Well, let's try to represent conservative criticism more accurately, shall we? Also from the Heritage report:
This reveals an alarming trend in our state and nation," Patterson concluded. "While test scores on the lower range of academic achievement rise, scores at the top remain frozen at pre-1970 achievement."
Conservatives initiated the TAAS in the 1980s as a way to provide accountability for public schools. But today, conservatives are the ones waving the red flags. They warn that the TAAS has crippled public education by fostering the pursuit of academic equity at the expense of academic excellence.
"The entire focus on TAAS is on getting as many students as possible to achieve at a very basic level," said a report written by Jeff Judson, president of the conservative education foundation called the Texas Public Policy Foundation. "Since so much hinges on TAAS -- promotions, hiring and firing decisions, financial incentives -- schools are practically foolish if they don't reallocate time and resources from higher-achieving children whom they know will pass the test to lower-achieving children who might not." ......Several conservatives have proposed raising the "acceptable" level from 40 to 70 percent as one step toward improvement. Feeling the pressure of criticism, the state recently announced plans to increase the acceptable level to 45 percent next year and to 50 percent by the year 2000. Given the state's reluctance to drastically improve standards, Parker believes the only hope for true reform is school choice. "The political control model is always going to pick a low level of achievement because it can't deal with the pain of forcing change," he said.
Parker and others have proposed another "norm-referenced" exam in addition to the TAAS that would help Texas compare its students' performance to other states. Unlike the TAAS, which is based on basic criteria that every student should know, a norm-referenced test is designed to be more challenging, so that no student could get every answer right. "That way, you get a pattern, you get a bell-curve that tells you how Texas students compare to other students," he said. "With norm-referenced tests, you get away from training based solely on low criteria." |
