By George Scott * 281-818-7872
Project Director, Academic Equity Advocates * ghscott2050@aol.com
Some of the numbers in screenshot are hard to read in electronic, non-magnified form.
The situation confronting the Texas Education Agency as it prepared to transition from the original formal accountability test of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) measuring student academic performance in its student testing program to the new and more rigorous Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) presented the Agency with a grave challenge that had both legal and public relations ramifications.
The State overcame both with a stroke of formally injecting institutional racism into its student testing and accountability system the ramifications of which persist some two decades later in the current STAAR testing program.
Under the TAAS testing program, the State of Texas won two court decisions in both state and federal jurisdictions establishing verdicts that the State had complied with a mandate to close achievement gaps for disadvantaged, at-risk students statistically dominated by children of color that had both statutory and constitutional ramifications.
Stated bluntly: the TEA affirmed that during the era from the early 1990’s through the scheduled start of the transition to TAKS in 2002, achievement gaps for students had dramatically closed at all tested grades in all test subjects.
As the comprehensive data (for those that read and study the data) in this re-launch of Academic Equity Advocates confirms conclusively, the TEA knowingly compromised the academic grade level rigor of the various tests to facilitate higher passing rates for all student populations. This in turn produced assertions of proof of dramatic closure in academic achievement gaps among the different ethnicities and demographic profiles throughout Texas.
As Sir Walter Scott once dramatically foreshadowed without even knowing he was doing it, the ‘tangled web’ deception of TEA’s deception extends from the initial test of TAAS way back in 1990’s all the way through the impending 2023-2024 STAAR tests that begin administration this week.
What problem did the transition to TAKS present? The full answer to that question is covered in the stories on the home page that further link to genuinely extensive analysis and comprehensive data files that conclusively demonstrate the TEA has spent three decades and three testing eras from TAAS to TAKS to now State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) using the passing and/or failure rates of students based on ethnicity (color of skin) and demographics (economic status) as dominant factors in establishing both ‘passing the test’ and ‘grade-level’ criterion standards.
The further reality is that civil rights organizations throughout Texas, civil rights attorneys, and local, state, and national news media outlets have failed to represent the interest of all students but particularly those at-risk, economically disadvantaged children statistically dominated by children of color by stressing these facts legally or journalistically.
Why is the transition to TAKS such a dramatic smoking gun that provides evidence that the TEA absolutely knew then and still today that the story of equity closure it was victoriously telling state and federal courts and parents was not the truth?
The TEA produced a document that was used in setting the passing standards of the new TAKS test to its panel of educators that was tasked to suggest passing standards for the new TAKS test based upon factors including:
- How many African-American students would fail the test(s) at different performance thresholds?
- How many Hispanic students would fail the test(s) at different performance thresholds?
- How many economically-disadvantaged students would fail the test(s) at different performance thresholds?
- Other ethnicities included but the key was Black and Brown students along with economically-disadvantaged ones.
- What criterion mastery of the new TAKS tests would be achieved based upon the passing standards of the TAAS tests?
The screenshot linked at the top of this column is dramatic proof of three things:
- The TEA and the State of Texas did not even come close to telling the truth about the genuine academic rigor of the initial TAAS test used to achieve two court victories.
- Civil Rights groups and attorneys failed (and still do) to represent the genuine constitutional and statutory protections that the TEA has stolen from all students with particular attention to at-risk, disadvantaged students statistically dominated by children of color. Civil rights advocates failed in the judicial system where it still counts most.
- The local, state, and national news media has failed in its journalistic mission of reporting.
This column represents the framework. The foundation. The bullet point graph that gives so much context and meaning to the State’s 30+ years of academic dishonesty.
Here is the ‘smoking gun’ table produced by the TEA which is carried forward today – in effect – by the grade-level corruption of passing and grade level standards in the current STAAR testing program.
You have all the data in these next columns you need to understand what’s happened and what is still happening.
And now, the same political institutions that brought you to this disaster want to double down with its assault on the public education system called vouchers.
Bottom lines? TAAS was grossly academically compromised in terms of grade level integrity; passing standards had to be dramatically compromised transitioning to TAKS to keep the ‘Texas Educational Miracle’ aliv.
And, as the tables below show for current STAAR testing program – the compromise of credible content mastery on criterion tests survives.
RECENT PASSING STANDARDS THROUGH 2022-23 ON STAAR TESTS