I'm forwarding this apropos of our discussion of retention. It includes
data on retention of minority kids and relates it to high stakes tests
that deny diplomas to those that do not pass. The 70% score as a cut off
for passing is a strange use of the bell curve. Essentially in Texas- at
all levels they have abolished the traditional c- and d parts of the
curve: anything below average is failing.
Ken Goodman
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Subject: Fwd: TX and TAAS
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 12:16:26 EDT
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Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 21:57:47 EDT
Subject: TX and TAAS
To: Nextsteped who-is-at aol.com, peterj@.albany.edu, Linmcarr@aol.com,
dgaunty who-is-at chapman.edu, JPDay4Rdg@aol.com, lombardi@ednet10.net,
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Expert labels TAAS unfair <A HREF="mailto:cballi@express-news.net">By
Cecilia Ballí</A>
San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer
Texas' standardized exam required for a high school diploma is an arbitrary
measure of students' skills that's hurt minorities more than Anglos, keeps
them back in school, and prompts them to drop out, a Boston College education
professor testified in federal court Monday.
Calling the exit-level Texas Assessment of Academic Skills "probably the
single highest-stakes exam of which I know," Walter Haney said the state set
the exam's passing standard without relating it to a specific set of skills
and left no margin of error for students who mastered the same class material
but teetered below the 70 percent pass rate.
"You might get somebody who scores a 69 percent and fails ... and that may
have happened just because of standard measurement error and not because
those students lacked the requisite level of skills," he said.
Haney's testimony launched what' expected to be a weeks-long trial in which a
San Antonio federal judge will decide if the standardized test discriminatory
against minorities and denies them the most important ticket to college and
the workplace.
State education leaders contend the way test scores are used to hold schools
accountable for what students learn has actually been an unprecedented boon
for minorities, whose performance was long ignored.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed the lawsuit on
behalf of two civil rights groups and nine students who finished their high
school coursework but failed the TAAS, leaving without a diploma.
In his opening statement, MALDEF regional counsel Al Kauffman dedicated the
trial to "los desaparecidos y los olvidados" — the lost and the
forgotten — "because those indeed are the students that we think are
most affected by the TAAS test."
On that theme, Haney said he did an analysis of school enrollment figures
that showed the gap between minorities and Anglos who made it through high
school jumped 50 percent when the exit-level TAAS was introduced. That gap
has persisted.
Texas retains more freshmen than other states — a disproportionate
number of them black and Hispanic — suggesting teachers are holding back
students so pass rates on the 10th-grade test look better, Haney said.
That illustration was part of a longer history Haney offered of government
suppressing groups of students based solely on test scores.
"There is an unfortunately long record of discriminatory uses of tests in the
United States to limit the educational opportunities of ethnic minorities and
other groups and to characterize them as somehow inferior," Haney said. "I
would point out that this is not ancient and dead history."
State witnesses say ninth-grade retention rates are high because the testing
system doesn't hold schools accountable at that grade level. Monday, Geoff
Amsel, lead attorney for the state, unsuccessfully objected to Haney
"spinning these stories about how teachers and administrators are conspiring
to make scores look good."
During opening statements, Deborah Verbil, another counsel for the state,
said the TAAS is the only objective measurement of what students learn across
Texas, and that parity between Anglo and minority test scores only will be
achieved through the years.
"Educational reform is a dynamic and ongoing process," Verbil said. "It takes
time to be put into effect."
The TAAS is administered each spring to students in grades three through
eight and 10.
It became a graduation requirement in 1990, when State Board of Education
members phased in a 70 percent cutoff score at the advice of then-Education
Commissioner William Kirby.
Haney said a 70 percent score, also the traditional satisfactory mark in
class, isn't an automatic passing standard and can reflect different levels
of ability on different tests. Board members, he said, knew such a pass rate
would fail more minorities than Anglos.
Another of Haney's analyses showed even when minorities passed their
sophomore English class, a disproportionate number failed the TAAS.
Haney's testimony on how the test is produced and used is expected to last
through today.
Both sides spent considerable time Monday haggling about what testimony is
relevant to the trial, with the state arguing the case solely is about the
test's legality and its present use.
"There's no other way for the state of Texas to ensure that students learn
material that the state of Texas believes is important," Verbil said. "It's
important that the diploma indicate that a student has achieved a certain
level of mastery."
Kauffman believes the court must account for the wider effects of
standardized tests and the history of racial discrimination in Texas
education.
He reminded U.S. District Judge Edward C. Prado of the state's past
rationalization for segregating schools, resisting bilingual education, not
educating immigrant children, and allowing unequal state funding.
"They've always said that things were good for us," Kauffman said. "It's
always they're saying they're doing it for you, for the minority community."
Monday, Sep 20, 1999</TD>
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