Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Whether TAAS helps or hurts is an emerging controversy

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Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Whether TAAS helps or hurts is an emerging controversy
Critics say the state's academic assessment test encourages dropping out
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times
As a junior at Kingsville's H.M. King High School, 17-year-old Noe Espino feared he'd never graduate because of the TAAS test.
   He was passing his math class, but not the exit level TAAS math exam which every high school student in Texas must score a 70 on to graduate. The best he could manage was a 64.
   "TAAS was keeping me behind," Noe said. "Math was always on my mind. I would go to class and take notes and notes, but it didn't happen."

Espino

   Noe's solution was to leave H.M. King and enroll in KEYS Academy, Kingsville's alternative high school, where he could get more one-on-one help with his math problems. The result was an 82 when he retook the TAAS test earlier this year, and the senior is now on course to graduate in the spring.
   Noe is not alone among Texas students for whom the TAAS test has become an impediment.
   While state educators and President Bush have touted TAAS as the centerpiece of an accountability system that is better preparing students for life beyond high school, a number of critics are blaming TAAS and exit testing in general for creating a new group of dropouts.
   Jump in dropouts since '90
   "It seems clear that the introduction of the TAAS assessment has resulted in an increase in the non-graduation rate in Texas," said Walt Haney, a Boston College education professor who has studied Texas schools for the last 10 years. "What happens to kids is they drop out or they take the GED."
   According to Haney's research, since the introduction of TAAS in the 1990-1991 school year, the number of students not graduating from Texas schools has grown by about 25,000 a year. Haney said the number should draw attention since it takes into account the fact that enrollment and graduation numbers have gone up.
   Throughout the 1980s, Haney said, about 50,000 to 60,000 were lost each year before they graduated. That number jumped to 75,000 to 80,000 in the 1990s.
   But according to the Texas Education Agency, dropout rates have steadily declined for all ethnic groups since TAAS was introduced.
   Haney says those same years saw an increase in students taking the General Educational Development test, students who are not counted officially as dropouts, but who many researchers consider to have dropped out.
   The Boston College professor testified to the increased dropout rate in a recent lawsuit over whether the TAAS test discriminates against Hispanic and black students, who fail it at disproportionate rates compared to Anglos. Haney testified on behalf of the G.I. Forum, which sued the state in 1997.
   His assertion was rejected by U.S. District Judge Edward Prado of San Antonio, who said that while the number of Texas students dropping out gave cause for concern, TAAS was not responsible.
   'Mere conjecture'
   "Plaintiffs have failed to make a causal connection between the implementation of the TAAS test and these phenomena, beyond mere conjecture," Prado said in his January 2000 ruling.
   Instead of causing more dropouts, TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said, Texas' accountability system provides more opportunities to catch failing students before they leave school.
   By identifying students who fail the exit level exam in the 10th grade, teachers have an opportunity to better prepare their students, said Becky Palacios, assistant superintendent of the Alice Independent School District.
   "I can remember before there were standards and accountability and kids would just fall through the cracks," Palacios said.
   TAAS testing was implemented in 1991 as a way to bring more accountability and higher standards to Texas schools. TAAS scores, along with dropout and attendance rates, are used to rate schools. Good ratings lead to a chance to qualify for state monetary awards while poor ratings can lead to state intervention and ultimately closure.
   Students are given seven chances to pass the math, reading and writing sections of the TAAS before they graduate and can take it even after they finish school.
   Of the 217,977 Texas seniors in 2000, only 4,129 had not passed all the sections of the TAAS, according to the TEA. In CCISD, 27 students, or 1.1 percent of the class of 2000, didn't graduate because they failed the TAAS.
   Haney says the post-TAAS years have also seen a marked increase in the retention of students in the ninth grade, especially for black and Hispanic students. According to the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, being held back a grade increases the chances of a student dropping out by 45 percent.
   Haney and other researchers argue that schools are loathe to promote students they think aren't prepared to take the 10th-grade, exit-level TAAS test.
   Many educators say the retention rate in ninth grade, which generally dwarfs rates for other grades, stems from students whose middle school training ill-equipped them to handle the rigors of high school. In 1998, 23 percent of CCISD ninth-graders were retained, compared with 17 percent of ninth-graders statewide.
   Both sides agree that ninth grade is a critical year in determining a student's success in high school: whether the student will become frustrated or embarrassed by being held back a grade or whether they will successfully navigate the first year of high school.
   Ricardo Almendarez, principal of Corpus Christi's alternative high school, said failing the TAAS could play a role in a potential high school dropout's decision.
   'Can't get the diploma'
   "You have some students who finish all their work and don't finish sections of TAAS, especially math, so they get discouraged," he said. "They say they've done all this but still can't get the diploma."
   Haney argues that schools may actually encourage students to leave school and pursue a GED if officials think the student's poor performance will bring down the school's TAAS scores, a claim denied by state and local officials.
   "The easiest way (to boost scores) is to find ways of excluding the scores of low scorers," he said.
   Maria Goodloe, assistant superintendent for instruction and school services for CCISD, said low TAAS performers aren't encouraged to leave school, but instead given more intensive instruction, including before- and after-school tutoring and practice on computer programs. "We don't encourage that," she said. "I can see where a researcher could hypothesize that, but we absolutely don't."
   Dean R. Lillard, an economist and research associate at Cornell University, is studying the relationship between dropouts and exit exams. While his research isn't completed, he said it appears exit exams do increase the dropout rate.
   Lillard also recently completed a study of the effect of higher standards and more required courses on the dropout rate. Depending on how high the bar is raised, Lillard found, dropout rates increase 3 to 7 percent.
   "I'm finding fairly strong evidence that students are going for the GED instead of dealing with the tougher requirements in high school," he said. "If a kid is bored to death in math class and he has to take another one, he'll say 'forget it, I'll get a job.' "
   Lillard said what is needed is a study of the benefits, especially in the workplace, students are getting from the higher standards.
   "That study hasn't been done," he said. "Are students getting more money, better jobs? It might be worth it and then you can tell that to the students. What's missing in this debate is whether there's a payoff for all this."
   According to the TEA, those benefits take the form of better jobs and increased chances of getting into college, as well as fewer remedial classes once there. "It also benefits the state as a whole because we have a better trained, more productive workforce," Culbertson said.
   But Jay Smink, director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, said he thinks dropout rates will rise more than people think as even stiffer standards are phased in, as will happen in Texas in 2003. "It will shock the world."
   Palacios, the Alice ISD assistant superintendent, said the TAAS may contribute to a rising dropout rate to some extent, but that the problem will be made better as teachers and students become more familiar with the test. "It all comes back to staff development for teachers," she said.
   Alice is one of six districts in the state to receive grant money to make personal visits to the homes of each seventh- and ninth-grader to describe the importance and benefit of the TAAS to students and their parents.
   "We help them understand why it is that we go to school," Palacios said. "To help them see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the world today we have to compete with children all over the world."


Staff writer Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 886-3779 or by e-mail at schwartzj@caller.com

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