Category: Texas Deception

PART 6: The Wheels Start Falling Off TEA’s Academic Grade Level Integrity: Dallas ISD’s & Prestigious Rand Corporation’s Brutal Analysis

By George Scott

Project Director, Academic Equity Advocates

You will need to access the first link immediately below the opening paragraphs to access the pdf of Part 6 of this series. In Part 6, Academic Equity Advocates intensifies its brutal analysis of the TEA’s initial testing and accountability system by reporting on reports produced independent of the Texas Education Agency.

In an independent report issued in November 1998 as the federal court litigation over Texas’ testing and accountability program drew ever closer, Dallas I.S.D. performed a student-by-student statistical analysis of how its students at test grade levels performed on the TAAS test and the administration of the national normed Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

It eviscerated the notion of credible grade-level integrity of passing (or grade level) on the TAAS test.

Even closer to that federal court decision, the prestigious Rand Corporation told a National Academic of Science conference in 1999 (the same one at which TEA strongly defended TAAS) that there were major issues of academic grade-level credibility of the TAAS program particularly as it related to closing academic achievements gaps for disadvantaged, minority children.

Part 6 provides substantial excerpts of both and both full reports are available to you.

PART 6: The Wheels Start Falling Off TEA Academic Integrity: Dallas ISD & Rand Corporation

Here are some links to support documents from our External Reports page that are meaningful to this Part 6 presentation.

Excerpts By Rand’s Dr. Klein on Texas’ Testing Deficiencies

Transcript of Dr. Klein’s Presentation At National Academy of Science Conference

Subsequent Full Report by Rand Corporation

TEA Letter to Dallas ISD

Full Dallas I.S.D. Data Report

PART 4: TAAS to STAAR: Texas’ Assertion of Closing Academic Achievement Gaps Independently Shown To Be Deceptive at Best

By George Scott

Project Director, Academic Equity Advocates

You will need to access the first link immediately below the opening paragraphs to access the pdf of Part 4 of this series. In Part 4, the constitutional, judicial, and administrative foundations of student testing and accountability trace back to the Texas Legislature’s passage of Senate Bill 7 in 1993. Actual, it traces back to a federal court decision in the early 1970’s ordering the Texas Education Agency to compensate minority group children for past racial and ethnic isolation.

In its initial TAAS testing era, the TEA vigorously defended the academic integrity of its testing program. It claims dramatic success in closing academic achieving gaps as mandates by its own Senate Bill 7. Part 4 deals with the start the dismantling of the academic integrity of the system at its earliest stages for which our thesis is the deception continues through today.

You will need to access the link immediately below this sentence to access the pdf of Part 4 of this series.

PART 4: TAAS to STAAR and Texas’ Systemic Academic Deception

Here are some links to support documents from our External Reports page that are meaningful to this Part 4 presentation.

Civil Order 5281

Exhibit – Foundational Principles of Testing/Accountability Shown

Texas’ Assertions of Dramatic Closure in Achievement Gaps

PART 1: TAAS to STAAR – Series Shows Texas Education Agency’s Path of Academic Deception Survives 3 Decades

By George Scott

Project Director, Academic Equity Advocates

You will need to access the link immediately below this sentence to access the pdf of Part 1 of this series. In Part 1, the foundation, key issues of focus, and the path forward are described.

Part 1: TAAS to STAAR and Texas’ Systemic Academic Deception.

The practice during the 10-part presentation of this report will be to provide additional links to supporting documents.

Access to Jason Riley’s full column below. It is the only additional link provided for this introduction column.

Black Students Need Better Schools, Not Lower Standards

Jason Riley’s Full Column