Article
The Senate Education Committee met in Austin recently to discuss one of the Committee's interim charges, to study the accountability in public schools. Staff members from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) reported on test results from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), which is a student testing program, and discussed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), a standardized test which will replace the TAAS.
Testimony that was provided included the following statistics about TAAS results:
* Student achievement has increased during the last 14 years, a period when enrollment grew by 30%, low-income enrollment increased to 49%, ethnic minority students became the majority, the Hispanic population grew by 70%, and an acceptable ranking escalated from 25% of students passing TAAS to 55% passing.
* Minority student groups have made the biggest gains in TAAS scores.
* The TAAS score gains are comparable to the scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national, biennial, criterion-referenced test of fourth and eighth graders.
Senator Bivins credited the accountability system and its ranking system for the increasing number of students passing and higher scores on the TAAS.
Next year, school districts will initiate the new accountability system based on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), including:
* retaining third graders who do not pass TAKS,
* requiring lower dropout rates and higher passing rates to reach an acceptable ranking,
* adding new tests in fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades.
The TAKS tests will be phased in by the year 2008. The first class affected will be third-graders in the 2002-03 school year.
The Texas Education Agency reported on the agency's development of an accountability system for alternative education programs (AEPs) for students at-risk of dropping out or who have dropped out and have chosen to attend a nontraditional school. An advisory committee will issue a report in December, just prior to the next Legislative Session.
State Representative Ron Clark
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, TX 78768-2910
(903) 893-9426 * (512) 463-0474
(512) 475-3767 (fax)
ron.clark@house.state.tx.us
http://www.grayson.edu/district62/RonClark.html
Gallery