Features » February 11, 2004

Texas Testing Massacre

By Bill Ayers

Candidate Bush trumpeted the academic progress of students under a reform regime built on a single standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Not only were test-scores leaping upward but the “achievement gap” between students of color and their white counterparts was disappearing. This remarkable accomplishment was dubbed the “Texas Miracle,” not merely an important piece of Bush’s electoral strategy, but the phenomenon that catapulted Rod Paige, Houston’s school superintendent, to the Bush cabinet as Secretary of Education.

But like so many of Bush’s claims, the “Texas Miracle” turned out to be both extravagant and false. In June 2003 the Texas Education Agency discovered a pattern of rampant undercounting of dropouts, dramatic overestimations of college-bound graduates and falsified reports concerning crimes in schools. Test scores were inflated, successes wildly exaggerated, failure swept into the broom closet.

This is worth noting now because in his State of the Union message, President Bush vowed to stay the course: “We are regularly testing every child on the fundamentals,” he exulted, highlighting the centerpiece of his signature education law: the No Child Left Behind Act. He deemed his critics timid defenders of the status quo who favor “weakening standards and accountability” and announced that “the days of simply shuffling children along from grade to grade without them learning the basics” are over.

The tragedy is that the Bush policy distracts from a more hopeful path to genuine school improvement. If we are committed to free high-quality public schooling available to all we should campaign for a comprehensive program of change. Equity cannot be the goal. Equity must be the starting point.

It is no mystery why a high school in the suburbs that can raise $15,000 per child on its tax base, and spends even more, does better than a high school on the South Side of Chicago that can raise only $7,000 per child. The inequitable distribution of educational resources is a dagger at the heart of schooling in a democracy.

We don’t need any more threats or punishments; we need support for teachers, families, students and communities in their efforts to set and meet high standards. With its high-stakes testing, No Child Left Behind functions more as an autopsy than a diagnostic.

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• Reader Comments

  Can you provide specific statistics?

  Does accountability exist any more, whether in local, state, federal government and/or private industry?  To whom would you recommend that your child look to as a role model?

  Posted by Lori Ross on Feb 14, 2004 at 3:17 AM

  I took the TAAS test back in 10th grade (I was in private school before so I took only the “exit TAAS” you take tenth grade). You have to take it to graduate and it is mind numbingly easy. If the TAAS test is some sort of miracle example no wonder our educational system is so screwed up. Also, they threw the taas out the window last year and replaced it with the TAKS test which is supposed to be improved but i highly doubt that is so.

  Posted by Lana on Feb 15, 2004 at 5:01 AM

  The testing is amazing to me, mostly because the education system here has been, in some ways, very similar, and I think that the introduction of the very strict testing requirements, is, as implied, a step backwards.  Here each high school has a seperate entrance test and the tests the students take determine what area the students will study for pretty much the rest of their lives, failure indicating, in many instances, failure for the rest of the student’s life.  My wife teaches at the wide end of the funnel and most students realize that unless they are in the top international class, the schooling does not really matter.  My wife’s school has about a quarter drop out rate after the first year.  Our friend that teaches at the Arts Design high school in the area says he suffers a third drop out within the first year and a total drop out rate of one half.  The students realize the tests for what they are, a labeling system, failure indicates that they are forever doomed to it.  The teachers also resign themselves to the tests.  Why bother teaching students that will fail anyway?  It is sad to see America fall backwards on their education system… 

  Posted by T K on Feb 18, 2004 at 8:12 AM

  We had to transfer to Texas about 20 months ago and we are miserable.  Our daughter started 5th grade here in the fall of 2002 and was reading books in language arts that she had read in 3rd grade in Illinois.  The standards are abysmal, and everything is dumbed down so that the test scores will look high.

  Also, Texas won’t administer national tests like the Iowa or Stanford-Binet because the scam would be exposed.  Bush’s “Texas Miracle” is nothing but Enron-style book-cooking.  Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. 

  I had always been vehemently opposed to any kind of home school until Texas passed a law last spring that forces every student to recite the pledge of allegiance and observe a moment of silence - both of which are violations of church/state separation.  I fought hard against it, but it passed. 

  After that, it was either home school or send her to public school and file a lawsuit that would ultimately leave my child open to the sort of abuse that goes with the territory when you are pitted against religious fanatics.  There are no secular private schools anywhere near our home.  Luckily I am a former college instructor, and we have the financial resources to give our daughter a top-notch education until we can escape Texas.

  We are desperately trying to move to another state but the job market is bleak.  I think that Bush and his neo-cons WANT to keep children stupid so they’ll vote Republican when they grow up. 

  Posted by L. Weatherford on Feb 19, 2004 at 9:14 PM

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