February 3, 2012
Scott's Comments Stir STAAR Debate
There has been a lot of media attention and political conversation this week following recent comments made by Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott at the TASA Midwinter Conference.
"I believe that testing is good for some things, but the system we have created has become a perversion of its original intent," Scott said. "The intent to improve teaching and learning has gone too far afield."
His comments sparked criticism on many fronts and prompted a full-page, newspaper ad from the Texas Association of Business decrying any retreat from current accountability standards and assessments.
"The new testing standards begin this spring, but opponents of a quality public education system
are aggressively pressing to roll back reforms, delay tests and render the results meaningless," the ad stated. "They're concerned that the results will show a Texas public school system that's underperforming and
failing our students."
In response, Susan Kellner, a trustee of Spring Branch ISD, and two parents of students who attend the district submitted a guest column in the Houston Chronicle.
"We encourage and support our educators for their hard work to hold students to a high standard, but the bottom line is that school and student assessment must be administered fairly," the three wrote. "Essentially, the state has put the cart before the horse by placing new high stakes accountability on our students while deferring accountability on our schools."
School board members support a fair and rigorous accountability system, but think it patently unfair to expect students to continually meet higher state standards as support from the state decreases -- most recently exhibited by state funding cuts of $4 billion to the Foundation School Program and $1.4 billion to grant programs administered by TEA.
