Rumor has it that the Student Achievement System was designed to make it possible to improve our test scores without improving the students...
Why would people think that?
If you ask the federal government, or the State of Oregon Department of Education when students should be tested they will tell you you either test by grade or by age. If your school has grades you test grades 3, 5, 8, and 10. If your school is ungraded you test ages 8, 10, 13 and 15.
What happens if you have ungraded schools where you place students "where they belong" academically, but you test them by grades?
You have 8 year olds not taking the test because they are placed with 7 year olds in a class that will be considered 2nd grade who then miraculously move on to be with their own age the next year and will not be tested again because they are "no longer 3rd graders."
According to the district...we do not have grades, we have benchmarks......
Now look at the records...do we test all of the same age students with the same tests?
Technically we should be.
Our SAS reminds me of something.... Oh yes....
The Houston Miracle! You might want to take a look at these articles: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3403664/
http://www.resultsforamerica.org/calendar/files/Document1.pdf
http://nochildleft.com/2003/sept03miracles.html
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Here is something I found on one of the links you provided. I guess "cooking the books" is a pretty accurate description.
--They note that the Texas test is administered in the sophomore year.
Austin High, like many other Houston schools, routinely holds students back in the ninth grade under a policy that effectively allows school administrators to exclude weaker students from the 10th-grade test results. In 2001, for example, there were 1,160 students in the ninth grade and 281 in the 10th grade.
Perla Arredondo, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, took ninth grade three times before being moved up to 11th grade. By then, she was so discouraged she dropped out of Austin High, along with many of her friends. She regrets her decision, after discovering she needs a high school diploma even for jobs such as secretary or cashier.
"I felt school was a waste of time because I had to go over the same
thing over and over again and wasn't moving up," she said.
Because Arredondo skipped 10th grade, she was never included in Austin High's accountability statistics.
According to Robert Kimball, a former Sharpstown High assistant principal who provided KHOU with much of its information, that is common practice in Houston. "The secret of doing well in the 10th-grade tests is not to let the problem kids get to the 10th grade," he said.--
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