Wilson co-sponsoring education reform bill

By Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

The Highlander

State Rep. Terry Wilson of Marble Falls is a co-sponsor of a bill that would eliminate reliance upon standardized testing to evaluating teachers while reducing the importance of standardized testing in school accountability.

House Bill 1333, authored by Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, has also received support from 28 other legislators on both sides of the aisle, showing clear bi-partisan support for revamping of the state's school accountability system.

The bill calls for giving school districts the choice of which standardized testing platform to use, whether State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) or any other standardized test which complies with the Texas Esssential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that are set by the Texas Education Agency.

“Before the session began, Rep. Wilson made a very concerted effort to meet with every superintendent in his district and he met with about 80 percent before he was sworn in,” said Jeff Frazier, Wilson's chief of staff. “The universal clarion call from every superintendent within District 20 was the need to get away from using the STAAR test to evaluate our schools and the need to base things on more than just numbers.”

Isaac's bill would cut the amount of weighting given to standardized testing on the new A-F academic accountability system from 55 percent to just 25 percent, while taking into account other criteria, including wellness and physical education and community and parental involvement.

It also cuts down the frequency of STAAR administrations from 21 to 17.

Frazier said Wilson believes reliance primarily upon crunching numbers from standardized testing like STAAR doesn't tell the whole story of how well a district is doing.

“Buckholts ISD is a 130-year-old school district that had been outstanding in academics until four years ago and it took them a few election cycles to bring in a new superintendent and get a new board that wanted to see things improve,” Frazier said. “On the day he was sworn in, Rep. Wilson got a call from (TEA Commissioner Mike) Morath's office saying he was going to close Buckholts ISD. After talking to the new superintendent and seeing what the community, the teachers and students were doing there, however, Rep. Wilson was able to convince the commissioner to change his mind.

“It was a situation where the numbers didn't tell the whole story. You had to go in and see what was happening for yourself. That is just one reason why a set of tests just doesn't tell the whole story. There should always be a human element to go along with any formula of numbers.”