Testimony before the Commission for a College Ready Texas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 18, 2007

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Jim Windham, President, Texas Institute for Education Reform

Chairman Kress and Members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. You have requested testimony on three aspects of the issue of college readiness: its importance for us, specific ideas as to its definition, and recommended actions that the State should be taking to ensure our students are prepared for higher education. I will touch only lightly on the first two and emphasize more strongly the third aspect.

As to the importance of college and workplace readiness to our state and to our children, I can hardly add much to the well documented mandate that we greatly enhance our children’s educational preparation and opportunities for post-secondary success, not only because it is absolutely necessary for their well being as productive citizens and critical to the competitive positioning of our state and nation and the future of our democracy, but also because it represents the civil rights revolution of the 21st century.

As for specific ideas on the definition of college readiness, we currently have plenty of experts weighing in on these criteria, many of whom are here today and/or have testified before you at your previous meetings. So I won’t belabor this point, except to say that our organization spent considerable time traveling the state last fall speaking to business opinion leaders on education reform, and they had a lot to say on this point, particularly as it relates to the question of college vs. workplace readiness, the value of a Texas high school diploma, and the expectations of our graduates, so I hope you will listen to them as you proceed with your deliberations on this question.

My primary focus today is to emphasize the third item—what should the State be doing?

First, let me be very frank—we just completed one of the most rancorous and disoriented legislative sessions in my 30+ years of involvement in state public policy. This was particularly true with the issues involving K-12 education. And out of this rancor came some messages that were very disturbing, leading many of us to fear that we are at a tipping point in the attitudes of many key opinion leaders on the truly significant issues involving the advancement of standards and accountability based reforms in Texas.

In fact, some of these messages made it seem obvious that the interim 12-18 months will be critical—either we will muster the political will to move Texas to the next level of systemic K-12 reform and maintain our national leadership in standards and accountability, or we will risk drifting toward competitive mediocrity for our kids and our state.

So my appeal to you today is for clarity and urgency.
As to clarity: Your charge from the Governor is to “provide leadership and guidance to the SBOE to improve college readiness programs by aligning high school curriculum with college standards”. In this leadership role, I believe it is essential that you are very clear in your message to our political leadership that Texas must hold very firmly to the commitment we have made over the past 20 years to the continuing enhancement in the rigor of our academic standards and the increasing expectations for our children and our educators as measured by standardized assessments of achievement that are commensurate with those expectations. To do less would be a disservice to our children, our educators, and our state, not to mention our progress over the past 20 years.

As to urgency: It couldn’t be more evident. The data from every direction clearly shows that, in spite of our significant progress, our gains have largely been at the elementary level, and that the proficiency of our kids for success in middle school and beyond is a huge challenge. We also know that our current assessments don’t tell the entire proficiency story, as is evidenced by the recent report of the Institute of Education Sciences of the U. S. Department of Education, which shows that, when scaled to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, the TAKS proficiency standards are well below the NAEP proficiency and even basic standards in 4th and 8th grade reading, and well below NAEP proficiency standards in 4th and 8th grade math.

As to what steps the State should be taking, we have a comprehensive list of recommendations available on our web site, but for immediate urgency I suggest five critical items for your attention which should be given very high priority by the Commission, the SBOE, and the TEA:

1. Our current TEKS standards reflect expectations that are too low, they lack grade specificity and progression of rigor, and they are too subjective and not measurable, deficiencies that have been well identified by experts. This is an item currently pending, and we should complete the overhaul of the TEKS ELAR standards with all dispatch.
2. Stop the development and field testing of high school End of Course exams until course specific and college ready standards for these exams have been completed and installed and the TEKS overhaul is complete.
3. Overhaul the PEIMS to provide for greatly enhanced and centralized student-teacher-teacher preparation data linkages down to the classroom level as soon as possible.
4. Phase in much higher proficiency standards for campus accreditation based on national assessments (such as NAEP, ACT, etc.) and strengthen consequences for school failure.
5. Adopt the appropriate value-added methodology and related assessments to measure student achievement growth, the only truly fair means by which to evaluate educator performance, charter school and other alternative delivery systems, and educator preparation programs.

Thank you again for this opportunity. I hope you will call on me if our organization can be helpful in any way is assisting with your mission.

www.texaseducationreform.org