End-of-course exams in Texas schools raise a furor

Anyone who believes that standardized testing in Texas public schools couldn't get much worse should wake up and sharpen their No. 2 pencils.

The latest mess spilling out of the process has to do with what the Legislature really meant five years ago when it called for end-of-course exams in grades 9-12 and specified that the test results should count for 15 percent of each student's final grade.

That seemed clear at the time.

But now that the time for those end-of-course exams is almost here, lawmakers are realizing that it isn't. They didn't say what 15 percent or "final grade" should mean, and they weren't clear about when that part of the new testing regime should begin.

In 2009, they told Education Commissioner Robert Scott to come up with a plan for the testing and give it to them before the 2011 legislative session. He did, and part of the lengthy report on that plan pointed out some of the problems with the 15 percent rule.

For whatever reason -- preoccupation with the state's multibillion-dollar funding shortfall or with political redistricting or something else -- they took no action on those problems.

Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said this week that Scott has the authority to clear away any confusion. He says he doesn't.

Students in ninth grade will take the first of the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course exams this year. English I and other English classes will begin testing next month or in early April. Math, science and civics tests start May 7.

Set aside the significant problem that it will be awfully hard to grade those tests and get the results back to local districts before the end of the school year. That might not make much of a difference this year, but when those ninth-graders get to be 12th-graders and the question becomes whether or not they will graduate, test grades will be crucial.

Take into consideration that standardized tests aren't graded on a 100-point scale like most classroom tests. How does a grade of 2,587 translate?

But here's where the answer sheets really hit the fan: How does "15 percent of the student's final grade for the course" affect their grade-point average, their class rank and what college or university they can get admitted to?

Whether struggling students learn enough to graduate gets to the heart of schools' educational mission. But GPA, class rank and college admissions affect all students, and parents of students at the top of the academic achievement list howl loudly when things go wrong.

At a State Board of Education meeting Jan. 31, Scott called it a "cheerleader and band mom" issue, adding, "That's when you'll see that we are going to really raise the stakes."

Scott says it's up to local school boards to decide the grading issue, and many of them are already feeling the heat. Some decided early on that 15 percent of the final grade for the course means exactly what it says, all the way. Other districts decided that it means 15 percent of the course grade, but it doesn't have to affect GPA or class rank.

Now those first districts are seeing that their students will be at a disadvantage when competing with students from the second group for college admissions. They're reconsidering.

Add a final wrinkle: School districts and campuses won't suffer if this year's test results are bad. Students will.

Yes, it's a mess.

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