We’ve previously posted online why we are not convinced that HB 4 is any real improvement to the STAAR assessment system.  In a nutshell, it does not remove high stakes (no matter what the house members said), though it was positive in that it moved away from state created assessments to nationally norm-referenced assessments and reduced assessment to the minimum required by the federal government.  So all the extra Texas assessments would have been out the window.  All that had to happen was for it to pass the Senate.  Enter the dinosaurs on the Senate Education K-16 Committee.  Assessment reform is not on their agenda.

If anyone thought for a minute that the intent of HB4 was to move away from high stakes, STAAR modeled assessment, the Senate hearing on the bill, and its committee substitute, extinguished that hope as quickly as Greg Abbott can hand over education tax dollars to private companies.

The hearing started with the Senate sponsor explaining how this bill will “fix” the problem of schools suing over the accountability rating system.  Because it is far more important that we provide these artificial and easily rigged A-F grades on schools, than that we allow the arbitrary conceptions of the TEA to be challenged in court.  It includes a provision that lets the commissioner appoint a conservator over a school district that sues the TEA over accountability, and the empowers the conservator to drop the suit. Neat trick.  We’re busted and about to lose, let’s decapitate our opponents.  But we have to have those ratings.

And to get those ratings what do we need?  Test scores.  Oh yes.  We have to have scores to crunch the data.  And the pro-test lobby was lined up to support it.  Texas business lobbyists claiming Texas businesses depend on our accountability system.  I want to remind you all that when HB 4 passed the House, we heard three things: “It removes high stakes” “it decreases assessment to the minimum” and “It will be a nationally normed reference assessment.”  This sounded great, especially taking assessment development out of the hands of the TEA.  Guess what the Senate committee substitute did?  It left unchanged the use of criterion referenced testing.  As they said “A Texas test” using “Texas TEKS”  created by the State of Texas.  This is STAAR.    Another witness mentioned that this substitute also removes new performance indicators that aren’t as “measurable” as test scores, because of fear that they would artificially “inflate” accountability ratings, because we need “clarity” and “rigor” in our school ratings.  So human factors out.  More testables, in.

And about this new focus on growth?  Turns out in the Senate committee substitute of HB 4, those BOY and MOY assessments we hear so much about are actually optional.  Which means the only assessment that can actually counted for accountability is the EOY, just like STAAR.  So where do we think the districts’ focus will be?

Now a brief aside.   HB2 which created the voucher system, requires voucher recipients to take nationally normed assessments as part of the requirements to get and use vouchers.  If Senate substitute for HB 4 had changed the state assessment to a nationally normed assessment (as the House version of the bill did), we could have compared national percentile results between voucher recipients, charter students, and traditional public school students.  By going back to criterion reference, the Senate assures that no meaningful comparison can be made about how voucher recipients are performing vis a vis public school students.  Diabolically clever.

Guess what else?  We are still going to do assessments that the federal government does not require.  The Senate substitute puts Social Studies back into the assessment cycle.  So much for that.  After all, Sen. Bettancourt thinks that not giving mandatory state assessments on social studies dishonors or veterans.  Maybe, but not as much as the braindead assessment love of this state.  We are every bit deserving of our #42 national ranking in education.

House Promises:   No high stakes
Senate Plan:  High stakes remain unchanged

House Promises: Shorter assessments
Senate Plan: Add BOY and MOY assessments, EOY assessment only needs to be shorter than STAAR “to the extent practicable”

House Promises: Nationally normed assessments
Senate Plan: TEA created criterion referenced assessments

House Promises: Remove assessments not required by NCLB/ESSA
Senate Plan: Keep assessments that are not required by NCLB/ESSA, including US History and English 2 as exit level assessments

So IF this legislation passes, we will see (1) the TEA develop a new TEKS based test that is (2) not aligned to any national instruments for (3) assessments both required by federal law and added by state choice.  High stakes remains in HS graduations.  High stakes remains in accountability.  The only change you will see is more assessment and more intervention.  Thank you for playing.  THIS IS TEXAS.