Nearly one third of Texas 8th graders reach 9th grade having failed TAKS
By Molly Bloom | Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 11:28 AM
According to a Texas Education Agency report on grade-level retention, i.e., students being held back, released Friday, about 28 percent of eighth graders statewide failed the reading and math TAKS in the 2006-7 school year. But almost all of those eighth graders—97 percent of them—were promoted to ninth grade anyway.
(TEA also reports that more Texas twelfth graders were held back in 2006 than in the previous year, perhaps because of the requirement that seniors pass the tougher exit-level TAKS in order to graduate.)
In Austin, about 15 percent of eighth graders failed the reading TAKS and about 35 percent failed the math TAKS in 2006-7. (You can find stats for other school districts here.)
Third graders are supposed to pass the reading TAKS in order to be promoted to the next grade. Fifth graders are supposed to pass the reading and math TAKS in order to be promoted to the next grade. Starting in 2007-8, eighth graders are too. But a student who fails his or her reading and math TAKS can still be promoted if the student’s teacher and parents and the school principal all agree that it would be a good idea to promote him or her.
Austin schools are much more likely to promote third and fifth graders who fail the reading or math TAKS than schools statewide, according to 2006-8 TEA data. Promotion rates for TAKS failers are also generally above the state average in a number of other local school districts, including Round Rock, Leander and Pflugerville.
I'm so happy to see that The No Child Left Behind initiative related TAKS test has been so effective at improving grades and education.
What does it actually say when teachers have spent a third of a school year teaching the TAKS test, and the kids STILL can't pass it?
When school districts stop penalizing good, creative teachers that know how to educate for teaching "outside curriculum" and instead give them the tools to educate kids, then we'll see a change. When parents want to spend more time worrying about whether or not a teacher may tell them something they don't personally agree with, and if their child got their feelings hurt because the teacher had to discipline them, you are effectively tying the teachers hands with bureaucratic red tape and paperwork that takes away from their ability to educate the kids and maintain order in a classroom.
Teachers anymore do not teach THE most critical skills. How to learn, how to think, and how to reason. There's no inspiration for thought. The bulk of what teachers teach, is rote memorization. Sure, it can fill you head with facts and statistics, but it damn sure doesn't teach a kid HOW to learn. I'd take one teacher that can inspired a kid to think over 20 that sit in a classroom and follow a curriculum to the letter
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1. Serve as a daycare (or prison if necessary) so the parents can contribute to a labor pool.
2. Train the upcoming adults of tomorrow to contribute to a labor pool.
When you teach people to think, they are a bigger threat to the status quo. Dumb people are much easier to manage. All you have to do is scare them enough, and they'll do anything you want them to do.
Sound familiar?
1) We are only allowed to hold back 3 students per grade...
2) We are only allowed to have 3 students per grade in special ed...
3) Only something like 11% of sped students at any school can be African-American...
Now a student is supposed to enter my class at DRA18. But this year in my class I have one student at DRA-1, 2 at DRA-3, 2 at DRA-10. That is almost 1 third of my class. (I have another third that is below level but I will be able to catch them up.) One of these low kids is already in sped... for a whopping 30 min. a day (she is a 10). Two more are likely to qualify for sped. but both are African-American... So one of them will not be placed so I will continue to have to support a lvl 3 student. There is no way for me to get a child from level 3 to level 28 by the end of the year, and it is no fault of my own. She gets 3 different interventions daily. It breaks my heart that this child will not get the services she needs. There is another teacher with at least 3 students below level 10 as well. That is 6. I am pretty sure there are at least 5 more. So out of 11 students... 3 will be held back, 3 will be in sped so will be advanced and the other 5 will be advanced because we cannot hold them back.
It just sucks.
They set up a system, so deeply laden in stupid, bureaucratic goals, they get lost from what their true goal should be. Educating kids, not just to pass test, but to be able to gain the skills to allow them to learn for themselves once they enter into adulthood.
This is why you hear so many college level educators complaining more and more about how they have to teach rudimentary skills and critical thinking strategies. Because these kids are not learning those skills earlier on. What's even worse, is that by the time they reach college level, it's much more difficult to learn these strategies, than at the more early learning stages.