High school TAAS tests

[ob]

On the local news last night in Corpus Christi it was announced that the results of the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills)tests showed that hispanics scored an average of 30 pts lower than their anglo counterparts.The school systems are concerned because the state will not continue to offer funding if these figures are not improved.The city of Corpus Christi has roughly 80% hispanic population.One person that respresented the CCISD school system announced that the lower test score performance by hispanics was largely due to cultural differences at home.Any thoughts on this topic?

 

[JB]

Re: High school TAAS tests

I spent many years as an educator, but not in public schools.<br /><br />First in the Navy, then in private industry and finally in private tech colleges.<br /><br />In each of these environments I was accountable for whether my students could perform at what I was teaching when the teaching was done. That is me, not my students.<br /><br />My learning systems were therefore designed to take students from where they really were to where my employers wanted them to be, on a path that they, the students, could grasp and successfully traverse.<br /><br />Such failure to achieve clearly defined goals is a failure in the learning system, not the learners.<br /><br />If the students' heritage and culture is foreign to the teaching, the teaching will fail. It seems to have failed. The responsibility is with the CCISD.

 

[SoulWinner]

Re: High school TAAS tests

Any "culture" that places a higher value on education in the home will invariably produce higher achievement in the academic arena. The immigrants of three, four and more generations ago believed that assimilation and education was only way for thier children to become successfull in America. These were immigrants from Europe. Today it is primarily Asian immigrants whose children (while speaking native toungues in the home) are fluent in English and persuing education with enphasis placed on high academic achievment. It would be great if people of all color and culture would embrace assimilation, education and personal resposibilty for the success of thier offspring.

 

[kenimpzoom]

Re: High school TAAS tests

What are these cultural differences?<br /><br />Isnt that a racist statement? <br /><br />Anyway, the problem with schools today is that they belive EVERYONE should go to college and you are a failure if you dont. Truth is, many kids dont want to go to college and we need to cater special schools for them.<br /><br />And these stupid tests are worthless as far as I am concerned.<br /><br />Ken

 

[Fishbusters]

Re: High school TAAS tests

As someone who all here (or at least those that have been here a while) know tries his hardest to reach and teach each and every student he comes in contact with I have to sat I think the scores on standardized tests are not biased based on cultural differences or if you prefer racial differences. I personally feel that they are based on what the student being tested has been taught both in school and at home. What generally happens in these cases is the students whose parents can not spend as much time helping out their children with their school work tend to not do as well in school and on these tests. What causes this is two things mostly based on income which usually a direct effect of the other which is education level of the parent. For example little Johnny's dad who works 14 hours a day as a ditch digger or farm worker never got past the third grade and little Johnny needs help in Algebra can dad actually help out? The answer is no. So what can be done here? His dad can not afford tutoring so little Johnny fails algebra and gets put in remedial math yet when it comes to test time all the math section has is algebra. Of course this means that little Johnny has bad test scores and of course that must be the schools fault or the test is biased based on "cultural differences" (new catch phrase for racial differences). We see the same thing here at the high school I work at but if you actually look at those students that do better versus those that don't you begin to see the differences. We have several middle schools and even more elementary schools that feed up to the high schools and if you look at the students that are doing poorly you will see that they come from the same middle and elementary schools. These schools serve the poorer neighborhoods and with a little more research you find that many of the parents never finished school, many can't read and quite a few have no clue as how to help their child succeed in school let alone can afford to send them with the proper tools such as paper or pencils let alone breakfast. Personally I would love to see what percentage of the students that did poorly qualified for free or reduced lunch which is a better way to see where the problem lies. Now this is not to say a truly concerned parent who has a lower income can not help their child succeed but for the most part this does not happen.