ADVOCACY Contact: contact@middleschoolupliteracy.com or ghscott2050@aol.com
Based upon evidence that you have independently and evidence you obtain from products and services on this website, there may come a time when you want to more proactively engage with your student’s campus and district officials.
Our team will be ready to help you better prepare for any engagement you may have with these officials regarding a genuine assessment of whether the school is adequately addressing your child’s genuine academic needs – strengths or weaknesses.
Let’s be candid. The ‘auto-pilot’ like system of annual testing of students based upon chronological grade level age and placement can and often does literally sabotage far too many children’s legitimate and vital instructional needs.
As we start laying out precise tables pulled from formal TEA records documenting student academic performance throughout Texas and in Katy ISD for the 2024-25 testing cycle, you will discover some very disturbing facts:
- Very often, the overall percentage of students who are PASSING the various tests with its very low performance standard can be high to very high.
- Equally true, that high level of the percent passing the various tests is often accompanied by very percentages of students who PASSED THE TESTS BUT PERFORMED BELOW GRADE LEVEL thus raising grave questions about the overall academic integrity of standards themselves.
The numbers can be startling and provide parents very meaningful context to understand their children’s STAAR results. We’ll start laying out state and Katy ISD performance data numbers soon.
The above facts that will be demonstrated are generally more profoundly observed by economically disadvantaged and at-risk student that often comprise significant percentages of the the student at the state, district, and campus levels of reporting.
Translated. Hundreds of thousands of Texas students had significant skill gaps from the junior high school and high school years on the full range of STAAR testing; the State knows and knew that many thousands of students would flunk the grade level standards on the tests or just creep past a low grade level standard with no meaningful academic integrity.
But the testing treadmill never stops moving to consider your child’s actual and vital instructional needs. Once behind too often translates to staying behind with the institutional blessing of the Texas Education Agency.
If your child is within that such a grouping profile, more direct advocacy and intervention to get your child the instructional services that are actually needed to get back on pace might be needed. It’s your decision.
Our diagnostic tests will give you some of the information you need to make such a decision.
In terms of Grammar/Usage/Mechanics and Reading, the many lessons that are available at MiddleSchoolUpLiteracy.com can be part of the solution.
If you want our team’s help, we can structure a plan that is the most cost-effective we can provide that would/could include:
- Production of data reviewing STAAR performance and classroom report cards
- Results of our independent Grammar/Reading and/or Math diagnostic assessments
- Written reports summarize your concerns and expectations
- Personal consultation as needed if you prefer.