Let’s talk about TAAS testing changes this year.
All students born in America but with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) were tested in either English or Spanish this year – no exceptions. That means 800 additional LEP students in RISD took TAAS.
Immigrant students, defined as children born outside America, are exempted from testing, but only for three years. Next year, the three-year exemption rule will drop to one year, even for immigrants.
RISD believes this change is damaging to LEP children and is working with legislators to review it. We staunchly support accountability, but we believe this law has some serious flaws.
- It ignores the other 68 languages spoken in our district, by mandating testing in only English or Spanish.
- It ignores current research that indicates it takes a minimum of 600 hours of language instruction to become conversational. The time needed to achieve academic proficiency is undetermined.
- It supercedes the excellent testing instrument we currently use called the Reading Proficiency Test in English, which measures student learning on a continuum so educators can see the child’s progress.
In summary, RISD believes TAAS is an inappropriate assessment instrument for LEP children, resulting in invalid and unreliable scores.
Imagine if after only one year of instruction, you had to take a grade-level test in Russian.
Let’s review how the state determines school rankings. Results for each TAAS test are reported for All Students, then unbundled into the sub-population categories of Anglo, African American, Hispanic and Economically Disadvantaged students.
Elementary schools administer reading and math tests to third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades, plus writing in fourth. Nine tests times five populations produces a possible 45 scoring categories.
An Exemplary rating means 90 percent of students in all 45 categories passed. Recognized means 80% passed in every category.
An Acceptable ranking means 50 percent of students passed in all categories. Last year, a 45 percent passing rate was Acceptable.
Low Performing means less than 50 percent of students passed in any one of the 45 categories – so a single student score on one test can cause the rating of the entire school to drop.
But we’re not complaining. It is unbundling test scores that makes Texas student gains the most impressive in the nation.
I’m continually amazed by the media conclusion that if a school’s ranking drops, it means the educators inside were lazy, disinterested or incompetent.
I urge you to examine your school’s test scores and to understand its ranking. Probably, you will be gratified to discover that student learning continues to accelerate each year, even as the state raises the bar.
