Houston Press - MARGARET DOWNING -- Wake-Up Call
The TAKS field test results were so gawd-awful they may become a catalyst for good

Only 2 percent of fifth-grade students who take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills science test in Spanish will pass it. Ninety-eight percent will fail.

There's better news in third-grade reading in English. Seventy-seven percent would pass there. Still, 23 percent would fail, and if they don't pass on their second and third tries, they will not be promoted to fourth grade

The state has gone from a minimal skills test -- though for years its proponents denied that TAAS was minimal anything (EL - Hah!, the latest version of TAAS was so easy some students classified as retarded could pass it) -- to the more comprehensive TAKS, requiring higher-level thinking skills, longer essays and knowledge of a wider range of material. TAKS is set by the state -- not an individual teacher customizing her own final exam to match the material she was able to cover during the year. Science and social studies will be added to the 11th-grade exit test for the first time.

Teachers teaching to the slowest students in class, required under TAAS, now have no clue to teaching toward more comprehensive testing while they are still being measured by how many students pass. When is the public going to start looking at the 49% drop-out rate? This has been expanding under the TAAS testing, partly as getting the kid out of school improves the principals pass score.