Category: Texas Deception

The Most Brutal Column You’ve Ever Read Announces Major Monograph on Academic Corruption of Texas Testing & Accountability

By George Scott, Project Director

Academic Equity Advocates

Points 1 through 1,000. Sincerely. Unequivocally. Unapologetically. Never not true. Don’t even try to twist this against me. This is my last rodeo. I’ll leave no Texas ‘public official public policy-related or corporately enabling bastard(s)’ – whatever that is – behind.

If anyone reads this history of the academic fraud treatise of Texas public education accountability since the advent of the TAAS testing system through STAAR as an attack or “blame on classroom teachers and campus-based educators” for the horrific, unconscionable academic fraud of the past 30 years of Texas public education testing and accountability, they are intellectually dishonest and horrifically wrong. This will include the impending dissection of student academic performance in Katy I.S.D.

The blame for what I describe can be assigned 100% to a deficient political structure in Texas from Gov. George W. Bush to Rick Perry to Gov. Greg Abbott and their morbidly, pervasive, systemic, control of the rabidly complicit Texas Education Agency which metaphorically could have sold its soul for $2 but did so for cumulative billions of dollars and influence.

Students – particularly at-risk, disadvantaged minority students will never be replaced as the number one victim. Too many millions of their lives have been academically eviscerated by the academically dishonest shenanigans of the Texas Republican Party leadership and its willing co-conspirators at the Texas Education Agency for some 30 years.

Classroom teachers. Campus-based professionals. They are the close-second tier of tragic victims that have progressively eviscerated any concept of academic integrity from TAAS to TAKS to STAAR based testing and accountability systems.

This is a gross political failure of ignorant or cowardly politicians who have never known enough to know enough about what they don’t know, and they have willing surrendered to their self-imposed ignorance with some surrendering to their strategical malfeasant, intellectual dishonesty.

In the private sector, the last 30 or so years of Texas testing and public education accountability would be categorized as systemic consumer fraud subject to potential and legal massive financial recovery. God bless government immunity or gutless, ignorant civil rights attorneys who surrendered without fighting, right?

HOW ABOUT THAT FOR A 7 PARAGRAPH LEAD in my last effort to represent the interests of economically-disadvantaged, at-risk minority children that the TEA and its political and corporate ‘apologizers and justifiers and financial benefactors’ have imposed for too damned long.

Over the past 30+ years, the TEA has published literally hundreds of millions of pages and more hundreds of millions more numbers about their compromised assertions of its public education testing and accountability system – much of which is embedded with institutional racism against minority children. Sadly, true.

The AEC monograph will be:

  • 77 pages.
  • Have a few thousand of actually important numbers and words.
  • Tell the truth.
  • The whole truth.
  • Nothing but the truth.
  • Provide context to the TEA’s and the political structure’s motivation for not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

To be reader friendly starting next Sunday, we’ll break down those 77 pages into discreet chapters so you won’t have to swallow the whole story in one setting.

The reality is this:

  • If you truly want to understand the academic corruption that has infested three decades of student testing and accountability:
    • You need to read it all.
    • Then, you need to follow Academic Equity Advocates.
    • Then, you need to help spread the word about this website to your friends throughout Texas.

That series starts next Sunday. It will be divided into separate chapters to make the reading easier parts 7 days. You will have access to the full document without breaks.

If you really want to understand; you will read it all.

I can make it easier. But I cannot read it and all else on this website for you.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at ghscott2050@aol.com

George H. Scott

Back To Beginning of Accountability: TAAS Was Texas Educational Miracle – Really? Take A Look At Deception’s Birth

By George Scott, Project Director

Academic Equity Advocates

Understanding how this dramatic level of academic growth and achievement gap closure reflected in these three tables which show 8th grade, 10th grade high school ‘exit’ tests, and a combined table showing all students test disaggregating by major ethnic groups and economically-disadvantaged since 1992-93 was achieved constitutes dramatic foreshadowing of the academic deception that still exists in Texas public education accountability today.

All three tables show the percentage of all students (in the grades shown as reported), major ethnic, and economic disadvantaged students that passed the test on the standards at the time and were deemed by TEA standards to have achieved constitutional equity between 1992-93 and the last year of TAAS administration in 2001-02.

The numbers, dramatic gains in performance, and dramatic closure of academic equity gaps as reported speak for themselves.

Here’s a link to the dramatic data sets showing the dramatic growth in passing performance during the TAAS era in the 8th and 10th grades in all subjects tested. The tables include a cumulative report showing ALL STUDENTS tested in every subject. Again, the growth was dramatic.

Achievement gaps in Texas in 2002 had essentially been closed.

Here are a few snippets as representative examples, but you really need to follow this link to get the full picture of the so-called Texas Educational Miracle that political analysts at the time played a huge role in the election of Texas governor becoming the ‘education president’ of the United State of America.

Examples of Achievement Gap Closure During TAAS’ Educational Miracle

  • AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS: % Passing in 1993 and 2002 (Last Year of TAAS)
    • 8th Grade Reading – 52.6% to 92.1%
    • 8th Grade Math – 26.2% to 86.8%
    • 10th Grade Reading – 56.3% to 92.5%
    • 10th Grade Math – 34.0% to 85.9%
    • All Students/All Grades Reading: 1994-2002 – 60.2% to 86.7%
    • All Students/All Grades Math: 1994-2002 – 38.3% to 86.5%
  • HISPANIC STUDENTS: % Passing in 1993 and 2002 (Last Year of TAAS)
    • 8th Grade Reading – 56.2% to 91.0%
    • 8th Grade Math – 32.0% to 90.0%
    • 10th Grade Reading – 56.0% to 90.5%
    • 10th Grade Math – 41.4% to 88.0%
    • All Students/All Grades Reading: 1994-2002 – 41.1% to 79.7%
    • All Students/All Grades Math: 1994-2002 – 47.1% to 90.1%
  • ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS: % Passing in 1993 and 2002 (Last Year of TAAS)
    • 8th Grade Reading – 53.4% to 90.5%
    • 8th Grade Math – 30.1% to 88.8%
    • 10th Grade Reading – 52.3% to 90.1%
    • 10th Grade Math – 39.3% to 83.0%
    • All Students/All Grades Reading: 1994-2002 – 62.9% to 86.0%
    • All Students/All Grades Math: 1994-2002 – 45.0% to 88.9%

You really need to follow this link to get a good look at the scope of the Texas Educational Miracle.

TAAS Era Produced Dramatic Gains in Student Performance; Dramatic Reductions in Achievement Gap Closure

TEA Commissioner Acknowledges Below Grade Level Component of STAAR – Approaches – Is Academic Equity

By George Scott, Project Director

Academic Equity Advocates

In an earlier story on this website, you learned that the same Senate Bill 7 in 1993 that the Texas Legislature established the TAAS-based public education accountability system affirmed the State Board of Education maintained absolute authority to determine what “satisfactory” performance was on the tests.

You also learned details about the judicial foundation that led to testing and Texas’ subsequent agreement to close achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students statistically dominated by children of color.

That’s been important all through the three eras of student accountability testing since the 1990’s as we will report extensively on the website. But in this story, we’ll focus on the current STAAR tests and the performance threshold of APPROACHES to put the entire issue in the context of academic integrity. Why is that important?

For the bottom-line, let’s turn to a board meeting of the Texas Association of School Boards back in 2019 where I had the opportunity to ask the TEA commissioner a direct question and get a direct answer. The Commissioner had no place to run; no place to hide. In truth, I was asking a question of substantial disinterest to many members of the TASB board. The Commissioner was speaking with home field advantage.

As a representative of the Katy ISD Board of Trustees on the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of School Boards in 2019, I had the opportunity to question the Commissioner on the TEA’s academic definition of constitutional equity – actually a humongous issue to those that care about judicial and statutory integrity of a commitment to disadvantaged children.

The exchange was not recorded, but any of the dozens of TASB Directors who witnessed the exchange would NOT dispute that it happened as described here. Importantly, Commissioner Morath answered my question honestly, even if reluctantly.

Scott: Commissioner, how does the Texas Education Agency define having met its statutory and constitutional burden of closing the academic equity gap: by the STAAR cut score of “Approaches” or the cut score of “Meets”?

Morath: Well, I don’t want to get into the precise legal issues…

(Scott politely interrupts. Yes. I was polite)

Scott: That is exactly what I want you to do. Let me re-phrase the question: How does the Texas Education Agency define having met its statutory and constitutional burden to close the academic equity gaps pursuant to the following: Senate Bill 7 passed by the Texas Legislature in 1993; The Supreme Court of Texas decision in January 1994 confirming the constitutionality of Senate Bill 7; The January 2000 decision by the Federal District Court in San Antonio confirming the constitutionality Senate Bill 7: the cut score of “Approaches” or the cut score of “Meets”?

Morath: The cut score of APPROACHES.

In a moment of unmitigated honesty, when confronted by someone whom he knew understood the motivation and underlying facts for his initial reaction, Morath told the truth in front of important witnesses. The direct answer to that simple but profound question acknowledged that the TEA defines its constitutional equity burden as including below-grade-level performance.

Left unsaid, of course, is the State Board of Education (the TEA) has the power to play games, so to say, with genuine academic integrity which is exactly what the State Board of Education and the TEA have done for three decades.

Let’s take one peak at one grade level test (8th grade STAAR Math) to get a start on understanding how vital this power is to the State of Texas. There will be extensive reporting on this issue. It is essential to understand the performance standards to fully understand the volume of student academic performance data you will be provided.

 

The table above condenses the performance standards of the 8th STAAR math test (primary Spring administrations) for academic years 2008-19, 2021-22, and the most current year of 2022-23.

Think in terms of content mastery: (A Perfect Score Contrasted With The Scores Students Actually Receive)

  • RAW SCORE MAX: The total number of raw score points that constitutes making a perfect grade on the tests. That would be 100% content mastery.
  • TOP FAIL RAW: If a student got 16 raw score points or fewer on the test in 2022-23, the student would have failed the test. For that year, that would be content mastery of 33% on the test. Read the other years the same way.
  • JUST APPROACH RAW: If a student got 17 raw score points up to 25 raw score points, the student would have achieved just the approach standard. That would represent a passing standard (or as the TEA Commissioner acknowledged) the constitutional equity standard of as little as 33% content mastery on the test.
  • MEET RAW: If a student got 26 raw score points correct, the student would be said by the TEA to be performing at GRADE LEVEL or above. In other words, grade-level starts at 54% content mastery on the 8th grade math test.

Every important piece of analysis in terms of grade-level integrity starts at this point.

What does it mean to pass a test in Texas?

What does it mean to make grade-level on a test in Texas?

If closing academic achievement gaps on a criterion test starts at 45% or 35% content mastery, has Texas closed achievement gaps at a honest grade level standard?

Here’s a link to the performance standards of the other STAAR tests structured exactly as the one above.

Follow this link to tables that show what RAW SCORE content mastery is required in these grade level STAAR tests to PASS the test or MEET grade level.

LINK: The Following Tables Document STAAR Performance Standards