CARROLLTON It's one of the most charged words in Texas education: TAKS.
Thanks to the legislature, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is slowly going away. Students who are currently in 8th grade will be the last kids to take TAKS.
The test has been criticized for diluting public education, and students and teachers alike are starting to prepare for the change.
For high school seniors who've failed the TAKS, later this month is their last chance to pass and graduate.
I live, breathe, eat, sleep TAKS right now, said Georgeanne Warnock, principal at R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton. She wants those kids ready and needs those kids ready.
I would say my job is to increase student achievement, and that's measured through these tests, she said.
But what the exams test for is the problem. It's about a broad range of knowledge learned over a three-year period.
While many kids struggle with the TAKS, what about bright kids like Miguel Olguin and Ann Lee at Turner?
Along with reporter David Schechter, they took a 55-question TAKS social studies exam without any preparation.
Neither of students was remotely worried about the outcome.
It's just basic knowledge that I already know that we're reviewing, Lee said.
It's knowledge that, as AP students, we're expected to know already, Olguin added.
For a little perspective, the average score on the TAKS test at Turner High School was 46 out of 55.
Lee got two answers wrong; Olguin got one wrong; Schechter didn't miss any.
Great scores without any preparation? What kind of test is that?
If they don't need to study for it, then it's one that probably needs to be ratcheted up, Warnock said.
And that's what is about to happen.
Instead of one broad test of knowledge, Texas is slowly moving to several narrower and deeper tests called End of Course Exams, or EOCs. They are final exams given on 12 individual subjects, like algebra and biology, and they count as 15 percent of a student's grade.
The current crop of 7th graders will be the first to transition to EOC exams.
Ann recently took a pilot EOC exam in Algebra. You actually have to study, she said. You have to do well on the EOC to pass.
It will be a more fair assessment of the class, agreed Miguel.
That's what the advanced kids say. Teachers, too, who will be able to go into greater depth on a subject and not worry about reviewing three years' worth of information.
But if there are kids across Texas already struggling, won't EOC be even harder for them?
Absolutely, Warnock said. We will be expecting more from our students. The principal and her students believe that's the only way to compete in tomorrow's world.
My thought coming to work every day is preparing our students to go out into a rapidly changing world, and compete not only with people in Carrollton and Farmers Branch and Dallas but India, China, and Singapore every day, Warnock said.
E-mail dschechter@wfaa.com
