ATPE News is the official publication of the Association of Texas Professional Educators, the largest educator association in Texas. The magazine addresses the most important issues affecting public education in the state. Learn more at ATPE.org.
Issue link: https://atpe.epubxp.com/i/435977
atpe.org | 11 winter 2014 proposals call for allowing a private charter operator to manage the schools placed under an ASD, which makes the plans controversial. ATPE objects to paying private entities to take over the authority and accountability vested in locally elected school boards, and most legislative candidates responding to our 2014 Candidate Survey agreed with us. Abbott, however, called ASDs "innovative reforms" and included them in his campaign platform. ASD bills fled in 2013 were all defeated, but the idea is expected to resurface. Read more about ASDs in "What Is the Achievement School District?" in this issue. Testing Testing and using students' test scores to make decisions about students, teachers, and schools have become the primary mandates in public education, thanks to state and federal accountability laws that gave rise to the testing industry. Most education reform is driven by the quest to acquire and utilize student performance data. Testing also determines where most of our education dollars are spent. In their campaign messages, several candidates expressed a desire to reduce high-stakes testing. ATPE has long opposed the use of state standardized test scores as the primary measure of student achievement, educator effectiveness, or school performance. We appreciated the 83rd Legislature's efforts to decrease required testing at the high school level, and we hope to see renewed efforts in 2015. ATPE is particularly interested in efforts to address the high-stakes testing that persists in lower grades. A few legislative attempts in 2013 to reduce testing in grades three through eight were stymied by conficts with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and a veto by Gov. Rick Perry. Evaluations Complaints about outdated, punitive aspects of NCLB prompted Texas and other states to ask the U.S. Department of Education for accountability waivers. The federal government granted Texas an NCLB waiver conditioned on the state's changing the way it evaluates educators and placing more emphasis on student achievement. The state's teacher evaluation overhaul is currently being piloted, with broad implementation not expected until 2016. The 84th Legislature will almost defnitely be asked to tweak state evaluation statutes in the meantime. We expect lawmakers to debate the frequency of observations, district fexibility to customize evaluations, training and qualifcations of appraisers, and the use of evaluation results. ATPE's chief evaluation-related objectives are transparency, meaningful and timely feedback to educators, fairness, and validity of statistical methods —especially growth measures that employ Value-Added Modeling (VAM) using student test scores. Based on responses to the 2014 ATPE Candidate Survey, lawmakers share many of our concerns about incorporating test score data into evaluations. State Representative-Elect Dade Phelan (R) said, "I hear too often about the problems with the STAAR test to trust its ability to evaluate a student, much less the teacher." Likewise, Rep. Mary Gonzalez (D) summed it up by saying, "There should be little, if any, teacher evaluations based on state standardized tests. … Dozens of days are wasted each school year so that teachers and schools can chase positive evaluations and accountability ratings instead of actually teaching children. This must stop." Visit TeachtheVote.org to view complete election results and ongoing coverage of the upcoming legislative session. TEACHTHEVOTE.ORG