Education Policy Analysis Archives
1. IntroductionAccountability Narrows Racial Gap in Texas; Expand ItFor several years the state of Texas has been widely cited as a model of standards-based education reform. Some have even called recent educational progress in Texas a miracle. Indeed Texas has been cited from west coast to east as a model worthy of emulation by other states. As in the USA Today editorial cited above, the Texas system of educational accountability has even been touted as a model to be followed in federal education legislation. In this article, I review evidence to show that the "miracle" of education reform in Texas is really a myth and illusion. What should be learned from this is not just to be suspicious of the "tall tales" of Texans (as Jeff Rodamar, 2000, put the matter), but that more broadly, we should be cautious in drawing sweeping conclusions about large and complex educational endeavors, based on only one form of evidence, such as test scores. This may seem strange advice coming from one who would call a purported miracle a myth. But as I will explain, even if the Texas approach to education reform is not worthy of emulation elsewhere, there is still something to be learned from Texas about how not to judge the health of education and the progress of education reform elsewhere. The story of the Texas miracle is reported here in eight parts. Following this introduction, Part 2 provides a summary of recent education history in Texas, with particular focus on how statewide testing has evolved in the Lone Star state over the last two decades into the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) which is now the linchpin of educational accountability in Texas. Part 3 summarizes evidence upon which the Texas tale of success in the 1990s is based, and recounts some of the praise that has been lavished recently on the Texas miracle story. Part 4 summarizes some of the problems with the TAAS tests that make them suspect as sources of evidence about the progress of education in Texas. Part 5 describes the problem of missing students in Texas, and other mirages, reminding us that when trying to interpret summary test results, it is always helpful to pay attention to who is and is not present for the testing. Part 6 summarizes views of educators in Texas about TAAS and teaching and learning in the state. Part 7 reviews other evidence on the status of education in Texas. Finally, the conclusion suggests some broader lessons from this story of the myth of the education "miracle" in Texas—about both the limits of test-based accountability and the need to remember the broad aims of education in a democratic society. Before reviewing the story of the Texas "miracle," I offer two caveats—one very large, and the other inevitable in any work of limited scope. The big caveat is that approximately two years ago Al Kauffman, Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) persuaded me to serve as an expert witness in a MALDEF lawsuit, GI Forum v. Texas Education Agency, brought against the state of Texas. As a result, I served as one of several expert witnesses for MALDEF in its effort to prove that that the high school graduation test in Texas, the TAAS "exit level" test, has illegal discriminatory impact on Black and Hispanic students. After a trial in the fall of 1999 (which in the press came to be called the "TAAS trial,") the federal judge who heard the case, Edward C. Prado, ruled on January 7, 2000, against MALDEF and for the state of Texas. (Note 1) In essence, Judge Prado ruled that while TAAS does have discriminatory impact on Black and Hispanic students, the use of TAAS to withhold diplomas is not illegal because it is educationally necessary. I am not a legal expert and, hence, in the body of this article will comment only on matters of evidence and facts in the TAAS case. Nonetheless, in appendices to this article, I provide the full text of Judge Prado's ruling, documentation on summary arguments made by the two sides in the case, and my own summary comments on the judge's ruling. (Note 2) The second caveat is one that is inevitable in any presentation in any medium. One can never tell the whole story. Texas is well known for its size. Hence the territory I try to cover in this article is rather large. To provide some indication of its scope, the TAAS trial lasted for five weeks, and in addition to direct testimony, was based on hundreds of documents submitted by plaintiffs and defendants. Indeed, my personal files on TAAS and the TAAS case occupy six feet of shelf space and several megabytes of computer storage. So, in trying to recount the Texas miracle story and why I think it is a myth, I will have to be somewhat selective. This may seem dangerous since I was on one side of a hard fought legal battle. I make no apologies for that, but want to make it clear simply as fair warning to readers. I leave it to others to judge how fair-minded I have been in recounting this version of the Texas miracle. And one final caution. During preparation for the TAAS trial, Mr. Kauffman, the lead attorney for MALDEF in the TAAS case, several times referred to me as his "Yankee testing expert." While I do now reside in New England, I am actually a native of Texas. So beware the tall tales of Texans.
0: Home | 1: Intro. | 2: History | 3: The Myth | 4: TAAS | 5: Missing Students 6: Teachers | 7: Other Evidence | 8: Summary | Notes & Ref. | Appendix |