The Montgomery County Bulletin - Education In Texas

Education In Texas

An op-ed by Chris Bell in the Montgomery County Bulletin
July 31, 2005

We've got every state lawmaker and the Governor in Austin right now in special session, working under a court order to fix school finance, and all they can talk about are tax swap schemes. I'm a homeowner, so I won't turn down a property tax cut, but as a dad with two boys in public school, I think Rick Perry is missing an historic opportunity to focus on reforming what we teach in schools and not merely on how we pay for them.

Texans don't need a pollster to tell them that education is the best economic development program ever created. Our state government needs to make a commitment that if parents do their part, then we'll do ours; we'll make sure that teachers have the freedom and the resources they need to teach our kids something more than how to take yet another standardized test.

Increasingly, that's all we are doing in schools. The absurdity of "teaching to the test" is alarming, to say the least. Taking time out of science or music classes to brush up on an upcoming TAKS test has become commonplace in Texas. Rice University professor Dr. Linda McNeil found schools that hired test-prep consultants that taught kids how to pass reading comprehension tests - without even reading the passage. We've replaced a solid curriculum and real knowledge with how to best go about filling in little ovals with #2 pencils.

Dr. McNeil calls this "Enron-style accountability" because, like the notorious energy company that used its stock price as the sole measuring stick, our state government judges our kids based on one single number - their TAKS score. Whether Johnny reads books doesn't matter; it's all about whether he passed the TAKS test.

Using the TAKS test as the only measure of success is nothing less than one-size-fits-all education, and as a dad with two boys, I can tell you from experience that no two kids are alike. But the financial pressure on schools to get their students to pass the TAKS test is so great that administrators are treating some kids like Enron treated debt. Enron shipped its debt to dummy offshore corporations, but Dr. McNeil says that administrators are systematically holding back students with lesser chances of passing the test knowing good and well that many if not most of those students will drop out.

The result is that the dropout rate is around 40 percent in this state - the worst in the country. It is time to stand up and say these are our children. We cannot stand idly by and watch almost half of each generation drop out of school.

Enron-style accountability has corrupted the curriculum and increased the dropout rate, and it's left our kids needing more remedial help when they are fortunate enough to get to college. But the powers that be in Austin want you to believe that we are on the right track to solving our education problems. Don't be fooled. The so-called "Texas Miracle" is nothing more than a politically expedient mirage.

We can no longer simply accept test-driven curriculums that are driving away our children in droves. We know how to improve our schools. We need to put principals and teachers back in control of schools and classrooms, give them textbooks that aren't censored by cynical word police, the materials they need to teach, the technology needed for kids to learn - and then we might really witness a miracle.

Testing isn't the answer; it's just another way to ask the question. The folks running schools by remote control from Austin think they can use tests to make our kids smarter. Tests don't make our kids smarter any more than a ruler will make you taller, but Rick Perry and the lobbyists for the testing companies either don't get it or hope you won't figure it out.

http://www.chrisbell.com/insights/073105_testing