During Monday night's Board Meeting, the Board received good news about the District's performance on this year's TAKS and SDAA II testing. The PowerPoint presentation from the meeting details the successes of the District and the continued increases in performance by our students.
Our successes, which include being an exemplary district in writing across all student groups, and having improvement in 23 of 26 performance areas with 12 being rated exemplary and 10 being rated recognized bears out the problem with the current accountability system. Can you imagine if a corporation with 26 divisions was judged not on the success of 22, but on the performance of a few individuals in one division. While accountability is important, the system should reward rather than penalize the kind of success and continuous improvement experienced by Spring Branch.
From the District's website:
Spring Branch ISD students continue to show improvement on the 2007 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, according to preliminary TAKS results presented June 25 to the district’s Board of Trustees during its regular monthly meeting.
Keith Haffey, executive director of Spring Branch ISD’s Department of Accountability and Research, presented the district’s preliminary 2007 TAKS and State Developed Alternative Assessment II (SDAA II) results. The 2007 preliminary results were compared to passing rates in 2006.
Final results will not be tabulated until after all retesting is completed later this summer.
Preliminary report highlights:
- SBISD students improved in 23 of 26 performance areas
- Students maintained performance in two areas
- Exemplary ratings increased from nine areas in 2006 to 12 areas in 2007
- 10 areas were rated recognized this year versus 13 areas in 2006
- four areas were judged acceptable in both 2006 and 2007
- SBISD students exceeded the exemplary rating in writing across all student groups
- The district narrowed gaps toward the exemplary district rating to six or fewer points in reading/English language arts and social studies
- The district also narrowed gaps toward the recognized district rating in math (15 to 5 points) and in science (22 to 12 points)
The Texas Education Agency’s campus rating system includes exemplary, or 90 percent or more students passing; recognized, or 75 percent through 89 percent passing; academically acceptable and academically unacceptable.
Applying these standards to student performance by subject area, SBISD students performed at the exemplary level in 12 areas, up from 9 areas in 2006. Ten areas reached the recognized level, while 4 areas were deemed academically acceptable.
Overall, all 5 student groups measured reached exemplary performance levels in writing. In addition, performance in reading/English language arts and social studies improved to within 5 points or less of the exemplary level of 90 percent or more, while gaps narrowed in math and science toward the state’s new higher level for recognized, now 75 percent.
Superintendent of Schools Duncan Klussmann congratulated SBISD students, teachers, staff and community members for a job well done. He noted that the current Texas accountability system has no reward for earning generally high scores when a school district is ranked by its lowest performing subgroup, or score.
"We need a new system of accountability in our state that recognizes and rewards what is really happening in our schools," he said. Many SBISD schools may be named exemplary or recognized campuses, based on preliminary 2007 TAKS results.
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