Lawmakers propose easing STAAR testing requirements permanently

This will be a big issue this session.  We need to totally move away from this testing madness.  Permanently easing STAAR requirements is a good first step.

Angela                

Lawmakers propose easing STAAR testing requirements permanently

state-government

By Julie Chang - American-Statesman Staff

26

State Sen. Kel Seliger speaks during a news conference at the Capitol about a bill that would make permanent a law that has allowed thousands of Texas high school seniors to graduate without passing all requisite standardized tests.

Posted: 5:32 p.m. Thursday, January 12, 2017

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Highlights

Almost 6,000 Texas students who failed one or two of their STAAR tests were still able to graduate in 2015.

Kel Seliger’s bill would allow students to continue to graduate through committees if they’ve failed the STAAR.

Some students say the graduation committees have allowed them to move on to college.

A state law that has allowed thousands of high school students to bypass state standardized testing requirements to graduate is set to expire in September.
Kel Seliger, the Republican state senator from Amarillo who originally proposed the law, has filed a bill that would keep the policy in place permanently.
“Even though assessment systems are important, there’s nothing magical about the STAAR exam. The folks at NASA never took a TAKS or STAAR test, and yet we muddled our way to the moon,” Seliger said Thursday.
To graduate from high school, students must pass five end-of-course State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Seliger’s bill in 2015 revised the requirement so that students who fail one or two of the tests could still graduate as long as they meet all other requirements, including passing all of their classes. A committee of the student’s teacher, principal and parents must give unanimous consent to his or her graduation.
Parents, advocates and school district officials, some of whom have criticized the STAAR for being too difficult, have said that the committees give students with test anxiety and learning disabilities a reprieve from unfair penalties that keep them from moving on to careers and college after high school.
REA D: Law change leads to jump in Texas graduation rate. But is that good?
Critics, such as Texas Association of Business officials, have said the policy has created an easy way for school districts and students to avoid the consequences of doing subpar work.
Sandy Kress, a policy consultant who was a senior education adviser to former President George W. Bush, said that graduation committees water down the state’s academic standards and send a message to the workforce and public that the diploma doesn’t really matter. He said students who fail the STAAR requirements but are allowed to graduate should be given a different certification.
“Lawmakers can solve the problem for the ones who truly deserve relief and create some options for parents and students … but they need to do it in a way that doesn’t create disincentives for all the rest of the students to perform at higher levels, which is important to them to get good jobs and important to the state in terms of growth and economy,” Kress said.
Rising numbers
In 2015, the latest year for which data is available from the Texas Education Agency, 5,855 Texas seniors graduated under the committee process — about 2 percent of all graduating seniors that year. Those seniors who would have otherwise been held back actually boosted statewide graduation rates by 2 percent to 89 percent.
In 2016, most Central Texas school districts increased the use of the graduation committees. In the Austin school district, 151 seniors graduated through the committees in 2016, a 35 percent increase from the year before. In the Hays school district, only three seniors graduated under the committees in 2015; in 2016, 59 graduated.
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Seliger, along with state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Kingwood, who supported the policy in the House, said the committee process doesn’t give students a free pass to graduate. Some school districts have denied students graduation if they haven’t met academic requirements.
In the Austin district, for example, 50 seniors in 2015 and 2016 failed to graduate through graduation committees.
Jodi Duron, the Elgin school district superintendent, said that during the process, teachers will use projects and portfolios to assess the student.
“It’s being used very judiciously and prudently in the best interest of kids,” Duron said. “Not all students are making it through the (committee process). We put different provisions in place so that at some point they’ll be able to graduate.”
Students given reprieve
Corey Daniels, an 18-year-old Connally High School senior in the Pflugerville district, has failed two standardized tests 15 times, once by five points. He already has a football scholarship to Howard Payne University and hopes he will still have an opportunity to graduate in the spring under the committee process.
“My main frustration is … taking it over and over and over again,” said Daniels, who attended a Capitol news conference Thursday to unveil Seliger’s Senate Bill 463. “I’ve had multiple friends quit their main sport or want to drop out just because of this one test … and I don’t want to do that.”
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Regan Lively, a Flower Mound native who now attends Oklahoma Christian University, was in a similar situation. Lively, who has dyslexia, failed the U.S. history STAAR test multiple times even though she had scored A’s in her history classes and would go on to earn an A in U.S. history in college.
After going through the graduation committee process, she got her high school diploma one month before she left for college, where she had received a $16,000 academic scholarship.
“If this bill didn’t get passed, I wouldn’t be in college,” Lively said.

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Bypassing STAAR requirements
Year | Total seniors graduated through committee | Total seniors rejected to graduate through committee
Austin
2014-15 | 112 | 23
2015-16 | 151| 27
Round Rock
2014-15 | 22 | 1
2015-16 | 41 | 0
Leander
2014-15 | 7 | 0
2015-16 | 11 | 0
Pflugerville
2014-15 | 36 | 0
2015-16 | 60 | 0
Hays
2014-15 | 3 | 0
2015-16 | 59 | 8
Del Valle
2014-15 | 27 | 0
2015-16 | 68 | 0
Bastrop
2014-15 | 20 | 1
2015-16 | 34 | 2
Manor
*2014-15 | 14 | 3
2015-16 | 37 | 0
Lake Travis
2014-15 | 2 | 0
2015-16 | 3 | 0
Eanes
2014-15 | 0 | 0
2015-16 | 0 | 0
San Marcos
2014-15 | 7 | 0
2015-16 | 12 | 0
Hutto
2014-15 | 13 | 0
2015-16 | 13 | 2
Dripping Springs
2014-15 | 2 | 0
2015-16 | 2 | 0
Source: Central Texas school districts
*The 2014-15 information from the Manor school district is incomplete. It does not include the number of students who graduated under the committee system at one of its campuses.
Georgetown’s school district didn’t provide information by press deadline on Thursday.

Texas education board opts to stay out of dispute over new tests

By TERRENCE STUTZ | Austin Bureau, Dallas Morning-News
November, 17 2011

AUSTIN — State Board of Education members indicated Thursday they will not get involved in a dispute over the new high school end-of-course exams and how much they must count toward student grades in the 12 subjects that will be tested beginning this year.

Several board members said they were unwilling to modify a law passed by the Legislature that says the new test must count for at least 15 percent of the final grade in each of the core subjects.

Under the 2007 law, high school students must get a passing average on the three end-of-course tests in each of four subject areas — English, math, science and social studies — to receive a diploma. The law also spells out how the test results will be calculated into the final grade in each course.

School superintendents across the state have complained that the testing law is unclear about how such things as course credits, grade-point averages and class rankings should be determined after inclusion of the end-of-course test scores — and the Texas Education Agency has been reluctant to issue guidelines on the 15 percent requirement.

State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, proposed Thursday that the board adopt a rule that students failing an end-of-course test still be given credit for a course if they had a grade of 70 or better in the course — exclusive of what they scored on the end-of-course exam for the subject.

His proposal was backed by superintendents, who argued that it would maintain local control of grading policies in school districts and allow students who met all passing standards in the course except for the final test to still get credit for their work.

“I can’t find a school superintendent who is not in favor of this proposal,” Abilene ISD Superintendent Heath Burns told the board in voicing support for Ratliff’s plan. “This is a change that needs to happen.”

But several board members said they could not favor such a move, particularly since a similar effort in the legislative session earlier this year failed.

“The Legislature had a purpose in mind, that students have to pass these exams to get a diploma,” said board member Terri Leo, R-Spring. “You need to go to the pink house [state Capitol] if you’re having problems with this requirement and not ask us to lower standards. This would lower the bar for students when we’re supposed to be raising it.”

Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, said the proposed change would send the wrong message to students and teachers.

“The state is just asking for some accountability, just 15 percent,” he said. “This initiative will send a message to dumb down our standards. Everybody will get a trophy and nobody will fail.”

Ratliff rejected the notion that the proposal would diminish standards, saying, “What we’re trying to do is protect kids who are passing their class as determined by 180 days in a school year and not four hours on a test.”

With less than a majority of board members inclined to take action, Ratliff said he would set aside his proposal for now.

“My goal was to raise awareness of this issue so that we could see the unintended consequences of the law,” he said.

Ratliff noted that some school districts have already revised their grading policies so that any failing grade on an end-of-course test will be converted into a score of 69, making it impossible for a student to fail a class solely on the basis of the test score. Students would still have to get passing averages on each group of tests to earn a diploma.

House Bill on Student Testing Reopens a Familiar Debate

This Texas discussion on college ready standards, the use of high-stakes, end-of-course exams, and budget constraints is important on a national level, especially among those states (and districts) that signed on to national common core standards. The Texas case study once again leads the nation on educational policy in practice.

-Patricia

By MORGAN SMITH | NY Times
April 16, 2011

When Representative Rob Eissler, Republican of The Woodlands, brought House Bill 500 to the Texas House floor on April 6, he emphasized what it did not do.

It did not, he said, lower testing standards. Nor did it delay the planned 2011-12 rollout of the state’s more rigorous Staar exams.

Mr. Eissler was setting out to correct what he called the “misrepresentations” and “false claims” surrounding the bill, which, despite its overwhelming support in the House — more than two-thirds of his colleagues signed on to it, and only five voted against it — has generated vocal opposition from some within education circles who view it as a dramatic retreat from hard-won reforms.

The bill also reveals a divergence between the Legislature’s two public education chiefs — Mr. Eissler, who heads the House Public Education Committee, and his counterpart in the upper chamber, Senator Florence Shapiro, Republican of Plano — on how the state should hold students and educators accountable.

Ms. Shapiro staunchly supports moving forward with the testing standards in H.B. 3, the 2009 legislation that set up the transition to the new Staar exams from the state’s current TAKS subject area tests .

“It’s a shame that it’s happened at the very same time that we are having problems with the budget,” Ms. Shapiro said, “but that doesn’t change the idea that this is the direction we should be going.”

Worried about how operating with fewer teachers will affect classroom instruction and whether they will be able to afford updated textbooks, districts have pushed to delay the new exams.

H.B. 500 makes significant modifications to H.B. 3, with the goals of reducing costs and easing districts’ concerns that the new testing regimen could lead to large numbers of students failing to graduate. Instead of the end-of-course Staar exams counting 15 percent of a student’s final grade, H.B. 500 permits school districts to set their own policies. It also would allow districts to suspend a new requirement that students receive a cumulative score on 12 exams in four subject areas to graduate; instead, students would have to pass a total of four exams, one in each subject.

Business groups — including the Texas Association of Business, the Texas Coalition for a Competitive Workforce and the Austin Chamber of Commerce — oppose the measure because they believe it represents a step back for student accountability.

Drew Scheberle, a senior vice president at the Austin Chamber, said H.B. 500 “represents the first time in 25 years that we would actually reduce the expectations for graduation.”

To some extent, the divide between Mr. Eissler and Ms. Shapiro is a rehashing of an old battle between the House and Senate on student testing.

“This is basically a fight we had two years ago in conference committee, when the Senate wanted the standards as they are on the books today, and the House wanted relaxed graduation standards,” said Andrew C. Erben, president of the Texas Institute for Education Reform, which opposes Mr. Eissler’s bill.

The House more than the Senate has traditionally aligned with school districts on student accountability, Mr. Scheberle said. “The House has not always been the strongest on this issue,” he said. “It has usually been the Senate.”

Now, lawmakers in the House are looking for ways to soften the blow of their stark budget, which allocates about $4 billion less to public education than the Senate. “The House is dealing in a very different arena than the Senate is dealing,” Ms. Shapiro said. “If I was in their shoes and didn’t have money for textbooks, I didn’t have any money to keep our teachers or to keep our schools whole, I would be looking for ways to lessen the pressure, too.”

Mr. Eissler told his colleagues that his bill represented the “middle ground” between those who want a delay of the Staar tests and those who want to hold firm. On Friday, he acknowledged he had “some missionary work” to do in the Senate.

“It’s not like there’s a difference in philosophy,” he said. “It’s a difference in application. Florence Shapiro and I agree that we need to have rigor, relevance, and responsibility or strong accountability, but how that translates to day-to-day operation in the school district is what made H.B. 500.”

HISD Begins Preparations for STAAR Replacing TAKS

Proposed Schedule
Implementation Plan
Frequently Asked Questions

New state laws focus on end-of-course exams
February 11, 2010

As required by two new state laws, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) will replace the eight-year-old Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) as the state’s official student-assessment system in the 2011–2012 school year.

To promote a smooth and successful transition at that time, HISD is taking immediate steps to:

* inform students, parents, and teachers about the major change ahead, and
* prepare students to perform well on the STAAR system’s more-difficult end-of-course exams at the high-school level.

The end-of-course exams are a key component of the STAAR system, which is designed to help students meet college-readiness standards. These new exams are course-specific, more rigorous than the TAKS, and administered online (not with pencil and paper).

Texas Education Agency (TEA) STAAR Schedule

* Students in the graduating Class of 2015, who are currently in the seventh grade, will be the first students who will have to meet the new end-of-course testing requirements.
* Starting with the high-school freshmen of 2011–2012, students will have to pass certain end-of-course STAAR tests as well as their classes to graduate from high school. The exams will also, at that time, be included as part of a student’s final grade as dictated by the new law.
* The TEA will issue its last TAKS-based school accountability ratings in 2011. Ratings will be suspended in 2012 while TEA develops a new accountability system based on the new state tests, and the agency will start using the new rating system in 2013.

Courses Affected

The STAAR end-of-course assessments will ultimately be used for the 12 high-school courses in the four core subject areas (math, science, language, social studies) that Senate Bill 1031 mandated in 2007. The 12 courses are:

MATH SCIENCE LANGUAGE SOCIAL STUDIES
Algebra I Biology English I U.S. History
Algebra II Chemistry English II World Geography
Geometry Physics English III World History

The state has finalized only seven of the new tests at this point: Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry, U.S. History, Physics, and World Geography. Those are the ones HISD will begin giving in May in every high school and selected middle schools.

Starting in 2011–2012, the STAAR tests will also be used for the new grades 3–8 assessments mandated by House Bill 1 in the 2009 session of the Texas Legislature. By law, the STAAR reading and math tests for grades 3–8 must be linked from grade to grade to performance expectations for the English III and Algebra II end-of-course exams.

What HISD Is Doing to Prepare

To give students experience with taking the new tests, HISD will begin administering the state-developed end-of-course exams to high-school students in May, 2010—two years before students will be required to pass certain exams for graduation. The results of these early tests won’t count officially toward student graduation or on HISD teachers’ value-added records for ASPIRE Award performance pay at this time, but they will be used for diagnostic purposes to see how our students are performing on these more-rigorous assessments.

HISD’s goals are to:

* Make students familiar with and accustomed to the new end-of-course tests, which 1) will be significantly more difficult than the TAKS, 2) will measure specific course content, and 3) must be taken online.
* Determine students’ strengths and weaknesses and develop improvement strategies.
* Inform students, parents, and teachers about the upcoming tests and their requirements.
* Make sure HISD’s curriculum and professional development are aligned with the next generation of state-mandated achievement tests to ensure that teachers have the tools that they need to ensure student success.
* Prepare the district’s technology infrastructure for a large-scale online assessment program.

HISD is being proactive to prepare all stakeholders for the new assessment system through the administration of these early tests and other initiatives.

The district is working with the TEA as it develops the guidelines for the new STAAR system, specifically with regard to the online end-of-course assessments.

A committee of principals has been looking at ways to assure a smooth transition and successful implementation of these end-of-course exams prior to their being mandated with a high-stakes outcome in 2011–2012.

In addition, the district is developing a communications plan to give students, teachers, and the public more information about the new STAAR system as soon as TEA releases further details. These plans include a page on the HISDConnect Web site and ongoing communications with all stakeholders.

Legislature votes to end TAKS in high school

Here is all the information that I have on this. It's also worth reading the actual link to the bill to see how it reads exactly. The Commissioner will soon write rules on this, too, into the Texas Administrative Code (TAC). Looks like the Raise Your Hand Initiative spearheaded by Senator Ratliff worked. That is, he had proposed HB 3425, a bill calling for sunsetting several major provisions of the current accountability system. What resulted, among other things, was a SB 1031 compromise that calls for a review of the state’s accountability system, NO sunset date, and a NEW mandated system for the fall 2011 freshman class when the NEW end-of-course tests begin. -Angela

80TH LEGISLATURE
Legislature votes to end TAKS in high school
Students would be required to average passing scores on end-of-course tests.

By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills would vanish from high schools in four years, replaced by a series of end-of-course exams, under legislation on its way to Gov. Rick Perry.

In order to graduate, students would have to average passing scores on their end-of-course tests in each of four subjects: math, language arts, reading and science. Each test also would account for 15 percent of a student's final grade in a class.

Key lawmakers have argued that end-of-course tests provide a quicker, more thorough assessment of what students learn in their classes. The TAKS measures some material that students learned a year or two earlier.

Lawmakers also hope the testing change will show that they're sensitive to widespread concerns among parents and teachers that the TAKS looms too large in Texas schools.

Under the new tests, a "student can concentrate on one test at a time, study one course at a time, and it's recent," said House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands. "The teacher is only responsible for his or her course material."

Schools would continue to give the TAKS in grades three through eight.

By calling for an average passing grade in each of the four subjects, the state would allow students to fail a test and still graduate on time. But students could not count a test if they score below 60.

Students are now required to pass all four sections of the 11th-grade TAKS to graduate.

That's proved to be a high hurdle: The Texas Education Agency reported this month that about 16 percent of Texas students who took the 11th-grade test in spring 2006 still had not passed, despite multiple chances to do so.

The new graduation requirements and testing plan would take effect with students who enter the ninth grade in fall 2011. By then, the state intends to develop a new system of rating schools to match the testing changes.

The legislation also says no grade level will be allowed to spend more than 10 percent of its time on districtwide standardized tests, including TAKS practice.

The testing limit would not apply to quizzes or tests developed by an individual teacher or school.

Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said, "We're going to make sure there's not too much testing anymore."

jembry@statesman.com

End-of-course subjects

Legislation headed to Gov. Rick Perry would drop the high school TAKS tests in favor of end-of-course exams in the following subjects:

English 1

English 2

English 3

Algebra 1

Geometry

Algebra 2

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

World geography

World history

U.S. history

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/05/27/27testing.html
_________________________________________________________________________________________

May 26, 2007 7:59 PM
Printable Version Of This Item

COMPROMISE ON END-OF-COURSE EXAM BILL OFFERS HYBRID VEHICLE

Provision for new accountability system is maintained without sunset date.

The meeting between the House and Senate versions of the end-of-course exam bill – intended to phase out the current exit-level Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills – has ended up being neither House-heavy nor Senate-heavy but a hybrid of both chambers.

Sponsor Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) said the TAKS test had outlived its welcome, adding that a decision to end the test did not mean an end to accountability for both students and schools.

"We will still have standards and expectations," Shapiro said. "In some ways, these tests will be even more rigorous assessments of what a student has learned."

Both House and Senate signed off on a conference report on Senate Bill 1031 tonight -- a one-page summary is here -- even listening to school district concerns and approving an out-of-bounds provision in the Senate to limit testing days to no more than 10 percent of the days in a school year. That translates to 18 out of 180 days.

Assuming you are the parent of an incoming high school freshman in 2011, these would be your child’s requirements to graduate from a Texas high school:

First, your child would take a college readiness diagnostic assessment in both 8th and 10th grades. Your child may choose to take a college entrance exam in the 11th grade –likely to be either the SAT or ACT – at state expense.

End-of-course tests would apply only to the high school grades, unless your child is taking an advanced course such as Algebra I in his eighth-grade year. Once your child enters high school – and if he has chosen to pursue the recommended or advanced high diploma -- you would expect him to take three tests a year. These requirements would more closely mirror the state’s new 4x4 curriculum, which would require most high school students to take both four years of math and four years of science.

Test scores would be cumulative in each subject area. For instance, your child would have to make a combined score 210 on his three English tests to be considered proficient. If he scores lower than a 60 on any test, his score is scratched and he will have to retake the test until he makes at least a 60.

If your child has chosen a basic diploma, he would take only two years of science and be required to reach a cumulative science score of 140 to graduate high school.

What if your child’s score falls below the 210 threshold score in any subject area at the end of his junior year of high school? That would be what is being called a “score debt.”

The compromise on SB 1031 borrows an idea from a bill by Rep. Helen Giddings (D-Dallas). Your child would be required to take a senior level college-preparatory course in the deficit subject area. The end-of-year test in that course would be weighed between 0 and 40 points, and those points would be added to the cumulative score.

If you measured your child’s future tests against the current exit-level Texas Assessment Knowledge and Skills, you should expect to see the same rigor in English and social studies and tougher standards in math and science. All students under the 4x4 plan will be required to take Biology, Chemistry and Physics and be tested in those subjects. Because end-of-course tests are more expansive, and required at the end of each school year, the tests should offer a more complete review of each course.

You also can expect your child’s end-of-course test to count toward 15 percent of the child’s overall grade in the course. Adding that caveat guarantees that students take each and every test seriously, since it can make at least one grade level difference in a class.

The end-of-course tests also would have one more dimension to them. Instead of aiming for proficiency – simply testing against the lowest common denominator – the tests also would include a number of questions that will be known as “depth finders.” These questions, which are not be counted against a student’s score, would determine whether the student rises above the average and might be capable of advance or AP caliber coursework.

The SB 1031 compromise also maintains the review of the state’s accountability system, but instead of a sunset date, a new system is mandated in 2011, the same year as the new set of tests would begin. The goal would be to put the initial parameters of this new system – which would include how a school and district’s rating is measured against the end-of-course tests – in 2009, with implementation in 2011.

The accountability system also would include a measurement of college readiness. The current testing system has been criticized for its “lowest common denominator” approach. Under the new system, it would be clear which students met the minimum standards and which students meet the testing tally for college readiness. The bill also requires that tests in all grades be capable of measuring improvement across grade levels.

Safeguards and criminal penalties to maintain the integrity of the testing system – placed in the original bill – remain in the compromise.

ã Copyright May 26, 2007 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved