Texas just changed the math standards for grades 3-8 beginning next school year. Major changes mean a series of unfortunate events for teachers and students.
Students in 4th grade will be expected to know a large quantity of what 6th graders are currently expected to know. There’s a lot of new stuff added for everyone as well. Teachers and students have serious obstacles to face here.
First, how is a student freshly out of 3rd grade going to perform at 6th grade level by testing time? (High school algebra students where I teach are often struggling with the concept of y=mx+b at test time.) I wonder if our legislators have considered that a child might not be cognitively able to perform math at this level. Or if a teacher can actually cram three years of math into one year — never mind if a child’s mind can hold it.
Second, regarding incoming 3rd graders, how is an 8 or 9 year old going to not only cover this new gap with any retention, but how is this child going to cover all of the additional standards the legislator has added as well? The standards teachers must get them to by 4th grade will be insurmountable, it seems to me.
Third, the STAAR test will have to be re-made. The test will be new. A teacher has no idea what will be on the test or what it will look like, but must prepare their students to do well on it. How can a teacher effectively manage this feat in addition to the new standards?
Fourth, a teacher is evaluated on his or her students’ performance on this one test through VAM methods (EVAAS in our district). What kind of accuracy can be expected when the test has never been given, the students being tested have never before taken a standardized test, and any projections that COULD be made are on a completely different test with completely different standards? Not that VAM evaluations are logical, reliable, or accurate in the first place.
Fifth, this evaluation will affect the state’s accountability as well as federal NCLB accountability.
The logistics of this are confounding.
Texas Education Agency (TEA) staff are currently working on a plan for assessing grades 3–8 mathematics in spring 2015. The plan will involve a special operational administration that incorporates the revised mathematics TEKS as indicated in the recently posted STAAR assessed curriculum documents and blueprints available on the STAAR Mathematics Resources webpage at: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/staar/math/.
For the spring 2015 STAAR grades 3–8 mathematics test administrations, students will receive a raw score (XX questions correct out of XX total questions) prior to the end of the school year based on their performance on the assessments. Then data from the spring administrations will be used to establish new performance standards for STAAR mathematics in summer 2015.
— TEA Release
Furthermore, it involves some mathematical acrobatics.
The new performance standards will be retroactively applied to the spring 2015 administrations with new reports and data files sent to school districts in August 2015.
Because performance standards for STAAR grades 3–8 mathematics will not be set until after the spring 2015 administration, Student Success Initiative (SSI) retest opportunities for STAAR grades 5 and 8 mathematics will not be offered in May and June of 2015. For the 2014–2015 school year, districts will use other relevant academic information to make promotion/retention decisions for mathematics.
— TEA Release, emphasis added
To all math teachers, I say good luck. To all math teachers, grades 3-8 — I wish you more than luck. I wish you a miracle.