Eggs and Issues forum on education

Robert Scott-Texas Commissioner of Education,Mavis Knight-State Board of Education, Senator Royse West, Taylor D. August-Regional Director-Office of Civil Rights-US-DOE, Mike Miles-Dallas ISD and other district Superintendents with Shelley Kofler-KERA News, moderator-

Community stakeholders in and around Senatorial District 23 attended Saturday morning's Eggs and Issues forum, one in a series initiated and hosted by Senator Royce West.   From parents to principals, school adopters to community organizers, policy-makers to neighbors and friends -- gathered in the  auditorium of Methodist Charlton Medical Center on West Wheatland.  Guests heard from Texas state and Dallas area education leaders.
 
Robert Scott, Texas Commissioner of Education, provided an "Overview of Texas Public Education."  State Board of Education member Mavis Knight gave her perspective on the recent meeting and work of the State Board.  Taylor D. August, Regional Director, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, described a few on-going activities which are presently affecting public education.

Moderator Shelley Kofler, of KERA News, guided an informative Question & Answer session between the audience and the following panelists:

Superintendent Horace Williams -- Cedar Hill ISD

Superintendent Mike Miles -- Dallas ISD

Superintendent David Harris -- DeSoto ISD

Superintendent Alfred Ray -- Duncanville ISD

Executive Director Ricky Mitchell -- Grand Prairie ISD

Superintendent Michael McFarland -- Lancaster ISD

Superintendent Linda Henrie -- Mesquite ISD

The program announcement invited guests to participate in a lively discussion intended to include "questions that you want to ask about what is happening in your district's classrooms."

Ken Zornes: Resolution on testing deserves DISD vote

Dallas Morning News-Click Here

Published: 18 April 2012 10:37 PM

“Imposing relentless test preparation and boring memorization of facts to enhance test performance is doing little more than stealing the love of learning from our students and assuring that we fall short of our goals.”

The above quote is excerpted from a resolution protesting the overuse of high-stakes standardized tests in our public schools. Instead of being lukewarm about signing onto this resolution, as reported by The Dallas Morning News , Dallas ISD trustees should be hot to get all of their names on the document as soon as possible.

Forget the fact that Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott believes that Texas’ testing regimen has become “a perversion of its original intent,” or that more than 250 other school boards (nearly 30 of them in North Texas), the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators have finally said they’ve had enough. It’s time to put real instruction back into the classroom.

Dallas ISD board members would be hard-pressed to find even a few — if any — students, parents, teachers or administrators who believe that the current overemphasis on testing is the right path toward preparing our students for post-secondary education and the workforce.

Board President Lew Blackburn suggests that the resolution may not meet legal standards and that he cannot support it as it is written. Nothing in the resolution supports breaking any laws, state or federal. It supports holding our public schools accountable for student performance and merely asks that the Texas Legislature re-examine the current accountability system and develop a system that is more efficient, easier to understand and provides a truer picture of a student’s academic achievement. Nowhere in the resolution does it advocate doing away with testing.

No one can argue that high-stakes standardized testing has played a major role in how we hold our students, teachers and administrators accountable for more than a decade and that we have seen some benefits. However, the misplaced emphasis on these tests has caused many excellent teachers to simply narrow their instruction to preparing students for tests at the expense of preparing them to become productive and responsible citizens.

Much more than they serve students and teachers, high-stakes tests serve the needs of legislators who wish to convince the public that they are holding our public school system accountable and are being good stewards of their tax dollars.

Blackburn is reluctant to place the resolution on the agenda for a vote at the April 26 board meeting, stating that if three trustees ask to have the item on the agenda, he will do so. The board president should assume the leadership role to which he was elected and place the item on the agenda, regardless of how many other trustees want it there.

Having it on the agenda will allow the trustees to find out what teachers, administrators and the public, including DISD parents, think of the resolution. Listening to constituents is never a bad idea.

To read the resolution, go to tasanet.org/sites/tasa/files/gr/2012/sampleresolution.pdf

Ken Zornes is the executive director of the Texas Business and Education Coalition and former DISD board president. He may be contacted at kzornes13@hotmail.com.

'Test and Punish' is old testament education in a new testament world

"Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott said today that the state testing system has become a "perversion of its original intent" and that he was looking forward to "reeling it back in." Addressing 4,000 school officials at the Texas Association of School Administrators' annual midwinter conference, Scott said that he believed testing was "good for some things," but that in Texas it has gone too far. He said that he was frustrated with what he saw as his "complicitness" in the bureaucracy that testing and accountability systems have thrust on schools." Commissioner Robert Scott - Texas Education Agency (The Texas Tribune-1-31-12)

Today marks the beginning of  'Test and Punish Week' in Texas. School children all over the state will be offered up on the altar of so-called "accountability" and subjected to a narrow testing regime that will be used to punish their schools, their teachers and the students.

Exams start today for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR).  The test results will not be used to determine how to help students.  The results will be used to punish - punish - punish.

Politicians are destroying public education with a mean-spirited regime that turns schools into testing factories instead of educational centers for the development of children in all areas of their lives. Everything is reduced to a high-stakes test that undermines public confidence in public education.

Citizens of Texas have indicated many times in recent history that they are willing to support public education. Politicians use education as a political football - they defund public education and then label it a failure with testing regimes.

I grew up in the segregated South - the daughter of a maid. My mother - a single parent - was a domestic worker like those described in the recent award-winning book and movie - The Help. For the first six years of my life, we lived in public housing. All of my education - K-12, college, and graduate school - was obtained at public and state-supported schools.

No doubt the segregated school I attended as a child would have been labeled a "failure." Yet, I went to college and graduate school from this segregated school that might have been closed under the 'Test and Punish' regime that is destroying public education in America.

Good luck, students and teachers.

You are living in a time of mean-spirited Old Testament 'Test and Punish' education in a New Testament world.

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 Gary Miron, professor of education at Western Michigan University (Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post)

"The increasing focus and reliance on standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers is resulting in cheating. That’s probably inevitable. But it’s also probably minimal. The bigger problem is a more serious type of cheating – one that’s perfectly legal and apparently acceptable. Students are being cheated of a broader education that emphasizes a balance of creativity, extracurricular activities, foreign languages, higher math and science skills and other opportunities due to the over-emphasis on testing for basic math and reading. In this sense, a fixation on testing cheats not only our students but also their communities and the future employers who will depend on their creativity and can-do problem-solving. And our democracy is certainly cheated when our youth are unprepared for healthy civic engagement.

Yes, it is important for reporters and others to seriously pursue stories about schools engaged in wrongful practices. The groundwork done by the Cox reporters is part of that (although I wish they had pursued their investigation further and more carefully before publication). But we as a nation are missing the forest for the trees. No cheating on tests is as serious as the cheating done by the tests."

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McKinney mom prevents children from taking STAAR test 

Commissioner Robert Scott Modifies 15% of final grade rule

Texas Association of School Boards Legislative Report\

Commissioner of Education Robert Scott has announced that public school districts and charter schools have the ability to defer implementation of the statutory provision that requires performance on an end-of-course assessment to count as 15 percent of a student's final course grade.

The decision brings to a (temporary) close weeks of debate surrounding the "15 percent rule" associated with the new end-of-course exams ninth-grade students will be taking this year.

The controversy started following recent comments made by Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott at the TASA Midwinter Conference.

"I believe that testing is good for some things, but the system we have created has become a perversion of its original intent," Scott said. "The intent to improve teaching and learning has gone too far afield."

Both Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) and Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands), chairs of their chambers' education committees, submitted letters to Commissioner Scott supporting a phase-in of the "15 percent rule."

"While we agree that the provisions of Chapter 39 may not be waived under your general waiver authority, we believe that you have authority...to defer the requirement that an end-of-course assessment count as 15% of a final grade until the 2012-2013 school year to coincide with full implementation of the testing and accountability changes," Shapiro said in a letter signed by Sens. Royce West (D-Dallas), Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) and Dan Patrick (R-Houston). Rep. Eissler's letter was reportedly signed by about three-fourths of Texas House members.

Shapiro added that it was unfair for students to feel the consequences of the new exams while school districts will be given a one year reprieve from having their scores factored into accountability ratings.

"Based on my conversations with the Governor's Office and clarification of legislative intent from the House and Senate, I am modifying the Texas Education Agency's House Bill 3 Transition Plan," Commissioner Scott explained in a statement. "The modification applies only to the 15 percent grading requirement in Chapter 39 of the Texas Education Code, and will affect only the 2011-2012 school year. For this school year, the ultimate decision whether to include end-of-course exam scores as part of course grades will be determined locally by school districts and charter schools."

"The law still requires students that are first entering the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year to achieve a cumulative score on the end-of-course assessments to complete their graduation requirements," Scott continued. "Districts and charters choosing to defer implementation of the 15 percent requirement for the 2011-2012 school year will only need to notify TEA of that decision. Districts and charter schools will receive instructions from the agency regarding this policy change next week."