An update on STAAR-Alt, the tests for special ed students
Even as all the political attention this month is devoted to the abortion debate in the latest special session of the Texas Legislature, there are still nuggets to be mined from the bills passed during the regular session.
Regular readers may recall a piece I did a couple of months ago about the special burdens that STAAR testing places on the teachers of special education students. The teachers are given broad guidelines about the questions/tasks to be posed but are then responsible for coming up with the actual questions, developing the materials, figuring out how to grade the answers, and entering the results into the state system. Contrast that with the teacher down the hall whose STAAR assignment is to distribute the tests, prevent cheating during the test, and get the tests back to the office.
Anyway, HB 2836, which was mostly focused on broader STAAR and curriculum issues, included a section that would have required the state to come up with the questions and materials. I had noted previously that bill was vetoed by Gov. Perry.
But then there’s HB 5, a Carlsbad Cavern of a bill with nooks and crannies large enough to hide houses. It’s the bill that killed 10 of 15 STAAR tests for high schoolers. But deep in one of those nooks, it has a