STAAR, Why Are The Grades So Low?

Walt Gardner, a writer for the Houston Chronicle, published an editorial on March 8th, 2019 titled "STAAR results not necessarily what they seem". Gardner starts the editorial by stating that during this time of high importance taxpayers (the public in general) should have the right to know whether both schools and teachers are performing well. Gardner does a good job of explaining in detail what exactly the "STAAR" test is and what the state of Texas has to implement into the test in order for it to remain "discriminate between strong and weak students but not against groups of students". 

     The opinion piece also does a good job in explaining the decision behind Texas ultimately not implementing common core with the main reason being because of the belief that it interfered with control of local education. Another big concern brought into question by Gardner is over the Texas Education Agency defending its testing items after a company called MetaMetrics ran some tests using the results from STAAR exams by using Lexile measures (which measure students reading abilities) and the company concluded that the students were at a sufficient reading level, while STAAR determined the students were below average.

     I believe that Gardner did an amazing in questioning the Texas Education Agencies decision to uphold the STAAR test. Gardner made her biggest point by stating that the test should be used as a frame of reference in order to give schools and teachers constructive criticism but it is instead used against "persistently failing schools whose students do not measure up" and with the actions being "the state takes them over, or teachers are summarily fired".  Overall Gardner uses concrete evidence to support her claims which make her opinion piece a good read.

     

Should Texas Teachers Receive A Raise?

The editorial board of the Dallas News website published a piece titled "Here's why every teacher shouldn't get a $5,000 raise" on February 27th, 2019. The editorial discusses recently approved Senate Bill 3 which was unanimously approved on February 25th, 2019 by the Texas Senate Committee on Finance and will move on to be debated in a full Senate. Senate Bill 3 would give classroom teachers $5,000 beginning next year and approximately 350,000 educators would be eligible for this raise. This means that the total amount would increase by about $1,750,000. While the editorial board finds the intention of Senate Bill 3 to be wholehearted they also find it to be flawed and therefore the reason why it should not be passed. The board argues that by giving every single teacher the automatic raise we would be doing students a further disservice by not implementing any form of a teacher "reward system". I find myself conflicted in these regards. While, yes, public school teachers should be making more money I also find it to be reasonable to have some form of "prerequisite" so to speak in order to receive the $5,000 raise. In today's public school systems there are actions enforced for teachers to reach a certain quota with the amount (percentage) of kids each teacher have pass standardized assessments. Teachers having the constant pressure of standardized assessment satisfaction rates are already enough strain on them, therefore, this shouldn't be further punishment disabling them from receiving a raise. I do not have the answer for how these raises should be distributed but I do agree with the board on the Texas Senate needing to find a reasonable method in doing so.