Education in Texas has always been known to not necessarily be the best in our country if anything one of the worst. Better yet to put things in simpler terms we are just not that bright. Well there's plenty the state could do to change that like instead of making budget cuts on education providing more money towards schools. That would give the schools the opportunity to allow more programs for students to attend in and learn in or just providing better materials for their core classes. Our graduation rates in Texas have always been low, and instead of trying to make them higher I feel as if the state is trying to make them lower and is about to start the decrease in 2012. According to the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) students in grade levels 3-8 will continue taking their 4 core class exams, but high-school students will be taking 12 end-of-course assessments in Algebra 1, geometry, Algebra 2, biology, chemistry, physics, English 1, English 2, English 3, world geography, world history, and U.S. history. Wow! Long list that I feel is definitely unnecessary. Well the only good news in it for me is that I won't be having to deal with any of it.
However, I do feel that the students who graduate will be smarter due to those exams than those who graduated just based off of the TAKS, but there will be a lot of students who won't be able to graduate because they will not meet the new standards, but would of met the standards of TAKS. So it all comes down to this: Texas graduates will be smarter than the previous generations, but for awhile it will look as if Texas just keeps going downhill when we really are not. Well at least not in my opinion. Texas needs to combine all resources and not cut budgets on education and that with the STAAR testing combines should hopefully keep us in the game. If they cut the budget and then add a whole new system of testing I'm just scared to see how our state will end up.
I guess we are just going to have to sit back and watch the mistakes be made by the TEA. The STAAR testing system I feel is over the top, but if the state wants to succeed they should provide more money for the schools to be able to keep their students up with the standards. If they plan on cutting back the funds for schools then why change the testing system. Seem extremely pointless.
So what will the state of Texas do for 2012?
Education is a big issue in America right now, and an even bigger one in Texas. Our students have always been below average, and our student struggle to graduate. My classmate Rosibel has addressed this issue on her blog Texans Ideology. She talks about Texas implementing the new standard standardized test called State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR).
ReplyDeleteI agree with her that it will hurt our graduation rates. This test is going to be harder than the TAKS test, but it will challenge our students to work that much harder in school. I went to a public high school, and I was amazed at how easy the TAKs test was. It was not even a challenge to pass it. We need a new test because right now our standards are just simply too low.
Obviously this test will not magically turn education around in Texas, but I feel it is putting us on the right track. I agree with my classmate that we need to have better funding for our school, but I don’t think the test is over the top. We need higher standards, and this will hopefully give them to us. I hope along with my classmate that this test will indeed make our students smarter, but we will just have to wait and see.
Education is a hot topic right now for Texas. We are firing teachers left and right while ranking amongst the lowest in graduates and scores in America. My classmate Rosibel has addressed this issue on her blog Texans Ideology. She talks about Texas implementing the new standard standardized test called State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR.) She claims that implementing more tests at a lower level, will over time, eventually raise the intelligence and level of graduates in the future.
ReplyDeleteA fellow classmate Kirby Martinez also commented on her blog agreeing with her view that the tests would hurt the scores, but it will challenge the students.
I disagree with them both. I think the curriculum needs to be reformed. Since I have been out of k-12, I have learned ten times as much as I did in school. We had what was called the TAAS tests. Our teachers would also teach us what we needed to know to pass the test. The downfall is that the subjects and the curriculum lacks all around in content. If we want smarter students, then we have to teach them how to critically think earlier in life. If the curriculum and content center around standardized tests then teachers are limited on what they can teach in fear of low scores on tests. I say get rid of standardized testing all together