Dallas News – by Jeffrey WeisSeveral superintendents have taken an unusually public stance against the state’s school accountability system in advance of this week’s release of STAAR results. One letter by the head of Paris ISD drew attention from East Texas to Bangkok.
Paris ISD Superintendent Paul Jones posted his letter to parents on Friday, de-emphasizing the importance of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests.
“These assessments … reflect a punitive, one-size-fits-all test-driven system,” he wrote. “Our students are much more than a once-a-year pencil and bubble sheet test. Your child means immeasurably more than just a number generated in Austin. There is no test that can assess all of what makes each child unique.”
He sent it to his principals so they could use it in their weekly newsletters. A Paris ISD staffer posted it to the district homepage late Friday afternoon.
When he got to work on Monday, he found more than 75 emails about his letter.
“In case you didn’t know, you are becoming quite the star on social media,” one Plano woman wrote.
He didn’t know — and hadn’t imagined it would happen, he said.
Paris ISD
Paris has been challenged on the state tests in recent years. Fewer students passed most of the exams than the state average.
Was the letter an attempt to get parents ready for more bad news? Jones denied it.
“We’re going to celebrate if we blow the roof off those tests,” he said. “But we know that’s not what it’s all about.”
Van, Longview ISD
Superintendents of two small East Texas districts, Van ISD and Longview ISD, also recently sent out letters to parents using similar language.
“Success cannot be measured by what happens during a mere four-hour window in a stress-filled environment,” wrote Longview Superintendent James Wilcox late last month.
“At Van ISD we believe in accountability — but feel this single test cannot measure what we know about your child.” wrote Van Superintendent Don Dunn.
Coppell ISD
That superintendents feel free to so publicly attack the state system says something about the political climate, said Jeff Turner, head of Coppell ISD and a superintendent who has been particularly public in criticizing the system.
“The fact that he can get away with writing something like that without being called down by [his school] board or community just shows that he is reflecting the feelings of the parents,” Turner said of Jones. “He won’t be the last to write it.”
This week, the Texas Education Agency is sending the results of STAAR tests for grades three through eight to school districts. Next week, statewide STAAR results should be released.
Critics of the test say that preparing for STAAR, including a concentration on test-taking strategy, has hurt education in many classrooms.
Hudson ISD
Mary Ann Whiteker, superintendent of Hudson ISD, near Lufkin, has been a notable critic of STAAR for several years. Last year, she sent out a letter announcing that her district would do zero preparation strictly for the test or even mention the tests in class. Instead, the teachers would simply teach the required state curriculum.
And last year’s STAAR results for the high-achieving district were about the same as the year before.
Last month, Whiteker sent out another letter.
“Hudson ISD has a long-standing tradition for excellence. This tradition was not founded on a state assessment system that labeled students, teachers, campuses based on a narrow, rigid curriculum that prepared students for the ‘next exam!’” she wrote.
After the letter went up on the district website, it got 408,000 pageviews, she said.
On Wednesday, Whiteker got a look at her district’s STAAR results: About the same as the prior two years, and certainly no worse.
But doesn’t that confirm what state education officials have said in the face of criticism? Teach the curriculum and the test will take care of itself? Paris ISD’s Jones said that, regardless of the scores, there’s too much emphasis placed on the tests.
“I think we’re making a lot of great test-takers out there,” he said.
I don’t know about the other towns, but the people of Paris, TX are farmers and small town country folk. They are not your average big city folk that have been corrupted or that generally give in to Federal Government demands. They are still strong willed and strong minded in limited government and don’t gave a shit about what the federal government says. Kinda the way cities and towns should be, if the Feds and our treasonous government would ever get off our asses and let us be.
🙂
You wouldn’t see any of these photos in Paris, TX. LOL
http://mom.me/parenting/6389-kids-leashes/?icid=maing-grid7|maing11|dl3|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D479529
Haven’t seen any in Paris or Sulpher Springs (both small towns). However, I’ve seen kids on leashes many times at the Grapevine Mall just near the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (big city area).
What is this world coming to when we start treating our kids like dogs……Just more conditioning of our children to the chains of slavery. Unfrigginbelievable…..
Yup.