STAAR Testing

I saw on the news that the Board of Education is wanting to make the STAAR Test 15% of a student's high school grade. It was actually sent back by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, but the Education Commissioner stated that they are going to review and decide what percentage if any it should count as part of the student's grade.

Having a mother that is a teacher, I think this is a terrible idea. The way the STAAR test has been modified, they have increased the rigor and focus so much attention for the school system on the results of the testing, that it has totally changed the dynamic of the classroom. Teachers have to focus nearly all their time instructing to make sure that these students pass this test because the funding and ranking of a school depends on how well students do on the test; the student passing to the next grade depends on it as well. However, teachers aren't allowed to see the test or even know what is on it, so they have to teach to these general ideas and do the best they can to make sure the students understand the material. The problem is, there AP or advanced students, and there are students at a regular or even slower paced level -some even with learning disabilities, who have to take this test. And their learning methods are all very different and some need a lot more attention and time than others. But, because the teachers are basically being told what they have to teach, and given all these "topics" to teach on, they have to go at a certain pace, and it is pretty rushed. This doesn't give the teacher any room to be creative- to use creative ways to help the students learn and understand. They don't have the time or opportunity to teach them certain life-skills that come (or used to come) with everyday education, and there are a lot of important stories, lessons, and the like, that the students don't get to learn because the curriculum has been totally changed to focus on this one test.

The problem with this is, a student passing a test does not show that they have learned or been given all the resources they need to move on in life or to the next grade. It shows that they **hopefully** learned how to pass the STAAR test. In addition to that, many students have issues with testing- maybe have test anxiety or just don't perform well on tests, and this is a standardized test which is already different from what students take in their everyday classes. With that, the state has gone and made this test even more difficult and used larger, harder words, etc. It's not an accurate measure of students' comprehension of subjects or the knowledge and skills they have developed. There are so many problems with this test and the policies that come along with it that I don't even have time to get into. My main argument is, students are not fully equipped with the way things are set up now, and this definitely should not be factored into their final grade to determine whether or not they get to graduate. When trying to get into colleges, all that should matter is that they passed- maybe even how well they did. But there isn't a standardized test like this at the college level, so their performance shouldn't dictate their regular GPA. Colleges need to see that a student knows how to perform in the classroom and manage their time. That could  be a totally different reflection on their GPA than the results of the STAAR Test, so that should be what is recorded at the end of the school year. The STAAR Test should have nothing to do with it.

Comments on "The Donkey's Head"-Why We Shouldn't have Texas Voter ID Law

This post on "The Donkey's Head" blog is about 'Why we Shouldn't have a Texas Voter ID Law'. I would have to agree with this post. There is a whole class of people who don't have identification because they don't use it on a regular basis or can't afford to have it and it isn't essential to their life. There are even some people, as Samantha mentioned, who have lost their identification in major tragedies or natural disasters and haven't had the means or the documentation to replace them.

I think having the Texas Voter ID Law would prohibit a lot of people from voting. I don't think that the current way we have voter registration and voting set up is a system that is allowing illegals to vote-- and if so, not on a large enough scale for it to matter. I think it would cause more of a problem of the opposite effect- it would keep people from voting more so than it would prevent illegals from voting. The laws only state that you have to be a citizen of the United States and you have to be registered to vote. Anything more than that is impeding on our rights as citizens. It doesn't have to be, nor should it be, complicated. Making it difficult for people to vote will send us back to the place we were hundreds of years ago when there was poll tax and only white people were permitted to vote, etc. I'm against passing this law, and I agree with Samantha's post and analysis on this topic.

Expansion of the MetroRail in Austin

The MetroRail in Austin is a thoughtful idea of how to reduce our carbon footprint by bringing down gas/exhaust emissions in Austin in hopes that people will opt to travel by way of the MetroRail instead of using their cars. It is fairly affordable and in theory is a great idea. However, in the grand scheme of the total number of residents in the metro area, not nearly enough people are taking advantage of the MetroRail for Austin to utilize more tax payer money to expand it.

I have seen talk that it will cost upwards of $14 million just for the investigative studies to decide whether or not this is a worth-while project for Austin to take on. Research that costs that much money just to investigate if the city should take on the project is not an efficient use of tax payer money. There are too many other problems amongst our community that need to be addressed to be spending that kind of outrageously high-dollar tax payer money on investigative research to expand the MetroRail.

In addition, the way the metroplex of Austin is set up, the MetroRail doesn't really make a whole lot of logistical sense. We aren't set up like New York City. This is not to say that the MetroRail hasn't helped our city and doesn't contribute to any good cause, it's just to say that in an area like this, the likelihood that the majority of the population in the Austin metroplex will actually jump on the MetroRail band wagon is very slim. In downtown Austin, the idea of the MetroRail is a lot more feasible because of the way the city was designed. But in the surrounding communities, not as much. And even so, in the downtown area where these services would more likely be used, there are a lot more people that are riding bikes and walking as many places as possible.

Austin is a very environmentally conscious community. There are a lot of "tree-huggers" and "hippies" in Austin. That is just the community of people that is drawn here. The MetroRail may be a positive addition to our community, but until there is a greater population of people taking advantage of its resources, even the discussion of expansion of the MetroRail in Austin is ridiculous.