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Even Standardisto Texas Editors Say: "Give third-graders a break: Delay promotion standard"
There no doubt will be a lot of praying in public schools today. That's because third-graders are taking the reading portion of the state skills exam, called the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. A little prayer won't hurt, especially because the stakes have gone up.
This test is a bigger, badder version of its predecessor, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). It's tougher academically and is weighted far more than the TAAS. Third-graders will be promoted or held back based on their TAKS reading scores.
Again, we urge legislators to delay the promotion standard a year so that teachers and schools can adequately prepare third-graders for the tougher TAKS. It's unfair and punitive to hold students accountable in the first year the test is given. Doing so courts disaster, testing experts have warned. State education leaders acknowledged as much when it came to school administrators and teachers. They got a one-year reprieve: The state will delay using the TAKS scores to grade school districts and campuses. That was the right thing to do. But lawmakers showed no such mercy to third-graders.
Of course we hope that all third-graders pass the TAKS, which is a legal requirement to be promoted to the fourth grade. But based on field tests results, that isn't likely. Texas Education Agency officials predict that 15 percent -- 42,000 -- of the 280,000 third-graders who will take the exam today will fail it. Another 6,750 students who will take the Spanish reading TAKS are expected to fail the exam.
The failure rates will affect children of all races and ethnicities, though most of those impacted will be minority and economically disadvantaged students. Those students who flunk the exam will have two more chances to pass, in April and July. Students who fail the TAKS also can be advanced to the next grade with approval from a school committee. The new requirement was created to halt so-called social promotion, which automatically promotes failing students to the next grade to keep them with their peers.
We're not against testing. When exams are properly used, they are effective in assessing academic deficiencies. And setting the bar high, as Texas does, can improve accountability and give parents and taxpayers a sense of how their schools are performing. But setting the bar high without providing the tools and resources necessary to help students reach that bar is harsh and unfair. It leaves students, especially economically disadvantaged kids, stranded.
Lawmakers still have time to fix this problem by passing a bill to delay the promotion standard. Give third-graders the same break given to school administrators.
— editorial board
Give third-graders a break: Delay promotion standard
Austin American-Statesman
March 4, 2003
http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/tuesday/editorial_2.html
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