“It’s unfortunate that No Child Left Behind and the Texas accountability system are so driven by values of measurement and testing. Every school, particularly under-resourced schools along the border find it difficult to stray from what national and state policy dictates; so superintendents, principals, and teachers fall right into the practice and culture of measurement and testing, because they’re good soldiers—they follow the policy.”
Reflection from a public school teacher, as she prepared written testimony before the Texas Select Committee on Public School Accountability, July 2008
Twenty-six teachers from a half dozen rural schools in south Texas offered testimonials to the Texas Select Committee on Public School Accountability, a legislative committee tasked with listening to the public’s view on school accountability, during the summer of 2008. The event was significant because it marked the beginning of south Texas teachers strategically engaging in the discourse on shaping statewide education policy. The movement began out of graduate seminars in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Texas-Pan American, where class discussions led to the realization by students (all public school educators) and faculty of the importance of being part of the public conversation on school policy.
In class, students frequently voiced concerns regarding education policy and how it often manifested itself counterproductively, particularly for Hispanic students and other English Language Learners. So they decided to get involved, and in the ensuing year have participated in advising state representatives, state senators, Congressmen, representatives from the White House, and local public officials about how policies afford schools better opportunities to engage in more effective teaching and learning experiences.
The decision to act is based on three basic premises.
- The need to act: as students read, researched, and reflected on education issues, they understood the adverse impact of education policy, particularly the current accountability system, on the daily practice in schools and classrooms. The students realized that they had to act, somehow and somewhere.
- The advantage of acting collectively: as students prepared their testimonials, they quickly felt the power of working together as public advocates. “Going at it alone can be lonely, and even scary,” said one of the teachers, “so I much prefer to go speak up with others by my side.”
- The need to create change: every student who prepared and delivered a testimonial came out of the experience with a greater sense of urgency, a greater understanding that they had a need and responsibility to change the nature and content of education policy.
The teachers presented at two public testimony sessions: one in Brownsville, the other in El Paso. At both events, as teachers prepared to offer testimonies, they appeared nervous, but resolute. One of them said, “I don’t know what I’d been waiting for. I should’ve been doing this long ago…testifying and talking to these people who make such bad, misinformed school policies.”
Two professors from UTPA traveled with the group of teachers to Brownsville, essentially to hold their graduate seminar in the presence of the Select Committee; one professor also traveled with a smaller group to El Paso, some 1,000 miles up the Rio Grande River.
In El Paso, a middle school teacher named Mark offered his testimony:
“Our current accountability system goes against the best practices that teachers in colleges of education programs learn. For example, teachers are taught to teach to the whole child, nurture the affective domain, integrate technology into everyday teaching activities, and create healthy and exciting learning environments. However, in current school environments teachers seldom have the opportunity to deliver any of the best practices, and I believe it is because of the policies on accountability. Good teaching and learning cannot take place, until we reform our accountability standards. We desperately need a better approach to measure student growth and achievement. The current system that depends on a single measure, the test, must change. For the sake of our children, our teachers, and our schools, we cannot continue on the same path.
I challenge the committee to invite the public and us to have a conversation about what we can do to establish the best accountably system. A three-minute talk is not sufficient.”
In Brownsville, an elementary teacher named Leticia presented her talk:
“I have been an elementary school teacher for 15 years. Presently I am the Spanish language enrichment teacher at an elementary school in Edinburg, Texas. I work with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade recent immigrant students. My students are 9, 10, and 11 years old, who are dealing with a new school, home, country, culture, and language. One would think then that with a title such as Spanish language enrichment I would be maintaining or enriching my students’ home language as they are learning English. However, what I have been instructed to do is prepare my students for the Spanish TAKS [Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills].
I have to put aside all that my students are dealing with as new students in this country and focus on teaching TAKS. For example, I work with 5th grade students from eight in the morning until noon teaching TAKS Math, TAKS Reading, and TAKS Science. I feel very uncomfortable with this because I feel I’m not helping my students become successful citizens of their new country. I should be teaching my students about the culture of the United States, the history of the country, the law, and especially the language. Yet none of this is important because they will not be tested in these areas. Although these are not tested items, I believe they’re important. I have tried to integrate all this into my reading class, but I have found that very difficult to do. I only have four hours per day to prepare my 5th grade students for the Math, Reading, and Science TAKS. Many of them have never taken the TAKS test before, so I have to dedicate a great part of our class time to teaching TAKS taking strategies.
I question myself often, if I am making a difference for my students. I wonder if I am preparing my students for the real world. Am I preparing them to be productive citizens of our country? I feel sad when the answer to all my questions is NO. I simply prepare my students for a high-stakes test in Spanish.”
Leticia raised the critical issue of ELL students and testing. Though she made a compelling case for the mis-education of ELL students because of insidious educational policy that dictates practice, she was not given sufficient time to make the broader point about cognition and language and learning. She was given only three minutes, as Mark and other teachers were similarly allowed.
The three-minute limit became a contentious issue with the teachers because other presenters, namely several invited “experts,” were given unlimited time to present their cases before the Select Committee. The teachers were more infuriated when it also became clear that the “experts” had been called in by the Select Committee to support, through their research, the policy ideas the Committee had presented and embraced during the Committee’s opening and closing comments. For example, the Committee believed that standardized testing should continue to play an important role in new education policy, so the Committee brought in their resource people who provided data on the merits of standardized testing.
The teachers learned a great deal about the politics of policy making. They found that politicians involved in policymaking were well organized and well funded. They also found that the voices from the community, and even the voices of teachers, were significantly marginalized in the policy-formation process. “They use rhetoric pretending that they want to hear from the public,” complained one of the teachers, “but it’s not a genuine invitation. They didn’t really want to hear from us.”
While angered at what they viewed as an unfair use of power by the politicos on the Select Committee, the teachers nevertheless were motivated by their own participation in the process. Months after their testimonies, some of them traveled to the state capitol to advocate for more progressive education legislation, such as a bill calling for assessing children in the public schools through multiple forms—rather than through the continued overreliance on high-stakes tests. Teachers visited with members of the State House and Senate and even joined a press conference to make their views known. In short, the teachers felt power in their actions, but they felt even more buoyed by their collective leadership work. One teacher said, “There’s no comparison between the two models, the lone leader and collective leadership…there’s so much more power in doing things together.”
When the 81st Legislature adjourned, teachers felt bittersweet about the entire experience. In looking at the objective outcomes, teachers felt that their testimonials, their writing, and their advocacy work did not significantly impact the omnibus education legislation named Senate Bill 3. Specifically, the teachers were disappointed that their plea for multiple forms of assessment, rather than an overreliance on testing, did not appear more prominently in the SB 3. So, testing continues to be the cornerstone of the revised pubic school accountability system in Texas. Additionally, English Language Learners will be treated similarly in the new accountability design, despite the pleas that Leticia made in her testimony and in the additional testimonials that she and other ELL teachers had written.
But there were victories in this process. Leticia’s and other teachers’ pleas to reduce testing did influence a substantial win, namely that Senate Bill 3 effectively eliminates the TAKS test as a high-stakes test for every 3rd grader in the state. In addition, while every 5th grader will be tested, the decision whether to advance 5th graders will rest with the child’s teacher, the parents, and the local school leadership—not the state. This was a significant legislative victory. So, while there is sufficient reason to be hopeful, perhaps the greatest reason can be found in the new awareness of the teachers who on one hand felt disappointed, but on the other felt a sense of power. In short, they learned that they have to be more persistent in their advocacy work; some of them even commented that they can’t wait for the 82nd Legislature, so they can “hit the streets again with a louder and more forceful voice,” as one teacher described her new-found sense of hope.
Another teacher summed up the advocacy struggle by saying, “We’ve never advocated for educational policy before, but when we did, we got the most oppressive results.” To which, another teacher said, “I think that it just wasn’t enough of us pushing for better policies. We need more than 26, we need hundreds of teachers testifying, taking to the streets, going up to the Capitol.” Indeed, the last teacher’s claim that “we need more than 26” begins to give clearer definition to the collective leadership model. We need more teachers, more parents, and more students to get involved in the policy-formation process. “Only then,” said the last teacher, “will we have a chance to compete against these politicians who have so much money and are so well organized.”
Francisco Guajardo is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas, and is the executive director of the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development.
