Recent letters to the editor, a Boerne Star editorial and an "Inside BISD" column have all commented on the implications of TAKS results. The most often cited statistics are the "pass" rates for TAKS in these discussions. Unfortunately, these results are misleading and do little to inform a community about the actual academic abilities of students in a district or the quality of education our tax dollars are supporting.
The educational establishment in Austin buries the real implications of TAKS in curious scoring - raw scores are translated into a 'scaled score' that varies with every administration of the test. Each administration of the test uses a different conversion, supposedly to correct for differences in difficulty, but all are manipulated so that a scaled score of 2100 is a panel recommended passing score and 2400 is commended performance. But what does that mean to those of us who are used to needing a 90% or above to get an "A"?
The Association of Texas Professional Educators publishes a "TAKS Passing Standards Estimates Chart" , which translates the scale score into an equivalent percentage, using the April administration test. For 2006, the "met standard" on the eleventh grade English/Language Arts (ELA) portion of the TAKS had risen from previous years to the equivalent to getting 51% correct. The "panel recommended" standard eeked by at a slightly more stringent 58.9% and a requirement of a '2' or greater on the essay. I would encourage parents and taxpayers to go to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website, look at released TAKS tests and check out the quality of the reading passages that students in 11th grade need to read and pass at a dismal 51% correct rate in order to graduate. The reading passages are closer in sentence complexity, structure and vocabulary to "see Jane run" than they are to "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...".
In addition, although Boerne had 97% of its 11th grade class pass the ELA TAKS in 2006, it did not receive commended in ELA, which would have required that 25% of that class pass it at a commended level (equivalent to 84.9% correct answers).
An even more interesting indicator of the academic foundation our children are getting is something called the TSI, for Texas Success Initiative. It is also called the "Higher Education Readiness Component". What this eduspeak means is "are these children ready and able to do college level work when they graduate?". A positive TSI result requires a scaled score of 2200 (72.6% correct) on the TAKS and a "3" on the writing portion. Only 54% of 11th grade students in 2006 achieved that distinction. The ethnic breakdown was 56% white and 44% Hispanic passed at the TSI standard in ELA. By contrast, 78% of students passed the math TAKS at the TSI standard.
To David Maltzberger's hypothetical question "how many local taxpayers would be satisfied if Anglo elementary children scored in the 60 percentile..." I would add, "how many local taxpayers are happy with the reality that only 54% of the children in this district graduate college-ready in literacy skills? These results indicate a serious need in our district to improve the teaching of reading and writing.
What can be done? The most cost effective way to improve literacy rates is to focus on early grades. The Texas State Dyslexia statute requires districts to aggressively identify students with reading difficulties and provide intensive remediation from qualified teachers. The statute requires every campus to have a dyslexia designee and that person should be qualified to teach reading. Experts with Scottish Rite say that districts should be offering these kinds of reading programs to at least 3% of the student population in order to fully comply with the law.
A zero-retention policy in K and 1st grade with intensive tutoring for students struggling with reading would be more cost effective than retention. In 2006, BISD retained approximately 32 K and 1st graders. Every time a student is retained, it obligates taxpayers to fund another year of education for that student. In 2006, the average per pupil expenditure was $9522, which means that 32 students retained cost taxpayers over $300,000 in today's educational dollars. Considering that per pupil expenditures have increased at an average rate of over 10% per year since 1993, by the time that extra year gets tacked on 12 years from now, the cost will be substantially greater.
For those students who still lag in reading and writing, more emphasis should be placed on staff development and training, and less on purchasing computer-based programs such as Lexia and Plato Learning. Trained and dedicated teachers teach children to read and write, not computers.
Quality reading programs cannot stop once a child leaves elementary school. If they are still struggling in reading and writing, secondary students need access to effective, age-appropriate programs. All secondary campuses need meaningful and effective reading programs for these students, taught by knowledgeable staff.
Drop the requirement of a semester SAT/ACT prep class for graduation and substitute instead a required semester persuasive writing course. High SAT and ACT scores are predictive of one thing only - how well a student will perform on other standardized tests. For those students taking pathways other than college, to require them to spend an entire semester practicing taking a test they will not use is counterproductive. All will benefit from being able to write well and persuasively. SAT/ACT prep can remain an elective for those who do want to score well on these tests.
Finally, parents need to be proactive. If your child is having reading difficulties, educate yourself, ask questions and find out how your child is performing on grade level and age level equivalents.
If we, as a community, will put the same effort and passion into demanding that our students read well as we have in naming the new high school, we can assure that all our children will be able to read whatever name is eventually attached to that campus.
Thresa Fraser
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9 comments:
Well I guess there's no one child left behind at BSID, apparently they are all are behind!
Wow! What great information- I'd like to see this level of commentary printed in the paper...
Ms. Fraser's argument over the retained kindergardeners implies that those retentions are at the district's request because of poor reading skills. Many parents of preschoolers plan to repeat Kinder. before their child is even enrolled. It is because research shows boys lag behind socially and need the extra year of maturity to do well in school. Read James Dobson's BRINGING UP BOYS.
OK, this isn't really connected to the TAKs conversation, but can't seem to post a new topic, and it does have to do with schools. Sometimes you can only watch so much tap dancing around a subject and then you've got to ask for the show to stop. The naming debate over the new high school is being discussed in the papers, but some are reluctant to express the underlying concerns attached to this issue. 5 of the 8 School Board members live in the Middle School South district, as well as Superintendent Kelly. They live in what will be the new high school district as well. The name 'Boerne' carries a great deal of prestige at this point in time- think of it as a marketable asset. People in the new school district are loathe to give up that perception- to have the old, traditional and prestiguous Boerne High School remain while they become something else. How to identify the new school as something more prestigous? Call it Boerne 'Champion' High- giving it an air of being a cut above the old one. There's old Boerne High and then there's Boerne Champion High. Is this just a sad little case of snobbery? It is hard to fathom that people would object to the standard practice of using someone's full name, especially when it is obvious that this is what the community wants. But the addresses of the key decision makers may explain it best.
Ms. Fraser's comments are highly mis-leading because they imply that Boerne's scores are the problem. In fact, by checking the Texas Education Agency website, the reader can access the Academic Excellence Indicator Report. From this report, you will easily note that Boerne out-performs state averages by whopping margins on everything from TAKS scores to the College Board AP, SAT, and ACT scores. And those scores are extremely good for minority students as compared to those same minorities statewide. One must also download the statewide scores for minority students on that website in order to make valid comparisons, seemingly overlooked by blog writers - and "letters to the editor".
I challenge the readers to find another school district in the entire San Antonio area that has better results than Boerne. Look at the AEIS reports for those school districts and see for yourself.
In my opinion, the SAT, ACT, and College Board AP scores are just a little more important than Ms. Fraser's selective and inaccurate fixation on early childhoold and persuasive writing.
I want my kids to get into college - and there is no better preparation than high scores on college exams. On those important measures, Boerne ISD excels - as disappointing as that might be to Ms. Fraser.
And by the way, what exactly does this posting have to do with the Boerne Together website? Is the idea that by downgrading the schools, less people will flock here? That's a little unrealistic. The better idea is to concentrate on county and city actions to limit growth through planning and decisions. Stop the school bashing.
It seems odd to me that those who cherish the name "Boerne High School" are quick to demand that the new campus remove "Boerne" from its title. Perhaps the real snobs are those who want the prestigious Boerne name for themselves - and don't want it shared with the new high school or anyone outside of our city boundaries.
Concentrating on what divides us - as in who lives in what part of the school district - is really a lame thing to do.
Response to anonymous post of 9-18-07:
While I’ve spoken with parents who have DELAYED their child’s entry into kindergarten, I’ve yet to speak to any parent in our district who planned, even before their child set foot in school, to have their child repeat a grade. Every parent of a retained BISD child I’ve spoken with was told by school district personnel that their child should be retained. My contact with parents in this district is by no means exhaustive and perhaps “anonymous” is affiliated with the district and has insight into this trend. If a trend of parent-requested retentions is occurring, it leads to the following observations and questions:
No Child Left Behind, despite the negative rap it gets, does have a few redeeming qualities, one of which is that it requires schools to use research-based instructional practices.
In a 2004 interview, G. Reid Lyon, (bio: former Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institute of Health (NIH) where he was responsible for the direction, development, and management of research programs in reading development, cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, behavioral pediatrics, language and attention disorders, and human learning and learning disorders), in response to a question about the “late bloomer”, responded “What we now know about kids in preschool and kindergarten is that they can learn a number of reading readiness skills…We also know that waiting to teach kids to read until the end of the first grade or second grade does not work. We have not been able to support the idea of a "developmental lag" and actually find that the longer we delay formal reading instruction, the less like it is that the kids will catch up.” In other words, there is no research base to support Dr. Dobson’s contention that “late bloomers” should be retained.
Therefore, the question arises: Why are taxpayers being stuck with the tab of an additional year, if there is no research base for this being an effective educational practice?
Finally, when one looks at what Dr. Dobson actually has to say about retention, you will see recommendations that are more nuanced than “boys lag… and need the extra year”. What he actually recommends is "determination should be made according to specific neurological, psychosocial and pediatric variables." For the child who is retained for immaturity reasons, Dobson recommends “…it is very important to help him "save face" with his peers. If possible, he should change schools for at least a year to avoid embarrassing questions and ridicule from his former classmates…” With regards to retention for a child who is not found to be lagging in these areas of neurological, psychosocial and pediatric variables, he notes the following: “The best guideline is this: Retain only the child for whom something will be different next year…For the slow learner…a second journey through the same grade will not help…The findings from research on this issue are crystal clear… Thus, the most unjustifiable reason for retention is to give the slow learner another year of exposure to easier concepts…”
Finally, perhaps Boerne parents and school administrators should listen to what Dr. Dobson has to say about the importance of reading (and writing), which, after all, is what the original post was all about:
Dr. Dobson on the importance of reading: “…I believe we should give priority to the academic fundamentals — what used to be called "readin', writin', and 'rithmetic. Of those three, the most important is basic literacy (emphasis added)…Teaching children to read should be "Job One" for educators. Giving boys and girls that basic skill is the foundation on which other learning is built. Unfortunately, millions of young people are still functionally illiterate after completing 12 years of schooling and receiving high school diplomas. There is no excuse for this failure. Research shows that every student, with very few exceptions, can be taught to read…”
Dr. Dobson on writing: “It is true that writing skills are seldom taught today…It hasn't always been that way... [when Dobson was in elementary school] It was a major part of the curriculum…The ability to write has gone out of style… But it is an incredibly valuable craft that your child can use in a wide variety of settings. Don't let him or her grow up without developing it.” Right on, Dr. Dobson…or should I say “write on”, Dr. Dobson!
Anonymous: “Ms. Fraser's comments are highly mis-leading(sic) because they imply that Boerne's scores are the problem.”
No, the implication is that Boerne scores are indicative of an underlying problem of poor literacy skills. Only 54% of our eleventh graders in 2006 passed the TAKS at a level indicating that they are “college-ready” in English Language Arts.
Anonymous: “In fact, by checking the Texas Education Agency website, the reader can access the Academic Excellence Indicator Report.”
This is true…AEIS data is available on the TEA website and is the source for the TSI (Texas Success Initiative or Higher Education Readiness Component) figures quoted in the original post. For the 2005-2006 district data, the college readiness categories start on page 11 and the TSI figures continue on page 12.
Anonymous: “From this report, you will easily note that Boerne out-performs state averages by whopping margins on everything from TAKS scores to the College Board AP, SAT, and ACT scores.”
Depends on what your definition of “whopping margins” is (2%?, 9%,? 20%? depending on which statistic you’re comparing) and whether you consider the state averages a worthwhile benchmark. In many cases, the state averages indicate poor educational achievement on a state level. I believe this does not reflect Boerne’s aspirations for its children. Specifically, I believe we have room for improvement in assuring adequate literacy skills for graduating students.
Anonymous: “I challenge the readers to find another school district in the entire San Antonio area that has better results than Boerne. Look at the AEIS reports for those school districts and see for yourself.”
Northside does better than Boerne on the TSI in English Language Arts – 62%(’05-’06). See for yourself.
Anonymous: “In my opinion, the SAT, ACT, and College Board AP scores are just a little more important…I want my kids to get into college - and there is no better preparation than high scores on college exams. On those important measures, Boerne ISD excels...”
While getting into college may be a goal, I would contend that staying in college and ultimately finishing college are more to the point. While a high SAT score may insure a student’s spot at a competitive school, the latter two goals will require adequate literacy skills.
A May 2007 Dallas-Ft. Worth Star-Telegram article reports “Half the students who enroll in Texas public colleges and universities are not prepared for college coursework and must sign up for at least one remedial class, according to the most recent statistics available from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.” (http://www.star-telegram.com/measuring/story/101368.html)
And having to take a remedial class significantly impacts a student’s chances of finishing college. According to a Texas Public Policy Foundation report, published last month, “Research demonstrates that the leading predictor that a student will drop out and not finish their college education is the need for remedial reading coursework.” (http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2007-09-PP25-remediation-bt.pdf)
TPNN goes on to note “When students take remedial courses in college, taxpayers are charged for the same education twice. Taxpayers finance coursework and skill development in high school with local property taxes and state funds. Then taxpayers finance it a second time with federal income taxes and state and local taxes when entering freshman college students take the same high school courses over again at two-year and four year public colleges…”
How much are we actually talking about in dollars and cents? The costs are substantial.
Another TPPN report (The Education Deficit in the Lone Star State; http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2005-03-remedial-ed.pdf) calculates that in 2000-2001, the cost of remediation at junior college levels alone was $415 million, and $47 million for 4 year state schools.
Anonymous: “And by the way, what exactly does this posting have to do with the Boerne Together website? Is the idea that by downgrading the schools, less people will flock here? That's a little unrealistic.”
What does it have to do with the Boerne Together website? BT position statements include “We promote positive involvement in government by creating a community of educated, active and engaged citizens.” The school district is government. The school district receives the largest chunk of taxpayer dollars and, just as we discuss how those tax dollars are spent at a county level, we should be concerned how they are spent at the school level. Are we getting what we are paying for? The above cited data indicates not, when 46% of our eleventh graders in 2006 were not able to read and write well enough to be considered “college ready”. We can do better.
Yes, it is unrealistic to see these posts as an attempt to prohibit growth and such a view is erroneous. If prohibiting growth is the desired result, we should allow such poor reading results to go unchallenged. Nothing will stymie long-term economic growth for this region more than a workforce without adequate basic skills in reading and writing.
Back to the name game- it isn't an issue of folks insisting on leaving the name Boerne out, it is an issue of using someone's full name, as is the tradition when honoring a person by naming the school after them!
Multiple schools do not use the same city name- schools are named after well known geographic areas (Caprock, Clear Creek, etc.) neighborhoods (Northside etc.) or people(Reagan, MacArthur etc.)
Either way, given that 'champion' has other uses than a person's name, it ought to be clear that this is in honor of a particular person-Sam Champion...and that is what people are wanting. Nothing lame about that.
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