A group of educators meeting in Dallas says there’s got to be a better way to evaluate kids than the state’s new STAAR test.
Dr. Dawson Orr is Highland Park’s Superintendent. His district is one of twenty-three in the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium.
“You know, there’s just an awful lot of authentic work that goes on in classrooms that represents student learning that state and federal bureaucracies don’t know how to handle because they need the ease and convenience of a multiple choice test."
Orr says consortium members don’t’ want out of the STAAR test, but education is too complex, and the STAAR test too simplistic, to rely on by itself.
So the consortium is working on a more comprehensive way to measure schools and students that he says is less constraining. It will invite other districts to join the effort, and may propose tweaking the STAAR plan in the next legislative session. A similar effort last session passed the House and Senate, but was vetoed by Governor Perry.
