TAKS Boycott

Senate OKs replacing TAKS with end-of-course exams in high school

2007-04-21T16:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/07/legislature/4732966.html

Senate OKs replacing TAKS with end-of-course exams in high school
April 20, 2007, 12:45PM
Houston Chronicle

By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON
Associated Press

AUSTIN — The state's high-stakes standardized exit exam would be history for high schoolers under a bill the Texas Senate unanimously approved Thursday.
The legislation would replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills with exams in four core subjects for students in grades 9 to 11. Younger students would still have to take the standardized exam.
The high-stakes nature of the TAKS has been lambasted by teachers and parents, who argue that too much classroom time is spent on preparing students for the test. Students take the exit-level test as juniors and must pass to graduate.
The proposal would be phased in over several years, starting with students who are in ninth grade in 2009-10. It now goes to the House, where the public education committee approved a similar bill on Tuesday.
"For a long time, we've all heard the public outcry, we've all heard the frustration," said Sen. Florence Shapiro, a Plano Republican who sponsored the bill. "End of course assessments will go a long way toward addressing many of these concerns."
The end-of-course exams would be given in English language arts, math, science and social studies. Each test would be worth 100 points and students would have to earn 840 points — or 70 percent of a possible 1,200 points — to graduate. That means a student who struggles with one subject could make up points by excelling in another.
Each test grade would also count as 15 percent of the student's course grade. Students who perform well on Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and SAT subject tests could have those scores counted toward the end of course exam requirement.
Teachers' groups gave the bill a cautious thumbs up, saying it is a step in the right direction but does not really change the state's accountability system.
"There is still much that has to be done to ensure that these new exams don't become the monster that TAKS did," said Cindy Chapman, a high school math teacher from the Panhandle who is state president of the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
A handful of states, including New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland, already use end-of-course exams in place of high-stakes tests. End exams can be used to fulfill the No Child Left Behind requirement for testing if they are standardized.
In addition to eliminating the exit exam, the legislation would direct school districts to administer the PSAT to eighth and 10th graders every year at state expense. Juniors and seniors also would be able to take the SAT or ACT once at state expense.

Computer Gets It Wrong in Medical Admission Test

2007-02-02T15:18:00.000-06:00

Computer Gets It Wrong in Medical Admission Test
New York Times
By KAREN W. ARENSON
Published: January 30, 2007

When Daniel Sonshine, a senior at Brown University, took the Medical College Admission Test on Saturday, he was asked to read a passage on robotic fish in the verbal reasoning part of the exam. Then he was presented with a series of questions about songbirds.

This was not a trick question; it was an error.

“I was completely distraught,” Mr. Sonshine said yesterday. “I was struggling to stay focused, but I was not focusing.” He was probably not alone. About 800 students who took the exam, known as the MCAT, encountered the mistake.

Another kind of problem surfaced in the College Board’s SAT exams, also given this past weekend. At least one student in South Korea had a part of the test before it was taken by 326,000 other students, according to the Educational Testing Service, which handles security for the exam. Raymond Nicosia, privacy protection officer for the testing service, said it was working with investigators in South Korea to find out “what the student had and who else had it.”

Mr. Nicosia said scores for students who had prior information about the test would be canceled. At this point, he added, “all the information we have is that it is a localized situation to Seoul, South Korea.”

Robert F. Jones, a senior vice president at the Association of American Medical Colleges, which oversees the MCAT, generally viewed as the most stressful of the admissions exams, said the error on that test was “something we regret.” “No more than 800” test-takers of about 2,500 were affected, he said.

About 50,000 people take the test each year, some more than once. Mr. Jones added that the error appeared to be “a test publishing problem,” but that he did not yet know how it had come about.

Last weekend was the first time the MCAT was administered only by computer rather than by paper and pencil. The medical college association announced in 2005 that it would move to an entirely computer-based format beginning in 2007, and that it would work with Thomson Prometric to administer the test at its computer testing centers.

Jodi Katz, a spokeswoman for Thomson Prometric, declined to comment on the error.
Mr. Jones, of the association, said he expected that students with the bad test would get their results within 30 days, like other students, because their scores could be extrapolated from the rest of their responses.

“It will not affect their scores,” he said. But Mr. Sonshine said he thought the painful experience could affect how he had done, and his admission to medical school.

“We are going to get screwed a little bit,” said Mr. Sonshine, who was taking the test a second time because he was not satisfied with the score he received on one section of the exam when he took it last summer.

He said he spent three weeks of his Christmas vacation studying for the exam, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and took five computerized practice tests. When he got to the exam on Saturday, in New Jersey, he whizzed through the first section, on the physical sciences, he said. But his confidence evaporated as he began the second section, verbal reasoning.

Using a technique he had learned from a test coaching company, he looked for a passage to read that seemed easy, to gain momentum. Unfortunately, the one he chose was the one on robotic fish.

“I read through and took some notes,” he said. “Then I went to the questions. ‘The male warbler cries for the female warbler when...?’ I’m starting to freak out.”

When he saw that the next question was also about warblers, he said, he started scrolling frantically through the other sections to see if they were misaligned, too. He then started trying to answer what he could.

“Seven minutes were already gone,” he said. “Every fiber of my being is telling me to go outside and say something. At the same time, the clock is ticking, and I haven’t answered a question yet. I struggled through the rest.”

Mr. Jones said that after some students raised questions during the exam, all the Thomson Prometric testing centers were notified and were advised to tell students to ignore the problem section and not to worry. But Mr. Sonshine said he had not been told about the problem.

Some critics of standardized testing said yesterday that while there were advantages to computerized testing, they were not surprised to hear of problems with the MCAT.
“Every time a test has been computerized, there have been huge glitches,” said Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, an advocacy organization that opposes widespread standardized testing.

Mr. Schaeffer said the SAT problem grew out of the College Board’s practice of reusing its tests. John S. Katzman, chief executive and founder of the Princeton Review, a test coaching company, said the problems with the SAT last weekend were a reminder that security and operational problems “happen even with paper and pencil.”

Mr. Jones said pilot tests last year, including one in August in which about 3,000 students took the computerized version of the MCAT, “went very smoothly.”

students who boycott TAKS?

2006-11-06T22:04:00.000-06:00

a student wrote us, asking about the consequences of boycotting TAKS. one problem with this is that boycotts without solidarity (that is, where not every boycotts) have never changed anything. the other problem is that such a boycott lets teachers off the hook. teachers secretly cheer for the students without sticking their necks out at all.

but for those dedicated students with ethical objections to TAKS, here are some important things to keep in mind. as for students who are lazy or simply don't feel like taking the test: take the test anyway. boycotting TAKS is hard work. harder than the test itself. to be prepared, the student needs the protection of high GPA with high SAT scores.

this is precisely the problem with student boycotts - only those students who woud pass TAKS anyway are likely to survive without it. if you refuse TAKS without continuing to college, you are on the path to lifetime underemployment. you'll end up spending extra time and money on a GED, which will be worth less to employers and colleges.

here are the consequences for students:

the state will withhold the diploma. but they cannot withhold your transcript.

administrators and teachers are expected to force you to take the test. they typically threaten students with consequences including legal charges, which are NOT possible, no matter what a vice principal says. the school might do things like kick you out of extra-curriculars or give you detention -- based on charges such as "disruption" or "disobedience." none of this has long-term consequence.

some teachers will support you, but it is likely others will be mad. because district money is based on passing percentage. each student who does not pass means less money for administrators to work with. i recommend keeping this in mind when they yell at you, but make sure to remind them: TAKS has low validity and low relevance to college-preparedness. compared to other standardized tests, TAKS questions are especially ambiguous in their wording, and historically subject to computer grading errors (they say it's better now, but they've said that before).

a few of Texas' public and private colleges already have accepted students without TAKS scores. community colleges will probably not accept you. colleges in other states don't care about TAKS at all, but they will wonder about the diploma. so each college application needs an explanatory essay about the motivation and experience of boycotting the test. contact a local newspaper, and try to get them to print your explanation and/or write a story about you (this is easier than it sounds, just send emails to a few reporters or the letters editor).

keep in mind there is a cost and benefit to everything. boycotting the TAKS is a risk, a struggle, and cannot be done halfway. if you truly believe in it, you will grow in ways you can't anticipate.

but above all, we believe in TEACHERS taking responsibility. students risk too much when boycotting. tell every teacher that the TAKS is psychometrically bad. encourage them to research its problems. if teachers simply give this to students without recognition of their personal guilt, they are fooling themselves. working together, teachers can force districts to use accurate and fair assessment. teachers must teach, and TAKS does anything but. Texas' teachers must find the courage to risk a job - and save a profession.

kip

Bush's family profits from 'No Child' act

2006-10-22T23:43:00.000-05:00

supposedly, NCLB money is available to districts with low TAKS scores. so why is this money not helping Texas children learn? one answer may be giant interactive cows of Neil and Barbara Bush, which Texas districts have spent millions on...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ignite22oct22,1,4817769.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-frontpage

"With investments from his parents, George H.W. and Barbara Bush, and other backers, Neil Bush's company, Ignite! Learning, has placed its products in 40 U.S. school districts and now plans to market internationally..."

"The law provides federal funds to help school districts better serve disadvantaged students and improve their performance, especially in reading and math. But Ignite does not offer reading instruction, and its math program will not be available until next year. The federal Department of Education does not monitor individual school district expenditures under the No Child program, but sets guidelines that the states are expected to enforce, spokesman Chad Colby said..."

"Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush has been directly involved in marketing the product. In addition to federal or state funds, foundations and corporations have helped buy Ignite products. The Washington Times Foundation, backed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has peppered classrooms throughout Virginia with Ignite's COWs under a $1-million grant. Oil companies and Middle East interests with long political ties to the Bush family have made similar bequests. Aramco Services Co., an arm of the Saudi-owned oil company, has donated COWs to schools, as have Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co..."

"Western Heights school Supt. Joe Kitchens said the district eventually dropped its use of Ignite because it disagreed with changes Ignite had made in its products. "Our interest waned in it," he said. The former first lady spurred controversy recently when she contributed to a Hurricane Katrina relief foundation for storm victims who had relocated to Texas. Her donation carried one stipulation: It had to be used by local schools for purchases of COWs..."

"The COWs enticed students with catchy jingles and videos featuring cartoon characters like Mr. Bighead and Norman Einstein. On Ignite's website, a collection of teachers endorsed the COW, saying that it eliminated the need for lesson planning. The COW does it for them. The developers of Adaptive Learning's software complain that Ignite replaced individualized instruction with a gimmick. 'It breaks my heart what they have done. The concept was totally perverted,' Schenck-Ross said..."

"The Tornillo, Texas, Independent School District no longer uses the Ignite programs it purchased several years ago for $43,000. 'I wouldn't advise anyone else to use it," said Supt. Paul Vranish. "Nobody wanted to use it, and the principal who bought it is no longer here.' Ignite's website features glowing videotaped testimonials from teachers, administrators, students and parents."

"Many of the videos were shot at Del Valle Junior High School near Austin, where school district officials allowed Ignite to film facilities and students. In the video, a student named India says: 'I was feeling bad about my grades. I didn't know what my teacher was talking about.' The COW changed everything, the girl's father says on the video. Lori, a woman identified as India's teacher, says the child was not paying attention until the COW was brought in. The woman, however, is not India's teacher, but Lori Anderson, a former teacher and now Ignite's marketing director. Ignite says Anderson was simply role-playing. In return for use of its students and facilities, a district spokeswoman said Ignite donated a free COW. Five others were purchased with district funds."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ignite22oct22,1,4817769.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-frontpage

low-income urban schools

2006-06-21T17:58:00.000-05:00

(re: http://taksboycott.blogspot.com/2006/06/stupid-if-you-fail-criminal-if-you.html)

yes, it is harder to attract good teachers and harder for students to pass the TAKS in urban schools. why? well, within cities...
1. the average class size is larger
2. there is more bureaucracy, which means more paperwork and less time for teaching
3. even when pay is equivalent, the cost of living in Dallas is much higher than in a small town, so in real terms urban teachers earn less
4. students are more likely to have a single parent, and more likely to have no stay at home parent

we can solve 1, 2, and 3. smaller classes have high correlation with achievement. small classes are actually more important than parents' income or parents' educational level.

as for number 4, that's a societal problem. it decreases parental involvement, extra-curricular activities, and homework completion rates. parental involvement at urban schools is always a challenge. some charter schools in Dallas, Houston, and Austin succeed at bringing in parents - and not coincidentally, they have small class sizes...

-----------------------------------
considering your point, that there "some of the kids in my children's school that come from money, and they did not score as well," that's certainly common. rich kids can and do blow off classes and tests. i'm glad that many students do not blow off the test, and i'm glad that some parents are involved in the schools even though they don't make much money.

but you miss my point. i don't mean that YOU specifically have money. i mean there are numerous kids at your school with money - that is, at least middle class ($40,000/year). which means the school receives more property tax support, and parents show up for more activities. as i wrote, at wealthy schools, even low-income kids do well. the intense problems are when almost all (over 80%) children are below the poverty line.

don't think of income for individuals. think of it for the district as a whole.
1. what percentage live in public housing? (this means no property tax revenue)
2. what percentage of kids depend on free lunch?
3. what percentage miss class because they stay home to babysit siblings?
4. what percentage live in a neighborhood with gang activity?
5. how much must teachers spend to buy the supplies the district bureaucracy failed to deliver?

each of these factors makes it harder for teachers and students in urban districts to get perfect scores on TAKS. my point is we must stop adding burdens of unequal funding. Fort Bend ISD has smaller classes and higher per-student-spending than Edgewood ISD. if it is harder to find good teachers for urban districts, we need to encourage this.

how? well, equalize class sizes and funding. support "Teach For America," a loan forgiveness program which places recent graduates in low-income districts - the Bush administration cut the funding for this successful program in 2006.

finally, people need to realize that success on TAKS does not indicate good teaching. it indicates high income and time spent on TAKS strategies. strategies which do not translate to college achievement, and only take away from the time spent on real teaching. allow teachers to teach reading, writing, math, science, and history instead of rote memorization.

a verifiable, normed test has its place in public schools, but the TAKS is neither verifiable nor properly normed. even the company that makes this test says Texas is using it improperly, because standardized tests do not work as standalone instruments. once we fix the test, it should be part of a Multiple Criteria Assessment, which gives a comprehensive view of what students have learned, by combining
1. objective measurement (grades and tests)
2. qualitative evaluation by teachers
3. a long-term student portfolio

- kip

Stupid if you fail, criminal if you don't

2006-06-16T12:04:00.000-05:00

Stupid if you fail, criminal if you don't

in addition to spending tens of millions per year on a failed test, the TEA just paid $533,334 to a contractor in Utah to find out which students improved their scores. instead of rewarding the students, though, the TEA will investigate them for cheating.
here is the logic:
- the TAKS from last year proved these kids are failures, right?
- the state underfunds schools, so students could not possibly learn anything!
- so if a young failure improves her/his score, the only explanation is that the student and/or teacher cheated, even though there were test monitors in the room.

(you know, studying textbooks and learning the material, that sort of thing counts as cheating in Texas).
poor students, expecially, are expected to fail the TAKS a few times, get discouraged, then drop out. how else will we have an ignorant workforce 20 years from now? what did you think corporate lobbyists are paying for?

express-news article on cheating accusation
"What incenses me about this is we get pressured to do whatever we can to improve student performance, then when they do well we're under suspicion," [Northside Superintendent] Folks said. "They give us no information and the implication is 'you cheated.'"
...
What we should be asking when we see significant gains is what practices are being used," [North East Superintendent Middleton] said. "What's lost in all of this is learning better teaching strategies from each other. What we do for kids is not even the issue any more."
...
the lesson? students lose no matter what their score is. this test should not exist. teachers should throw the TAKS away, and go back to teaching a process. proper understanding of english, math, science, and history cannot be simplified into a multiple choice question.

You might be a rich kid if... your entire class aces the TAKS

2006-04-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

"Your kid can always clean my house for a living, though. Everyone quitchabitchin' and break out your cat-o-ninetails: your kid needs some solid slavedriving to pull out of their TAKS tailspin."
- Kyle, junior, Frisco ISD

-------------------

First off: I don't know whether your ancestors were slaves or slavedrivers, but try a different metaphor, Kyle.

"one of the forces driving people into the exurbs is the ability, with cheaper housing - in Frisco, the median home price is $228,827, city officials say - to cut back to one income and allow a parent to stay home and get more deeply involved in school and family activities." New York Times

Some people mistakenly think a high TAKS score means "intelligent" or "ready for college." High grades correlate with college success; TAKS scores do not. Research proves the standardized testing bias toward rich districts (Constantino, 1992; Valenzuela, 2004; Valenica, 2001). As in Frisco ISD, certain kids get new textbooks, functional buildings, quality healthcare, better preschool, many extra curriculars, smaller classes, more qualified teachers, less crime in schools, more parental involvement, and three times the spending per pupil (CPPP, 1998). Rich districts buy the best teachers, a bright future and high test scores (even lower-income children do better in wealthy districts). Frisco has 3 exemplary and 16 recognized schools (Edgewood has 3 recognized). This means even more money for their already rich schools. Good for them, bad for equal education.

I wish all Texas parents were "deeply involved in school." I wish all Texas students had the opportunities Frisco ISD provides. But Kyle's solution is everyone should move to a rich district. Well, Most Texas parents cannot afford those houses. Frisco, specifically, creates neighborhood rules and covenants to keep out middle-class and working-class developments. In San Antonio, a median income family can afford a $60,000 house (HHS, 2003). Homes in Alamo Heights, Sugarland, Plano, and Frisco cost four times that much.

It's possible to overcome TAKS problems when teachers, resources, and families are strong enough. And even in poor districts, many kids do overcome. This does not mean the TAKS itself is beneficial. Just as success "during group project time" doesn't prove proficiency, standardized test scores have low reliability, low validity, and, in the case of TAKS, low predictivity (Bracey, 2000).

The state and districts fail to provide resources equal to districts like Frisco ISD. So of course the students fail. Then, instead of the state being punished for not doing its job, the child is punished for not overcoming ridiculous obstacles. Certainly, some kids are not ready for college (or will NEVER be ready for college). That's irrelevant. My point is, TAKS does not answer this question. A multiple criteria assessment gives the answer (Brochin-Ceballos, Hinton, & Payne, 2005).

The only question TAKS answers reliably is "What is the median income in your district?" TAKS does not measure thinking skills. Even Kyle admits this. Schools must teach THINKING, not memorization. TAKS training days provide useless memorization, even in rich districts.

First, fund every student equally. If rich parents want a more expensive education, thats fine, they can buy private schools. "But when parents attempt to obtain better educational opportunities for their children at the expense of somebody else's children, it creates social, moral, legal and political problems" (Cardenas, 1997). Public schools should ALL be excellent. Instead they are segregated, rich kids here, everyone else over there. TAKS is a tool to justify this separation: "that proves it," say the anti-school lobbyists, "the poor kids are stupid, so they don't deserve tax money, anyway."

Kyle, that's nice that you can hire a "slave" to clean your house, but you need to appreciate how lucky you are. Did YOU earn the money that pays for your house? Do kids in the underfunded Edgewood, East Central (SA), or Houston ISD deserve a terrible education? You want to punish children because of where their parents live?

What does a high TAKS score prove? It proves there are rich people at your school. Congratulations.

"Test scores can easily be corrupted."

2006-04-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

"You shouldn't trust a test score unless it is validated with other information that corroborates it."
- Thomas Haladyna, Arizona State University

If the SAT, standard of standardized tests, is this bad, imagine how bad our fly-by-night TAKS would seem under such scrutiny.
------------------------------------------

Nobody's Perfect. Neither Is the Test.
By KAREN W. ARENSON
April 2, 2006
New York Times
The incorrect scoring of 5,000 exams from the College Board's October SAT is a reminder that testing is not an exact science. But just how inexact is it?
The October errors occurred, in part, because some answer sheets had become damp and did not register correctly when they were processed.

Testing companies try to guard against errors where they can. The Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., for example, which works on some tests with the College Board, has 700 people working to insure technical quality in test development. They scrutinize even small details like whether the size of the print on a page or the resolution on a computer screen affects performance.

"You decide what you want to measure, and then you have to make sure you are not measuring something else, like poor vision," said Ida M. Lawrence, senior vice president of research and development at the testing service.

Despite such efforts, problems crop up. Here is a sample.

Missed a line. A student racing through a multiple choice exam may skip a line on the answer form by mistake, and then put every answer that follows on the wrong line.

In a study of more than 100,000 SAT exams, computer scientists found that nearly 2 percent of the test takers made such mistakes. One of the study's authors, Steven Skiena, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said such errors could be identified by computer so that the student received what he called an appropriate score.

"If you can detect what they were thinking, you should score them for that," he said.

The College Board, which calls the practice "mis-gridding," says students should tell their proctors when they make such mistakes, and that their scores may be corrected. Of 1.5 million SAT tests taken last year, only about 100 students reported the problem. Or if they move quickly, they can simply cancel their scores.

Bear down. A New York City student who received a score of about 1800 on the SAT last June out of a possible 2400 took the test again in October, hoping to do better.

The student, who asked that her name not be used because she did not want other people to contact her, said her score plunged 360 points.

So she paid to have her October test scored again, by hand, an option that the College Board offers. Her score shot up 510 points.

The board said she had marked her answer form so lightly that the machine processor could not read many of the answers.

Missed a page. A Maryland student who was allowed to type his responses to the essay portion of an Advanced Placement exam because he had a disability, earned a 1, the lowest possible score on a scale of 1 to 5. When his exam was scored again by hand, his score jumped to a 5.

His mother, Judi Becker, said an official at the Educational Testing Service told her the typed pages, which had been appended to the regular answer sheet, had been overlooked, making it appear that the student had answered only two of the four essay questions.

Tryout questions. Proposed new questions are inserted into real tests for a tryout. Even though the questions do not count, they can throw students off, said W. James Popham, an emeritus professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who has also worked in test development.

"Some of these previously untried items are bloody awful, occasionally having no right answers at all," he said. "The test taker doesn't know that this is a 'no-count' item and, therefore, might be traumatized by being unable to answer it." Though not a frequent problem, he said, it does occur.

There are other testing problems that have less to do with external factors like paper and pencil and more to do with what goes on inside a student's head.

Thomas M. Haladyna, a professor of educational psychology at Arizona State University, said there was a range of everyday issues like test anxiety (a quarter of the population has it, he said), fatigue, lack of motivation and language problems for students who are not native English speakers.

"Test scores can easily be corrupted," he said. "You shouldn't trust a test score unless it is validated with other information that corroborates it."

With so many problems, are there any protections? Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, which argues that tests are relied upon too heavily, recommends that when possible, students get copies of questions and answers, "both as a check on scoring accuracy and to learn from their mistakes in case they retake the exam."

"The unfortunate truth is that the fates of students — and their parents — are at the mercy of the testing industry," Mr. Schaeffer said. "Absent mechanisms for oversight and regulation, we have to hope they get it right."

advice for TAKS casualties

2006-03-25T17:28:00.000-06:00

The TAKS has not been stopped. It appears ready to bulldoze the future of hundreds, thousands more young Texans. Teachers are afraid to speak out. This leaves children standing alone, unprotected.

If your score is low, remember that the test is flawed. this test does not measure your intelligence. this test is not accurate. But don't be naive. You will still be punished for the results. So you must do the best you can. What should a dedicated student do when she or he fails a TAKS?

1. don't give up
you have more chances. this test is unfair - just like real life, students in certain districts (cough cough, Plano, Sugar Land, Alamo Heights) get a head start. but remember, the test is not impossible. talk to a friend, teacher, or family member. get advice:
- TAKS, Strategies, Skills, Prep
- TAKS Reading
- TAKS Help tips
2. practice the TAKS online
we oppose TAKS training: it prevents students from learning the course material. in practice, the TAKS hurts individuals. so TAKS training is hard to avoid. rich parents buy individual tutors, but if your family isn't rich, there are still resources:
- UT TRACK: TAKS Readiness And Core Knowledge
this is a FREE online course. it has helped tens of thousands just in the past 2 years.
3. tutoring at your school
most districts offer extra tutoring after school. this is far superior to in-class TAKS lessons. you still need to learn math, science, english, spanish, etc. you need college, and colleges aren't impressed by TAKS scores. your administrators will try to pull you out of regular courses. refuse! stay in class and study hard. demand assistance before or after school, or on weekends. examples of programs:
- rhs.rockwallisd.com/mmathews/tutoring.htm
- prosper-isd.net/High_School/TAKS%20tutoring/Math%20TAKS%20Tutoring%20Schedule.pdf
- www.connally.org/connallyes
- www.mesquiteisd.org/library/phs/taks.html

4. ask your teacher
ask your teacher if she/he thinks it's fair to punish kids for a district's mistakes. ask your teacher why she/he hasn't complained to the school board. ask your teacher to organize a letter writing campaign about the ways testing interferes with school.

show these sites to teachers, counselors, principals. teachers are supposed to help students. if this test hurts students, it is an unethical test. if your school lacks these programs, ask for one. We must stand against administrators -- especially those who, like in Houston two years ago, would advise low scorers to drop out.

the discontent

2005-11-09T23:39:00.000-06:00

is reaching the mainstream -- specifically, Texas' newspapers.

Study faults high-stakes testing
"A rapidly growing body of research evidence on the harmful effects of high-stakes testing, along with no reliable evidence of improved performance by students, suggests that we need a moratorium in public education on the use of high-stakes testing"...
High-stakes testing in some states has increased the number the number of students – beginning with the eighth grade – who will leave school before their senior year in high school...
Unlike Texas, which puts most of the emphasis on TAKS scores, Kentucky considers other criteria such as teacher evaluations...

When an exit exam becomes an exit ramp for too many Texans
Texas has used the test inappropriately to determine student promotion, retention and graduation. Because schools place so much emphasis on the TAKS, teachers long have complained that they are devoting too much time to teaching the test and not enough time helping students learn how to think critically... De-emphasizing the test would improve public schools.

Poor scores for urban schools
it's not uncommon for wealthy suburban districts to spend 50 or 100 percent more per pupil than poor urban districts. For minority kids, that often turns into larger classes, less experienced teachers and crumbling facilities.

A leader's take on Texas' big test
a single test carries more weight in determining a student's academic progress than a student's grades or his or her teacher. All of those factors should count, and no single test should be cause for retention. We're also concerned that the state is not providing public schools enough money to meet tougher academic standards on the TAKS.

Talking education, Wolff leaves no criticism behind
"Everyone should call the president of the United States and tell him to stop giving all of these damn tests," [Bexar County Judge Nelson] Wolff declared... Wolff's complaint reflects widespread grumbling among parents, especially those in the business community... A backlash is growing against accountability testing, however, and Wolff delivered a profane, but high-profile condemnation of this educational approach.

Report card for U.S. has kids showing little progress
...the test results confirm No Child Left Behind "is a crock." "The Bush administration keeps telling us this is working, this is working," [Monty] Neill said. "Now the data is out there. This is not working."

SMU on the front lines of education reform battle
No Child Left Behind, which requires schools to show annual progress in reading and math, focuses too narrowly on testing...
kids in urban schools deserve the same high-quality education that kids get in affluent areas.

Some see TAKS as failing gifted kids
"If you look at that as a measure or an end-all, what you're doing is limiting everyone to the minimum standard."

TAKS cut? Don't fret
I've seen an excellent inner-city Advanced Placement calculus teacher driven off, partly because his success with AP math students didn't address the principal's bigger need of getting more students to pass TAKS.

Testing not on the level
the district's argument that it was unfairly penalized for challenging special-ed students with more difficult tests.

revolutionary pedagogy

2005-06-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

last night, MadMedia performed "Revolution/Revelation" at the Guadalupe theater. I did a tongue-in-cheek fake conference presentation called "Revolutionary Pedagogy: The psychometric invalidity of high-stakes testing in Texas" (followed by a lucha libre/wrestling skit, pitting "El Inmigrante vs. La Migra"). i gave a cheesy powerpoint covering the debate on TAKS testing, and the argument in favor of a boycott. then it digressed as my character became excited and frantic. more or less a caricature of how passionate educators get when talking about TAKS, contrasted with the audience - like society at large, they remain oblivious to the intensity of the issue. those who are not educators don't fully realize the daily harm TAKS does to our students until it's waved right in front of them.

test corporation executives, of course, realize the harm, but they are well compensated, and keep their mouths shut.

the fake presentation went well, there were people cheering at a couple of slides, and others obviously upset by it. i don't need everyone to agree with me. i just need them to consider the issue, because right now we leave it in the hands of ignorant politicians. i say ignorant because they have no idea what actually helps students learn (see Valenzuela, 2005). every moment testing is a moment without teaching.

i'll put a copy of the powerpoint on my website. thanks to everyone who came out to the show - and as for the teachers who were disturbed: don't shoot the messenger; it was a half-joke anyway. there will be no riot police if teachers stand up for themselves. only vilification. but they vilify us already.
-- kip austin hinton

work of sixth graders

2005-05-24T18:06:00.000-05:00

Re: call for TAKS boycott
To: arn-l@interversity.org
From: aburke5054@aol.com
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 16:40:18 -0400
http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives/May2005/msg00381.html
Seems more like the work of sixth graders than graduate students. In any event, what about the kids who want to take the tests and the parents who want their kids to take them?
Art
------------------------------------------

Mr. Burke:
i'm one of the "6th graders" who wrote the documents on http://taksboycott.blogspot.com/. i appreciate your feedback, i understand that this is a contentious issue. my personal belief is that it should not matter whether students, parents, etc. want to take a high-stakes test. this test is biased, invalid, unreliable, and pedagogically harmful (and since they change the criteria every year, they mask its psychometric illegitimacy).

some students may prefer to, say, watch TV all day long. but if we condone practices that prevent learning, we are no longer actually "teachers." any time spent "teaching the TAKS" hurts all students. tests measure; tests do not (by definition) teach anything. i say
1. fund schools fairly
2. assure each child gets a wealthy-district education
3. assess learning (not memorization) without high-stakes
i propose extreme solutions -- because, right now, our public schools have extreme problems. somebody must do something, before they turn into "test-administration centers." what's the more sophisticated solution? i don't adhere to corporate/political standards. especially not in order to keep some ever-worsening "teaching" job.
we've tried playing their game, and we've lost worse every year. as funding and college admissions collapse, who's going to intervene? nobody? then society may eventually give up on public education. we will pay 10 times more for prisons to house the dropouts. and all the layed off teachers can apply to be prison guards. que te parece.

Kip Austin Hinton

TAKS Boycott Association

2005-05-11T21:18:00.001-05:00

This website is the independent creation of graduate students at the University of Texas at San Antonio. We see the way Texas hurts students on a daily basis, through high-stakes testing, misuse of tests, unequal funding, cultural bias, uncontrolled experiments, and inaccurate evaluation. We call on all teachers to actively prevent TAKS administration.
This website is a work-in-progress. We welcome all advice and criticism. Please believe we are committed to better education by any means. We take an activist stance, that academics should engage and incite debate on these issues. That this may prompt others, perhaps those in powerful positions, to bring initiatives to the public (in addition to lecture halls and academic journals).
Education in Texas is malfunctioning. So we search for a solution. TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) is not a solution, but another problem. It ruins curriculum and deprives even expert students. We urge all teachers to boycott this corrupt testing system, and the corrupt corporations which abuse our students' minds. Students will learn more if teachers ignore the TAKS's narrow curriculum. The data show that TAKS does not measure, much less predict, college potential:
"high-stakes testing as a standalone assessment technique is destroying our students. SAT scores diminish as fast as the curriculum does, drop-out rates increase as fast as TAKS scores do. Today’s elementary students, if they survive, will enter college (Assuming their public education is still sufficient for admission) ill-prepared and undereducated. They will be experts in only rote memorization of the TAKS" (TAKS Boycott Association, 2005).
Teachers, stop participating in this injustice. Texas needs comprehensive assessment of real learning, not of memorization and bubble-filling. Protect our students' education. Join our TAKS Boycott for the 2005-2006 school year.