Staar Testseducsome Tex. Legislators Being Duped --Anything Less Than This Doesn't Make Sense to Me! - Google Groups

7/30/2019 Staar Tests__educ__some Tex. Legislators Being Duped --Anything Less Than This Doesn't Make Sense to Me! - Go

1/10

3/23/13 7:TAAR TESTS**educ**SOME TEX. LEGISLATORS BEING DUPED --ANYTHING LESS THAN THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME! - Google Groups

Page 1ttps://groups.google.com/forum/print/msg/ttprw/1zgNXeX39mo/yqT4bqmazvYJ

Google Groups

STAAR TESTS**educ**SOME TEX. LEGISLATORS BEING DUPED --ANYTHINGLESS THAN THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME!

Norma Jeter Mar 21, 2013 1:30 A

Posted in group: Texas Tea Party Republican Women

So many public voices screaming too many tests! they are justteaching to the tests! Its no wonder these voices are wearing down thelegislators! I implore you to read this, and encourage the legislators to doso as well!

PLEASE ASK THEM TO STOP AND READ THIS LOGICAL, COMMON-SENSE TOTALLY NEW PLAN OF TESTING

! if they want our public schools to teach what all students need toknow, then the STAAR/EOCs must continue as scheduled.

Otherwise, how will we know the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge &Skills) are being taught and learned. The trial/transitional test scores are

already telling a good story and as an example, theyve already revealedthat CSCOPE SCHOOLS ARE 37% BELOW OTHERS IN THEIR TESTSCORES!

Texas new plan will require students to be taught traditional, back-to-the-basics skills that, once learned, will equip them to think, analyze, andreason based upon a large body of foundational knowledge. This is whatevery parent should want for his children.

Teachers should be excitedbecause they now have clear, academic,fact-based, objectively measured goals to meet at each grade leveland in each course. They should feel secure in knowing that the

STAAR/EOCs which their students take will contain questions(largely objectively scored) that they have prepared their students toanswer. Teachers will no longer have to worry about teaching theirstudents to play the TAKS game as they have since 1997.

Some Texas Legislators Being Duped


2/10



by Donna Garner

1.25.13 (Republished on 3.19.13)

http://educationviews.org/some-texas-legislators-being-duped/

I hate to say it, but some of our Texas Legislators are being duped! Theywant to delay/stop the new STAAR/End-of-Course tests from beingimplemented into our public schools. These duped Legislators do notrealize that if they want our public schools to teach what all studentsneed to know, then the STAAR/EOCs must continue as scheduled.

TEXAS TO REMAIN INDEPENDENT

Texas has chosen to remain independent of the Obama administrationstakeover of the public schools through the Common Core Standards/Raceto the Top. Even though 45 states and D. C. signed on to the CCS, Texas

did not.

Gov. Perry and former-Commissioner of Education Robert Scott saidNo. The new Commissioner of Education Michael Williams said No.Our elected Texas State Board of Education said No.

TEXAS NEW EDUCATION PLAN

The SBOE not only said No but set about developing the best fact-based curriculum standards in the entire United States. We now havefour, new curriculum documents (adopted since May 2008) called TEKS
http://educationviews.org/some-texas-legislators-being-duped/


3/10



that tell teachers WHAT to teach (notHOW to teach it) at each grade levelK through 12 in the following four subject areas:English/Language/Arts/Reading, Science, Social Studies, and Math.

New tests (STAAR/End-of-Course) based upon our new curriculumstandards were administered on a trial basis last school year to givestudents and their teachers an idea of the type of fact-based questionsthat would be asked.

This school year the sophomores on down will be given theSTAAR/EOCs, and the results will become a part of the new publicaccountability system for schools.

As the sophomores advance through high school, the old TAKS tests(built upon the 1997 subjective, mushy TEKS) will vanish. In fact, whenthis years juniors take the TAKS, it will be the last time that Texas highschools have to administer the TAKS to a large number of students. Afterthis year, only those juniors who failed the TAKS will have to be retested;and the rest of the high school students and their teachers can focus

totally on the new TEKS and STAAR/EOCs.

Because the new STAAR/EOCs are timed (4 hours per test) and the TAKStests are untimed (takes all day to administer one test), high schools willhave a much less time-consuming and complicated testing schedule afterthis school year.

The new TEKS and the new STAAR/EOCs are guiding teachers todevelop new curriculum units, and students in our Texas public schoolsfrom K to 12 will eventually move completely away from the highlysubjective and mushy 1997 TEKS curriculum standards and thesubjectively scored TAKS tests.


4/10



Texas new plan will require students to be taught traditional, back-to-the-basics skills that, once learned, will equip them to think, analyze, andreason based upon a large body of foundational knowledge. This is whatevery parent should want for his children.

LEFT-LEANERS FURIOUS WITH TEXAS

The Obama administration and the left-leaners are furious with Texasindependent spirit and wants to entrap our state. They fear that if ourTexas public school students can be taught a large body of academicknowledge and then can think independently for themselves, they will be

nobodys fool and will not be easily manipulated by those who supportthe social justice agenda that is trying to destroy Americanexceptionalism.

BASIC PRINCIPLE OF EDUCATION

This is a basic principle of education: Whatever gets tested, getstaught. This has been true throughout the history of schooling; and it isnot necessarily a bad thing. It is important for both teachers andstudents to be held accountable to a high standard because the testsspur everyone to strive to reach that high standard.

The catch is that those standards (the new TEKS) must be very clear andspecific for each grade level/course level; they are. They must be based

upon objective standards that can be tested mostly through right-or-wrong answers; the new STAAR/EOCs are.

It is the subjectivity of the 1997 TEKS and TAKS that destroyed thefairness aspect because the value system of the evaluator became the


5/10



decidingfactor not right-or-wrong answers. The students TAKS scorescould not be trusted to prove how much he had learned in his courses butrather indicated whether he had learned ways to get the evaluator to givehim a good score.

MEDIA AND EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENT JOINING FORCES

Some Republicans in the Texas Legislature (even a few conservatives)are being duped by the very agenda that they supposedly are against. Theleft-leaning media loves subjectivity in our public schools because that isthe way for the social justice agenda to be promoted through studentscurriculum and testing materials no right-or wrong, no good-or-evil,

everything relative to the situation.

Subjectivity tied to project-based learning have combined to infusemulticulturalism, political correctness, diversity, environmentalextremism, redistribution of wealth, and the entire social justice agendainto the classroom.

Most news agencies instead of supporting unbiased news reporting havebecome indoctrination tools of the Left. Therefore, it should not be asurprise that so many of our Texas newspapers have joined up with thenational press to try to promote Obamas Common Core Standards/Raceto the Top.

HOW TO BRING DOWN TEXAS NEW PLAN

But in Texas, to get that agenda into our public schools, the media firsthas to prejudice the public through biased reporting against our new fact-based TEKS and largely objectively scored STAAR/EOCs. Unfortunately,many in the education establishment have joined forces with the media.


6/10



The new TEKS and STAAR/EOCs require public schools to teach suchimportant academic skills as:

Phonemic awareness/phonics (instead of whole language/balancedliteracy/guided reading)

Correct grammar/usage/spelling (instead of invented spelling andwriting the way you feel)

Expository and persuasive writing (instead of the subjective, touchy-feely personal essay)

Research skills (instead of emphasizing students feelings,emotions, and beliefs)

Addition/subtraction/multiplication/division (instead of reform maththat emphasizes the process more than the right answer)

American exceptionalism/heroes/heroines/FoundingFathers/Constitution (instead of revisionist history)

The origin of man (instead of evolution being taught as fact insteadof theory)

For the Texas public schools to move into the teaching of the newcurriculum requirements and new tests, educators will have to put the1997 TEKS and TAKS behind them and develop new teaching units.


7/10



Many in the education establishment are vendors who have made hugeprofits from the 1997 TEKS and TAKS.

Others in the education establishment are simply afraid for parents to findout that The Emperor Has No Clothes. They are afraid that when thefact-based, right-or-wrong STAAR/EOC results are made public and thenew accountability system goes into effect, students will not measure upto a more rigorous standard!

However, isnt this what parents need to know? If a student has not

learned to sound out words with ease so that he can read well, dontparents need to know that? If their child cannot write a completesentence correctly, shouldnt parents find this out before it is too late? Ifa child does not know his math facts well enough to calculate the rightanswer, shouldnt parents be made aware of that through an objectiveinstrument such as the STAAR/EOCs rather than waiting too long andallowing the student to become a math derelict?

HIDING FROM THE TRUTH IS WRONG

Hiding from the truth solves no problems. Getting rid of theSTAAR/EOCs serves no purpose except to allow the educationestablishment to continue with the 1997 TEKS and TAKS.

It is the public accountability of the STAAR/EOCs that will force teachersto put aside the subjective, mushy ways of the past and move theirclassrooms into solid, fact-based, academic curriculum from which willarise educated high-school graduates who will become the educatedcollege students and/or workforce that Texas so badly needs.


8/10



IN A NUTSHELL

We must require the Texas public schools to teach the new TEKS withfidelity.

We must leave the STAAR/EOCs in place.

Even though Pearson (largest publishing company in the world) producedthe STAAR/EOCs, the former Commissioner of Education Robert Scottand the people who were close to him at the Texas Education Agencymonitored the STAAR/EOCs very carefully to make sure that theyfollowed Texas law and are aligned with the new TEKS adopted by theelected members of the Texas State Board of Education.

GET EXCITED ABOUT NEW TEKS AND TESTS

Parents should be excitedthat their children are taking the

STAAR/EOCs which will finally give them and their children anobjective way to measure their childrens academic progress.

Teachers should be excitedbecause they now have clear, academic,fact-based, objectively measured goals to meet at each grade leveland in each course. They should feel secure in knowing that theSTAAR/EOCs which their students take will contain questions

(largely objectively scored) that they have prepared their students toanswer. Teachers will no longer have to worry about teaching theirstudents to play the TAKS game as they have since 1997.

Administrators should be excitedbecause if they encourage theirteaching staffs to follow the new TEKS, students scores on the


9/10



STAAR/EOCs will reflect success; and their school ratings willclimb.

TEXANS MUST FIGHT HARD

We Texans must fight hard to keep our state out of the clutches of thefederal government, and the STAAR/EOCs are a way to make sure thatTexas students receive the quality education that will make them theinsightful future leaders of our country.

SIDE NOTE

Now many of the 45 states and D. C. are having buyers remorsebecause the parents in those states are realizing their children will bedumbed down by Obamas Common Core Standards. The statestaxpayers will be left to pay for the millions of dollars in technologyrequired to administer the national assessments and to create a nationaldatabase that will collect personally intrusive information sent to D. C.

Common Core Corrupts 1.23.13 Part 1 --

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338428/common-core-corrupts-michelle-malkin#

Rotten to the Core 1.25.13 Part 2 --http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/01/25/rotten-to-the-core-part-2-readin-writin-and-deconstructionism-n1497018/print
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/01/25/rotten-to-the-core-part-2-readin-writin-and-deconstructionism-n1497018/printhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338428/common-core-corrupts-michelle-malkin


10/10



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON TEXAS PLAN FOR SUCCESS

1.10.13 To Gripers: Let New Plan for Texas Public Schools Continue --http://educationviews.org/to-gripers-let-new-plan-for-texas-public-schools-continue/

Donna Garner

[email protected]
http://educationviews.org/to-gripers-let-new-plan-for-texas-public-schools-continue/

Documents

Staar Tests__educ__some Tex. Legislators Being Duped --Anything Less Than This Doesn't Make Sense to Me! - Google Groups

Staar Testseducsome Tex. Legislators Being Duped --Anything Less Than This Doesn't Make Sense to Me! - Google Groups