in assessment (www.texas-testing.org). Accordingly, we prepare for and plan press conferences, lobby days, television and radio spots, opinion-editorial pieces, and public forums at the grassroots level. 

To conclude, there is much that we as citizen-scholars can do to address the deep and deleterious divides that impact both public life and the development of policy. However formidable the opposition may be, I consider it an extraordinary privilege to both chronicle and par-take in the moment. Indeed, the very act of standing up to injustice is to savor the seeds of triumph. 

References 

Cherwitz, R. (January/February 2005). Citizen-scholars. The Alcalde, 50–60. 

McNeil, L. & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. In M. Kornhaber & G. Orfield (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high stakes testing in public education (pp. 127–150). New York: Century Foundation. 

Shaker, P. & Heilman, E. E. (2002, January). Advocacy versus authority: Silencing the education professoriate. Policy Perspectives, 3 (1), 1–6. 

Valenzuela, A. (2004a). Accountability and the privatization agenda. In A. Valenzuela (Ed.), Leaving children behind: Why ‘Texas-style’ accountability fails Latino youth. New York: State University of New York Press. 

Valenzuela, A. (2004b). The accountability debate in Texas: Continuing the conversation. In A. Valenzuela (Ed.), Leaving children behind: Why ‘Texas-style’ accountability fails Latino youth. New York: State University of New York Press. 

Valenzuela, A. (2002). High-stakes testing and U.S.-Mexican youth in Texas: The case for multiple compensatory criteria in assessment. Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, 14, 97–116. 

Angela Valenzuela is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the Education Committee Chair of the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens 

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.

A Seat at the Table With Education Week: Testing & Accountability, featuring Dr. Lorrie A. Shepard and Dr. Angela Valenzuela

Friends:

I'm happy to invite you to a conversation that I am honored to be having next week with Dr. Lorrie A. Shepard on the very important topic of testing and accountability in a conversation moderated by Peter Dewitt for his online talk show at Education Week. The event is free and open to the public. It takes place next Wednesday, January 13, 2021,  from 2:00 p.m. -3:00 p.m. EST.

You can listen to the program here: TEMPLATE: Editorial Webinar.

-Angela Valenzuela

The pandemic has disrupted lives and schooling for nearly a year—and some in the education space—and beyond—worry about lost learning. One way to know what has been lost is through testing, but is it reasonable to hold students—or their teachers—accountable for one of the most challenging years in recent memory? This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP—often referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card—has been postponed because of the pandemic. What impact will this decision have on education in this country?

Join Peter DeWitt as he sits down with researcher Lorrie Shepard, past president of the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education, as they discuss this critical topic, especially given the circumstances.

Education Week maintains sole editorial control over the selection of the guests and content for this virtual event. References to products or services in the course of this webinar do not constitute endorsements by Education Week or Editorial Projects in Education.

Closed-captioning is available for this event. On the date of the event, you can log in as early as 15 minutes before the start of the webinar. Open the “Closed-Captioning” link from the “resource list” (located at the bottom of the console) to access Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART). A transcript will be available for download from the resource list within five business days after the event.

Your e-mail address may be used to communicate with you about your registration, related products and services, and offers sent to you directly from sponsors. Use of your personal information is otherwise protected according to our privacy policy.

SPEAKERS

Lorrie A. Shepard

Distinguished Professor and Dean Emerita,  University of Colorado Boulder

Lorrie A. Shepard is University Distinguished Professor?at the University of Colorado Boulder in the?Research and Evaluation Methodology program.? Her research focuses on psychometrics and the use and misuse of tests in educational settings.? Her technical work has contributed to validity theory, standard setting, and statistical models for detecting test bias.? Her research studies on test use have addressed the identification of learning disabilities, readiness screening for kindergarten, grade retention, teacher testing, effects of high-stakes accountability testing, and, most recently, the use of classroom assessment to support teaching and learning.

Dr. Shepard is past president of the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education.? She was elected to the National Academy of Education in 1992 and served as president from 2005-2009.

Angela Valenzuela

Professor, Department of Curriculum & Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy,  University of Texas at Austin

Angela Valenzuela is professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Valenzuela is director of the Texas Center for Education Policy. Previously, she taught in the Department of Sociology at Rice University in Houston, and she was a visiting scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston. She completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University. Angela is the award-winning author of the book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (1999). Valenzuela serves on the LULAC National Task Force on Higher Education, and is the executive director of the National Latina/o Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAPP), a consortium of ten institutions that enhances teaching for high school youth in Texas, California, Wisconsin, Chicago, New York, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

MODERATOR

Peter DeWitt

 

FOLLOW

Opinion Contributor,  Education Week

Peter DeWitt is a former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and independent consultant.

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