9486 in the collection
Use TAKS to support creative teaching and learning
Ohanian Comment: Please, please: Someone explain to reporters that a child gets only one chance to be eight years old. When these kids are in their 30ies, they'll need counseling for Post-Traumatic Test Syndrome. And that's NOT a joke.
by Linda Campbell
One mother talked about a child who didn’t want to fail the test for fear her teacher would lose her job.
A high school student said her brother got sick on test day and then couldn’t take the summer retest, so he had to repeat the 12th grade.
A mother of three said her youngest child got nauseated from pre-test nerves in third grade, and an older child became discouraged by his math result.
Another woman told of a friend’s daughter, "an exemplary student" who has developed text anxiety and can’t seem to pass the math portion — a result she finds horrifying.
If any message came across clearly at a public hearing last week in Fort Worth, it was the frustration with the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills — the dreaded, and in some minds despised, TAKS test.
Fort Worth school officials asked residents to provide comments that could be shared with the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Public School Accountability, which has been holding hearings around the state.
Though put in place with the intention of measuring how well schools were educating all students, not just the most capable, Texas’ standardized testing system has become an object of widespread scorn even as parents, taxpayers, business leaders and elected officials demand increasingly better performance from public educators.
Some of the criticism is justified.
One mother complained about the "intense focus on one test and the drama that surrounds taking that test."
Teachers promising to dye their hair if their students score well.
Schools holding pep rallies and parties as incentives and rewards.
The flow of instruction being interrupted to spend a couple of weeks targeting topics that will be covered on the tests.
Students in advanced classes having to drill on basic skills they covered in earlier grades to be ready for TAKS.
Some of the comments veered into hyperbole, as when Texas Christian University education professor Mike Sacken said: "The test industry is the evil empire. Please take the schools out of their hands."
Some of the speakers posed questions that go to the heart of educating at-risk children but don’t have easy answers.
A representative of the I Have A Dream Foundation asked whether test designers share the background of students who are raising their own families, seeing violence and drug dealing in their neighborhoods and facing other life experiences that seem unrelated to what’s being tested.
But if not TAKS, how do we get an accurate picture of whether schools are properly educating students, whether teachers are performing, whether we’re getting true value for our tax dollars?
That’s the struggle. And it’s made even harder when the state and federal accountability systems don’t mesh neatly, when it’s possible for a school to meet state standards but be considered inadequate by federal measurements — and vice versa.
To my mind, former Fort Worth school Trustee Steve Palko, now a doctoral student in education at TCU, offered the most thoughtful assessment about how to improve the testing system.
"Performance on this test or any test is about experience," he said. Teachers have students about one-third of the time; their home lives also influence their learning. Rather than looking at TAKS scores as a measurement of whether a particular teacher or school is doing a good job (and punishing those that are perceived to not be), he suggested using results "in a constructive, positive sense" to determine which schools need more resources or a different instructional approach.
In addition, he said, TAKS tests lower-level skills, but colleges "want creative, problem-solving thinkers."
The district has in place "a number of well-thought-through initiatives," he said. "This test needs to change to support a creative approach to learning."
How can that happen? Well, as he pointed out, legislators listen to people who represent lots of votes — more than to logic or research.
The Legislature already has voted to replace the high school TAKS with end-of-course exams. The Class of 2010 will be the last that must pass TAKS to graduate.
But parents and educators who want sounder use of what TAKS measures in the lower grades will have to keep arguing for a more rational focus on what constitutes a good education.
Linda P. Campbell is a Star-Telegram editorial writer.
— Linda Campbell
Star-Telegram
2008-06-19
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/columnists/linda_campbell/story/707972.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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