JEFFREY WEISS is an award-winning reporter who covered faith and values for over 10 years for the Dallas Morning News before taking on his new role covering regional stories about public education.
Gains on STAAR testing have been less than expected. What do you think is the main cause of this?
I don’t know. In one of my previous stories, I included a metaphor about cooking in the kitchen. If you put a thermometer in a pot on the stove and the reading does not move after awhile, is the stove broken or the thermometer?
Based on the data I’ve looked at, the scores have not changed. Something is broken based on what the state expected. Are the tests simply bad tests? Is it possible that the rigor is going up and that it takes a while for teachers to catch up? Another theory we have says that gaps are very difficult to close as kids get older. It’s like pushing a mountain.
Maybe it’s a combination of the theories out there, but here’s what I do know: the system is broken. The questions that remain are how is it broken, and how do we fix it?
Should teachers be held accountable for their students’ STAAR scores then?
The question is whether the scores are an appropriate tool to check teachers. Effective teachers change scores between 1-13%. That is not very much. Plus, that assumes the tests are actually testing something.
What else should teachers be held accountable for?
That is a decision made at lower government levels. And it’s even more complicated than that. Parents hold teachers accountable for different things than even the principals do.
Should students be held accountable for their own STAAR score?
Again, that depends if the test is good. Is the STAAR well aligned to the curriculum? Is it sufficiently sensitive to detect good instruction? As far as I can tell, these are all open questions. Should anyone be held accountable? If it is a good test, yes they should.
How would we know if it is a good test?
The state has said it has 70 measures to determine STAAR’s validity. I bet at this year’s legislative session, they will invite the TEA in to prove the validity. They’ll say, “Alright, you need to lay out your validity here. Prove that the STAAR is what it says it is.”
If you could design a standardized test, what would it look like?
I don’t know, but that is going to be one of my next stories. Education research is much less specific and rigorous than what we need. There are only small studies, and the errors are large. It is difficult to proctor out all the things that could make effective data. It is hard to obtain accurate data when dealing with human behaviors.
How has Wylie ISD been making gains on STAAR scores?
During the last couple of years of the TAKS test, Wylie was underperforming. Their scores were lower than you would expect. So, they changed their superintendent and updated the curriculum. To do so, they needed large buy-in from teachers and principals.
The district did not throw the new curriculum at them immediately either. They were given time to adjust to it. This was low-hanging fruit that Wylie could pick. Whether they continue to improve, we will not know until the next round of scores comes back. Will they be preforming above other districts? We will see.
Are these solutions ones that other districts can learn from, or are they unique to Wylie?
For others to learn from Wylie, it would require them to have the same organizational set-up that Wylie has. Wylie has 19 schools. Dallas is ten times bigger. Therefore, it would be hard to do in Dallas. However, I suggest Dallas send people to visit Wylie to see what they could learn.
The debate so often is split for testing or against testing. Is there a middle ground?
Even people who are opposed to STAAR believe in accountability. Everyone agrees there must be some way to ensure the students are learning what they’re supposed to be learning. There must be some type of balance when the system is not working. The question is whether standardized tests are the best way to do that. It is possible that the tests are not terrible, but they are not precise. It is like using a butter knife to cut a turkey. It could be a perfectly good butter knife, but it is not the right instrument to carve a turkey. I think these are questions that still need to be answered.
This is a complicated issue that relies heavily on political rhetoric. Accountability is good. Accountability is bad. This rhetoric is meaningless. Tests are good if they’re good tests. Who do we know, though? The degree of certainty at research level is so much less than what we hear at the political and advocacy level.
Do you know what college admission counselors look at in students to determine if they’re college ready? They look at GPA the most, not SAT or ACT. Even the most respectable standardized tests are not trusted. Thus, a report card might be a better tool of accountability.
How do we move past this political rhetoric?
I do not think we can. However, I believe standardized testing is no longer a partisan issue in Texas. If Wendy Davis had been elected, the stance on standardized testing would not be have been different than with Abbott as governor. Republicans and Democrats both do not like it. The turn away from standardized testing happened last legislative session, which is one of the reasons we saw a reduction in STAAR tests.
That’s the one way we get around the politics: if everyone does not like it. Nationally, it is moving in that direction. Is this good or bad? I don’t know. The issue is less explicitly political.
