A day in the distant future . . .
In the end, Texas decided it just couldn’t stand all the disruption.
All the education laid to waste. All the time spent standardizing
every nod and wink. All that effort calibrating numbers to the benefit
of too few.
All that commotion making sure that conditions were controlled, that
no one was cheating. All those investigations if someone was.
All that. It all became too much.
So, they did away with TAKS. All of it.
Ironically, the problem that finally killed Texas Assessment of
Knowledge and Skills was, simply, being unable to find a day to test
without disruption. Texas ultimately found out there was no such day.
The first crack that caused TAKS’ ultimate collapse formed in the
winter of 2008. That’s when the Texas Education Agency announced that a
testing date had to be moved. The reason? Voters would be participating
in a primary election on testing day. Many schools serve as polling
sites.
“By moving testing dates, we can preserve schools as polling places
and maintain a calm, quiet, secure testing environment for our
students,” said State Education Commissioner Robert Scott.
Voters might have rubbed their eyes to think that by standing in a
school lobby or cafeteria they would disrupt anything. After all, back
in 2008 voting had become much less disruptive as votes were cast by
machine — replacing the deafening sound of pencils on paper ballots.
Beginning of end
Little did policymakers realize back in 2008 that moving testing
from election day was a precursor for the whole system’s downfall.
And why? Because as they looked at the calendar, they realized they couldn’t find a nondisruptive day.
The state had always held testing in the spring. But in 2010 it
decided that the prospect of disruptive thunderstorms or the tap-tap of
raindrops took a whole three months of prime testing days off the table.
That left winter, but the migrating of noisy geese loomed as too
disruptive. Texas at first attempted to reroute the geese using the
Texas Air National Guard. But the jets proved too disruptive for
students testing.
That left autumn. But if testing happened in autumn the state, and
its school districts by proxy, couldn’t hammer teachers and students
mercilessly for months about the state test. It couldn’t raise
anxieties leading to one climactic moment where no one could sneeze.
And invariably someone did.
Finally, Texas decided the system was all wrong. Not just wrong
pedagogically. It wasn’t right. TAKS was a poor diagnostic tool
relative to each student’s needs. It was really only in place to
harangue teachers and make false comparisons about schools.
Texas did not give up “accountability” after it abolished TAKS. What
it did was provide online testing to make sure that every student was
learning key elements.
Now, in the post-TAKS future, instead of taking a (drumroll, please)
test once a year as they did back in 2008, students at various points
log on without fanfare and take a state test — not the test. Actually it’s many variations.
The state has countless online versions of what it once required as
stop-everything state testing. Now, all these years into the future and
post-TAKS, instead of using testing to hit teachers over the head with
a ball peen hammer, the state mandates online testing to see simply if
students are mastering key concepts.
Now, in the future, if students are failing they log on as many times as needed to a state site to demonstrate mastery.
This doesn’t fit into the old paradigm of “gotcha” education policy
with TAKS. It does fit into the new paradigm of putting diagnostics
first, as well as testing for individual needs.
Those students who have mastery show it and never hear again about it.
One side effect is that with this approach to testing, voters can
shuffle their feet and scratch their heads in any school any day.
And geese can migrate without being disturbed by the testing below.
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