By GEORGE SCOTT
This is both very personal and analytical.
What is the most brutal but factual comment I can make to you that might motivate you to take our website’s goal to help parents help their middle school children advance academically seriously?
How about this?
When the Texas Education Agency’s first accountability testing system in TAAS – a ridiculously below grade level system – was going to transition to the ACTUALLY HARDER TAKS tests in 2003, it faced a profound crisis that would undermine its institutional integrity if commonly understood and effectively reported by the news media and effectively litigated by competent civil rights attorneys. It was not.
The TEA produced tables of numbers that used the color of students’ skin (ETHNICITY) and economic status to statistically project how many multiple tens of thousands of Texas students would fail those tests if the passing standards were not reduced DRAMATICALLY from WHAT ITS OWNstate panel had recommended.
SO REDUCE the standards BASED upon the color of students’ skin is LITERALLY what the TEA did. OFFICIAL TEA TABLES show this for every grade and subject for White, Asian, Hispanic, Black, and economically disadvantaged students. Results? Statistically profound. I have kept those tables to strengthen me when I get discouraged that my past efforts HAVE failed. At 75, this is probably my last rodeo.
In the intervening decades, the damage done to at-risk, economically disadvantaged students statistically dominated by children of color has had an unspeakably tragic consequence.
The consequences since 2003 carry forward through today when evaluating current passing and grade level standards of STAAR, Numbers prove it. Don’t doubt: that decision still impacts your children TODAY – all children.
But you MAY NOT want to deal with all those numbers. OK! But be aware that there is one number you will WANT AND NEED TO UNDERSTAND for every STAAR test your child took last year: SCALE SCORE. That’s where serious analysis begins. All else is TEA’s bureaucratic chit-chat. A-F might as well be Z to A. We’ll get there if you stay with us.
The Good News? My wife’s instructional lessons available here can be used to shun most of the numbers and give you real world understanding of your child’s academic strengths and weaknesses in the privacy of your home AND to advance academically NO MATTER WHAT THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN AND WHETHER YOU ARE RICH OR POOR OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN.
If you will spend time with our website, you’ll understand system better for your family. Let’s get started.