Oct
10

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) recently announced they are postponing the public release of the most recent A-F Accountability System, which is heavily weighted on the STAAR test results. It’s not clear that, if the in next month, they are going to manipulate the test scores to make schools look bad or worse. The original release that was scheduled for late September, was the “bad”. Bad, in that TEA was intending to take unprecedented measures to manipulate the data so that some districts wind up with a lower accountability rating even if their students scored the same or better on a particular campus. “Worse” could be that TEA has another month to manipulate the data to make even more campuses and districts look like they’re failing when they’re not.

The purpose of an Accountability System should be to give the public and taxpayers a clear picture of how their tax dollars are being spent in terms of student achievement. Their proposed methods are convoluted and will not accurately reflect the results of the state assessments. That’s why you have Districts suing TEA right now, and rightly so. I rate TEA’s A-F Accountability System an F. Also, why can’t the TEA propose an accountability system that isn’t based almost completely on one test? There’s a lot more that goes into student achievement than just a one-time, high stakes test.
So why would the TEA be a party to the crime of ignoring the successes of public school districts? Simple politics. The TEA Commissioner is appointed and allowed to stay in office at the whim of the Governor. The Governor wants to spend public dollars for private schools. The rhetoric, though wrong and harmful to the students of this state, has to be that schools are failing and need another option paid for with public dollars.