Giving Schools More Control Over New Exams

        Beginning in the spring the first Texas ninth graders will begin to take the new end-of-course exam known as STAAR. STAAR is a tougher exam that will replace TAKS exams with hope that this new test will better prepare students for college. The new exam has been met with a large amount of negativity from both parents and educators who believe the demands behind the new exam will put too much pressure on students. The negativity has led the leading House Public Education Committee chairman Rob Eissler, to propose a bill that would do away with the exams’ cumulative score requirement which says that a student’s exam scores will count for fifteen percent towards their course grade. As a result the new bill would allow districts to set their own policies on how much an exam weighed on a student’s final grade. The bill was not passed and now there has been an amendment proposed by Thomas Ratliff that would use the Board of Education’s authority to set standards for course credit to offer more “flexibility” to school districts. In order for the amendment proposal to take effect this spring it has to be on the agenda for the November board meeting.

         I completely disagree with the amendment proposal because the base behind the STAAR exam is to encourage students to take education seriously and be better prepared for college. If the amendment were to pass it would encourage students to put little to no effort into the new exam. After all why would students try on an exam if it does not count towards their grade? At this point it appears that the only way to improve overall student achievement is to force students to take education seriously by not only implementing the STAAR exam but also counting the exam’s scores for some percentage towards the student’s course grade. Passing this amendment would defeat the whole purpose behind the new exam. As Rob Eissler said, “what it does is deemphasize the end-of-course exam as a statewide assessment and puts more credence on local curriculum application, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a statewide assessment.”

The Real Concern

            In “NewSTAAR Concerns” fellow classmate Claudio Corona discusses the approval by Texas Legislators to replace TAKS exams with a tougher exam known as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, also known as STAAR. The base behind the approval of STAAR is based on the idea that this new test will better prepare students for the next grade and eventually college. The STARR exam will be tougher on students because Math and Science questions will no longer be multiple choice rather they will be open-ended, students will be required to write two essays as opposed to one when compared to the TAKS exam, and the exam will have a four hour time limit. The exam’s scores will count for fifteen percent towards the student’s course grade, which is a main concern for parents and teachers. If the students do not average a passing grade with the combination of the exam’s score and course grade they will be allowed to retake the test at an attempt to obtain a passing grade. However, the first scores of the exam will determine the student’s Grade Point Average of the year. Anderson High school’s campus parents and teachers have proposed a letter to the school district to halt the mixing of the course grade and exam to determine the student’s GPA.

Claudio Corona argues against the STARR exam and believes that teachers should be attempting to eliminate the exam completely instead of simply fighting the inclusion of STARR to the student’s course grade. Corona argues that the tests scores should not affect the course grade because exams do not correlate to a student’s intelligence. He believes the exam does not take into consideration students whose primary language is not English which in turn will make the exam even more difficult for them.

I agree that exams do not correlate to a student’s intelligence but at the same time I am in favor of implementing STARR. I see why Legislators would approve of such a measure. According to studentsfirst.org, “15-year-olds in the U.S. placed 25th out of 30 countries in math performance and 21st in science performance.” Furthermore despite previous efforts the average scores for 17-year-olds in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests have “remained stagnant.” I understand that the implementation of STARR does appear a bit extreme but since previous efforts to improve overall student achievement have failed perhaps the only way to see improvement is to force students to take school seriously by implementing this exam. I believe teachers are not to blame for a student’s lack of improvement because as teachers they possess limited power; teachers cannot force students to pay attention.  I believe the parent’s lack of discipline is to blame. Teachers can punish students to a certain extent but even then there is no guarantee that it will have an effect on their behavior, as educators teachers can only do so much. However, what educators can do is support the implementation of a harder exam, such as STARR, that will hopefully encourage students to improve their achievements….keyword being hopefully.