Lawmakers are going after the STAAR

Legislators planning to overhaul Texas' standardized tests — and the way the state holds schools accountable for students taking them — have prefiled bills that would retreat from the requirements of what many call a broken system.

While some elected officials look to hit the pause button on the state test or ask that accountability ratings be rolled over for another year, others say they won't accept minor tweaks and are putting out comprehensive outlines of an entirely new system.

The proposals have come atop a crescendo of parent and educator criticism of the state's new high-stakes standardized test, called the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, less than a year after it was rolled out.

Even a coalition of business leaders that earlier in the school year asked legislators to “hold the line” on the current accountability system has softened its view.

Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, led a news conference in Austin last week of organizations announcing support for a decrease in the number of end-of-course exams required of high school students.

Suzanne Marchman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, or TASA, said she anticipates seeing a “flurry of bills related to assessment and accountability” that likely will run the gamut from small tweaks to major changes.

The flurry already has begun.

The clamor for change may have more to do with who's finally speaking up, said Patricia López, a research associate at the Texas Center for Education Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Advocacy groups long have pointed out that standardized tests disproportionately hurt poor and minority students but the backlash has grown powerful and received more media attention because some aspects of STAAR “get really personal” with other populations, she said.

STAAR requirements impact high school seniors' graduation plans and class rank in ways that its predecessor, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, never did — directly affecting a more affluent demographic of students and parents, she said.

“When you think about our old system, it was just about passing, and really the only kids that had to worry about that were the kids that were struggling,” said Arlene Williams, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the San Antonio area's Southwest Independent School District.

Under STAAR, even “your high fliers” could be set back, agreed Southwest's superintendent, Lloyd Verstuyft.

Education Commissioner Michael Williams announced last month he was suspending — for the second academic year in a row — a requirement that STAAR end-of-course test scores count for 15 percent of high school students' course grades.

TASA seeks a repeal of the 15 percent requirement and a dialing back of the number of tests students need to take to graduate — both of which are covered in prefiled bills.

But until the session starts and committee leaders are chosen, several lawmakers said, it's anyone's guess which bills will survive.

Too tough?

STAAR, which debuted in March for grades 3 through 8 and high school freshmen, requires high school students to take up to 15 tests to graduate. In core subject areas like English or math, students must meet cumulative score requirements — affecting which high school plan they can graduate under.

The state launched it with low passing standards and planned to toughen them in phases. State school ratings were kept the same as last year. But the test scores of ninth-graders still counted — and statewide, only 55 percent passed the writing portion of the English test. They did better on math, history and science.

In a meeting this summer, House Public Education Committee members displayed deep confusion about which students took which tests and how a dizzying system of scoring tiers could mean a high school student could fail the test but not be required to retake it.

To date, close to 900 school boards representing 4.4 million students, including many in San Antonio, have passed a resolution calling on the Legislature to re-examine an accountability system that hinges on high stakes test, stating it's “strangling public schools.”

The Texas Education Agency plans to unveil a new accountability system in March and will take public comment on proposed changes through Jan. 18.

Williams has said he wants schools to be rated on how well they're closing the achievement gap between minority and Anglo students, along with other assessments like student test scores and student growth.

'We've gone too far'

Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, who's widely thought to have a chance at being the next chairman of the House Education Committee, predicted last week that lawmakers will pass “significant modifications” to the state's testing requirements, its graduation plans and the accountability system in the legislative session that convenes Jan. 8.

“I think the system presently is headed toward many thousands of children, unless we modify the system, being unable to graduate in a timely manner,” Aycock said. “Our present 10th-graders ... if they see that they can't graduate under the present system, I'm afraid many of them will choose to drop out.”

Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, wrote to Williams this month asking that he suspend the 2012-13 school accountability ratings. She said it would be confusing to launch a new accountability system as lawmakers make changes to the test at its core.

“I am a proponent of a strong accountability system but I want to make sure that we have a system that is fair to students and to school districts and one that is easily understood by parents,” Patrick said.

Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Canton, prefiled a bill calling for a two-year moratorium of the STAAR test.

Senate Education Chairman Dan Patrick, R-Houston, prefiled a bill last month to allow individual districts to decide whether to implement the 15 percent rule, citing his support for local control.

Also last month, Rep. Bill Callegari introduced a bill that would scale back standardized testing in school and reduce the number of tests high school students need to graduate.

He proposes using a national test in grades 3 through 8 that would replace STAAR. For high school students, he recommends using college entry exams like the PSAT and SAT in place of STAAR and requiring students to take only three tests to graduate.

It would eliminate the things that make STAAR “high stakes,” including the cumulative passing standard requirement and the 15 percent rule, and it would uncouple teacher evaluations from student test performance.

“I think people in general, both educators and parents alike, feel like we've gone too far,” Callegari said.

Aycock said there's “broad consensus” for paring back the number of tests high school students have to take but said it's difficult to make predictions beyond that.

Hovering over the session is an ongoing lawsuit against the state over the adequacy of its public education funding, filed by six groupings of school districts.

Legislators should focus on two things: giving school districts adequate time and flexibility to transition to the new system and consistency, Southwest ISD's Arlene Williams said.

“Changing things every legislative session really throws us and our students into turmoil,” she said. “We're unsettled and our students, parents and communities are unsettled.”

mcesar@express-news.net

Twitter: @mlcesar