Essay TAAS Test and STAAR Educational Test in Texas

Another challenge is how often Texas changes its statewide testing regiments. So far it has changed four times over the past century, TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) was one of the regiments lasting from 1999 to 2011. The system currently in use and that will end by next year is the STARR exam (State of Texas Academic Readiness). The testing regiments change constantly because they do not accurately gauge a students performance. Also the fact that the main goal of the curriculum is religious and ideological control further hinders the academic performance of students. For example,

Each state teaches their students different material at different rates and this is why some states place pressure of testing companies to “dumb-down” the test (Margie). Each state’s tests are created by the state; therefore, they can make the test as easy as possible to make everyone succeed on it. Some states have districts in poverty and cannot afford the best textbooks or technologies; therefore, their students do not reach their potential. When these districts have scores that are too low they do not receive federal grants; therefore, this puts them into a further bind.

Back when I was a senior in high school, STAAR testing did not apply to us. It was brand-new to the school district. Thankfully we did not have to take it because we still had TAKS testing going on still. From what I’ve heard about STAAR from the lower class-men, it was not the “funnest” some say it was even more challenging than the TAKS test and to prove my point I got this quote from http://www.emsisd.com/Page/13156 stating that “The new STAAR assessments will be designed to be more difficult than TAKS”. In a way I think that it is good that they are challenging students a little bit harder but at the same time it is not fair to them because for instance STAAR did not apply to me (upper class-men), it took affect after I graduated from high

The problem with STAAR testing is the enormous pressure it puts on Texas students and teachers. With STAAR testing, it affects everything with students from preceding to the next grade level, attending college and eventually their futures career choices. STAAR testing affects Texas teachers as well. For Texas teachers and STAAR testing, starting January 2016 a new elevation system will base 20% of students’ scores towards teachers’ livelihoods, reputations, pay, promotions and even determining if they get to keep their job for another year. TEA will then take these teacher elevations and determine if schools will receive funding for the coming school year. With one test putting so much pressure on students and teachers, we continue to see

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

Texas contains a lot of issues when it comes to its education policies. The issue that has the most people thinking about and I feel more passionate about when it comes to education is the high-stakes testing in the Texas high schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools. This issue has brought plenty of attention from students and their parents. The testing situation in Texas has been addressed from time to time, but there hasn’t been a proper solution that keeps the student performance numbers from decreasing in numerous reports. The problem is that Texas education emphasizes the importance of standardized testing - such as the current State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR - implemented to

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, standardized testing has been at the center of attention in the educational system. Several schools and teachers have been forced to drill children on the information they will be tested on. Teachers are forced to demonstrate other important topics in order to teach test material. Similar to majority of tests provided in the school system, standardized test have both pros and cons. Generally speaking, standardized testing is a great way to determine a baseline for a child. As Miller (2016) indicated, tests have a multitude of benefits, which include student enthusiasm, peer learning, self-improvement and retention, transfer of learning, student self-assessment, and teacher instructional guidance. Teachers are able to use the data from the standardized tests to build an entire academic plan around the results. Additionally, students and parents are able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each child in order to determine the next steps needed to help bridge any gaps within their academic studies.

Some Texas lawmakers are trying to lower the number of standardized tests, let schools pick the test providers to create more competition in the testing market, get rid of the evaluation of teachers by the STAAR scores, and lower the burden of the A-F rating of the STAAR test. Last year there were several problems with the STAAR tests, so much that the company had to pay a $5.7 million fine. When Texas has 17 tests between 3rd through 12th grade, it is about time that it starts to lower the number of tests on students especially young students (Brandeis).

“…only twenty-two percent of those surveyed said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools compared with twenty-eight in 2007” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). Furthermore the poll indicated an eleven percent increase, compared to last year, towards the favor of discontinuing the usage of students’ test results for teacher evaluations. William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of PDK/Gallup Poll also stated, “Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). All in all, not only are these tests a concern for students, who are forced to sit through them, hoping to get a decent enough score to place into a class, receive their diploma, or even get accepted to the college of their dreams, but they are a concern for parents as well, who only want the best for their children and to see them succeed.

In this day and age-standardized tests have become the sole way of testing kids, and it's affecting our educational system and schools. As stated by Education Week, an American education news site, every state requires some sort of standardized test that students must take. Our nation is no longer just looking at how kids learn and grow to see if they are achieving. They are measuring this achievement or competency through a test. Additionally, according to the Washington Post,”The average student in America’s big-city public schools takes some 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and the end of 12th grade” (Valerie Strauss). As important as standardized tests have become, the question begs again, “Which school provides students with the skills needed to learn and perform on these tests”. While both year-round and public schools benefit its students, year-round schools focus on student retention, while public schools focus more on standardized tests.

Also the state assessment is built around the TEKS. The State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) is the state’s annual assessment and test reading, science, writing and social studies. The STAAR test is a criterion-referenced test. The STAAR test does not cover all of the subjects or grade levels of the TEKS standards that are set in Texas. Grades 3-8 are tested in reading, math, writing, social studies and science. The state has also adopted end of course assessments for high school students in English I, English II, Algebra I, Biology, and U.S. History. Once testing is completed data is collected by the TEA, and posted on its website. Assessment results are disaggregated by student backgrounds, district and

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Standardized testing is an unfair way to judge how these students are making progress. Simply, some students do not test as well as other students do. There could be a very smart student that simply can not do well on test for whatever the reason may be, but the sad thing is we allow this to continue happening even when its totally unfair. Most of the time, students that come from a low-income family are treated the most unfairly. They attended poorly-funded schools with large class sizes, too many teachers without subject area certification, and inadequate books, laboratories and so on. States don’t put these schools into consideration that they don’t have the best education system. Instead, they continue to take it out on the students and deny them diplomas because of them not being about to afford a highly-funded school.

Large, urban school districts scored much lower compared with smaller, suburban school districts. For instance, 63% of 8th grade students from the Orleans school district failed the math test, while only 10% from the St. Tammany school district did. A few educators believe the tests punish urban children. Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, testing-reform advocacy group, states that, “Poor kids almost always get a lesser education, and a test won't solve the problem.” He also states that, “Several factors affect poor children's academic performances, and more money doesn't always close the gap between their test scores and the scores of their white, middle class counterparts.” Urban students just don’t get the same outcome on these tests than suburban

Every spring for the past 4 years since 2012, every student attending 3rd grade through 8th grade and including high school students across The State of Texas, sit down and take the Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or The STAAR Test. The STAAR test is what student’s in Texas are taught about from the very beginning of the school year and what teachers are required to teach. The STARR test includes 3rd grade through 8th- graders, taking reading and math, 4th and 7th graders taking writing, 5th through 8th graders taking the science portions, and with 8th-graders taking the social studies section. In high school, students are required to take the following portions of the STAAR test which includes English 1, English 2 which contains two tests of Writing and Reading, Algebra 1, Biology, and U.S. History. The STAAR tests for students in Texas determines each individual student’s assessment of where they are educated, towards the following subjects and what grade level they should be proceeded at. With state testing like the STAAR tests, there are more and more negatives and problems in the news, with the way our students are being taught in Texas, this state test not only follows them through their next grade levels but their academic careers, even following them into college and eventually their careers, with that and the amount of pressure being put on them from one test, the bar is being raised too high for our children in Texas, this not only affects our children