Today’s hearing on standardized test reform drew an unusually large contingent of students to the Senate Education Committee. Several were particularly glad to be there because Tuesday was a benchmark testing day at their school.
The Lead The Senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday authored by Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) to eliminate the state mandate that STAAR tests count [...]
Aycock’s House Bill 5 is a monstrous reworking of the education code that finally commits to legalese the testing and accountability reforms he and other lawmakers have batted around for the last year or so. Still, Aycock stressed this morning that it’s only meant as a starting point.
In the consortium’s first report to the state, in December, asked for no testing. No accountability ratings, either. They’re writing their own standards, in fact, so they’ll write their own tests. They’ll write their own ratings system too, when they get to it. Essentially, these high-performing schools want to secede from Texas’ testing system.
Into this charged atmosphere, onto the same stage Robert Scott famously occupied a year ago, stepped Texas’ new Education Commissioner Michael Williams on Tuesday. Safe to say, it’d be a hard act to follow.