Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org: Transparency in Texas Tech Lit Assessments

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Transparency in Texas Tech Lit Assessments

Thursday, January 15, 2009 Posted by Miguel Guhlin

One of the most often visited pages in this blog is this one...Transparency in Texas Tech Literacy for Student Assessments.

Today, a chief technology officer for a Texas school district pointed out the following:

The Progress Report for the Long Range Plan for Technology discusses the tech literacy assessment conducted by TEA (pages 52-56).
The state used the Learning.com instrument that assessed skill modules including systems and fundamentals, social and ethical, telecommunications and internet, word processing, spreadsheets, database, and multimedia presentations.
With their $30,000 in funding, TEA was able to assess approximately 3600 students in grades 6-8 ($8.30 per student).

26 school districts and 64 schools participated in the study that appeared to be representative of the state of Texas. TEA provided preliminary results for 3221 8^th graders in 17 districts/schools:
59.1 % met proficiency

40.9% did not meet proficiency
Overall, findings suggest that districts and schools are not providing adequate support for students’ mastery of technology and skills.
Let the discussion continue----
OISD used this same instrument (Learning.com) and got just about the same results (63%) yet we have not taught the Tech Apps in a systematic manner. Other districts have used other assessments like Infosource’s free Simple Assessment and the students using this assessment had much more failures.

As I re-read this CTO's email to a list of Texas tech directors, a few questions come to mind:

Could Learning.com's assessment results have been interpreted on "a curve?" That is, Texas school districts actually scored less well than is reflected in the reports? It's not like this type of thing--where mastery is calculated at a lower level then adjusted in subsequent years to raise standards--hasn't been done before...what is that called, though? Is there an official statistical name for such a practice?
Will Texas' Technology Applications:TEKS be adjusted to reflect the new ISTE NETS-Students?
Some school districts lack high school labs to teach Technology Apps, but not surprisingly, they are still able to offer the required number of courses--without actually having to teach them. Students miss out out on developing the skills and earn their graduation credit through Career and Technology courses. Is this a loophole that TEA will close?
At grades 6-8, students are expected to learn technology use with their content areas but every content area presentation I've seen at "traditional" conferences relies on high stakes test-prep. Technology is the drill-n-kill variety, but who can blame schools for focusing on drilling yesterday's skills into today's kids, ignoring tomorrow's critical needs for technology mastery?

Something is rotten in Denmark, but we've done such a good job of doing our best with limited funds, seizing the loopholes, trying to meet the letter of the law but not develop the respective spirit of our children.

So, in his email, this CTO asks a few questions into the ether...and they vanish without real consideration.