Frisco ISD has taken a stand against the state’s accountability system for schools since the implementation of the current standardized tests in 2012.
Before the 2013 Texas Legislature met, FISD joined hundreds of other Texas school districts in a resolution asking legislators to reduce the number of standardized tests students were required to take, said Debbie Gillespie, FISD board of trustees member.
The board of trustees passed another resolution May 11 asking the Texas Legislature to re-examine the state standardized testing system. The resolution says standardized testing hinders public education by undermining teachers’ abilities to teach in inventive ways.
Texas students are taking 22 standardized tests, five more tests than what is required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
“We don’t disagree with testing at all,” Gillespie said. “It’s the level of pressure they put on districts—it’s the higher-stakes part of the accountability that is more dangerous.”
A call for change
Texas’ current testing model, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, assesses students third grade through high school. Passing STAAR’s end-of-course exams is required for students to graduate high school.
To make drastic changes to the state’s current accountability system for public education, the Legislature would have to repeal the original law, said Geraldine Miller, the District 12 State Board of Education member who represents Frisco.
“Right now there’s really nothing that can be done,” she said. “By law, the STAAR test is required.”
However, Miller said the SBOE can work with districts until the next session to pinpoint issues.
“Since the Legislature is winding down, the State Board [of Education] would actually be the perfect venue to study the testing system again,” she said. “For instance, we’re thinking of convening classroom teachers and asking the question, ‘Is it the test? Is it the [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills]? Is it instruction?’”
FISD’s May 11 resolution is another affirmation of the district’s position on standardized testing, Gillespie said. The resolution was sent to the Legislature with statistics specific to FISD.
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In between legislative sessions, Gillespie said the district will continue building relationships with legislators with the hope they will advocate for change in school accountability. She said the current system binds educators too much to a strict curriculum.
Katie Kordel, FISD deputy superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, said the district wants an accountability system and is already reflecting that commitment to accountability through its mission statement and the resolution.
“Accountability systems need to be carefully designed to honor what we value in terms of student learning,” she said. “They have to empower our teachers and our students to do their best work.”
Concerns over STAAR
Standardized testing in Texas was originally intended to be a diagnostic test for teachers, Miller said.
Because of the Legislature’s push for a “culture of accountability,” standardized tests have become more high-stakes, forcing school districts to compete against one another, she said.
“That was never the intent of the original law,” she said. “It is very frustrating to see the districts trying to meet that goal. The results of the STAAR test are beginning to make people rethink the testing process.”
Standardized tests have evolved throughout the years in Texas, and some changes were made to address concerns about the style and content of the tests, said Debbie Ratcliffe, Texas Education Agency media relations director.
Standardized tests used to be summative, Ratcliffe said, assessing students on a broad range of topics rather than the material they were learning that school year.
The new end-of-course exams, which students take in high school-level courses, are more like finals. They are administered not by grade level but when a student is taking the course being assessed.
Though the tests are challenging in what they measure, STAAR is still limited, Kordel said. For instance, in the writing portion of the end-of-course exams, students must write an essay in no more than 26 lines.
“We know that academic writing is an authentic process,” Kordel said. “It’s complex, it’s not linear, and it includes editing and revising. [The current test] does not provide our students, parents and teachers with valuable information about a student’s writing proficiency.”
Gillespie said students are also spending less time learning because those in grades that are not taking tests can either come in late to school or sit in study hall until the testing period is over.
A common complaint the TEA hears from teachers is that school districts are asking them to spend a large portion of time teaching students how to take the test or going over material in the test, Ratcliffe said.
“[TEA employees] constantly and consistently say teachers should teach the state curriculum standards—that should be the priority,” she said. “If they do that, the test will take care of itself.”
Some bills that went through the Texas Legislature during this past session, which ended June 1, proposed changes to the STAAR tests.
However none called for a complete overhaul of the assessment system. That would take a change in federal or state law, Ratcliffe said.
“Texas existed for more than 100 years without state standardized testing, so I’m sure schools would continue to operate if it was eliminated, but it would require congressional action,” she said.
