State giving no TAKS exemptions
Students with disabilities, other difficulties will be required to
pass version of test
By Ann Work
Monday, January 7, 2008
If Helen Keller attended school today in Texas, she would take the
TAKS test along with her classmates.
It doesn’t matter whether a child is blind, deaf, dyslexic,
wheelchair-bound, handicapped by muscular or mental impediments, or
struggling with addiction, language or emotional problems, the state
requires each child in Texas public schools to take some version of
the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
Exemptions that were once allowed for students with severe handicaps
no longer exist.
“They’re all taking an assessment,” said Denise Williams, testing
coordinator for the Wichita Falls Independent School District.
“Everything falls under a TAKS label now.”
As recently as last year, students who were the most cognitively
disabled were taking a version of the TAKS test as part of a field
test.
“But this year will be the real deal,” Williams said. The TAKS “Alt,”
or an alternative version of the TAKS test, is here to stay.
“We don’t have the option any more of exempting them because they
don’t know the language or are handicapped. All kids test.”
The blanket requirement covers even children who have moved here as
recently as six months ago from Mexico. They might barely know the
English language, but when enrolled in Texas schools, they will be
taking a TAKS test in reading, math and science.
A few years ago, students were tested only in reading. They also had
a one-year exemption to give them a chance to learn the language.
No more. Now, the state requires testing sooner and in more subjects.
Some teachers joke that No Child Left Behind has turned into No Child
Left Untested.
“It’s the truth,” Williams said. “No longer can you bubble in an ‘X’
for exempt.”
A teacher will help determine what type of the TAKS test suits each
child in her classroom.
Williams confirmed that a deaf/blind student like Helen Keller would
definitely be included in such testing. “Oh, yes,” she said at the
thought of it. “We have Braille.”
Other accommodations can be made.
Sandy Camp, Jefferson Elementary School testing coordinator, said
TAKS modified tests may be done orally, given in larger print or with
fewer answer choices.
A dyslexic child takes the same test as his peers on the same day
they do, but has two days to take it. A teacher assists these
children by also reading to them the proper nouns and the questions
and answers, two areas that are particularly troublesome for dyslexic
children, Camp said.
“So as far as the higher level thinking skills, they still need to
use those to complete the test, even though they have a learning
disability,” Camp said.
For the most severely profound children, a teacher does a computer
form of their test, entering information that she has gleaned from
monitoring the child over a certain period of time. “The child is
given certain goals to achieve, they are monitored, and she sends in
the results of that monitoring,” Camp said.
The nature of testing today requires good communication between a
teacher, a diagnostician and the home campus, said Marvin Peevey,
assistant principal and TAKS coordinator at Cunningham Elementary
School.
At his campus, children under his watch include those enrolled in
grades K through 12 at North Texas State Hospital, Rose Street and
Red River Hospital. “If a child is at grade level for TAKS, they take
some form of the TAKS test,” Peevey said. If they perform a few years
behind their grade level, they are given an alternate version.
Any alternative form of the TAKS test can be time-consuming for a
teacher, Peevey said, because it involves lengthy documentation and
an ongoing assessment.
Each school has its own TAKS coordinator who monitors all the state
and federal regulations pertaining to TAKS testing. Like Peevey and
Camp, the TAKS coordinator is usually the school’s vice principal.
So where do the results go once all the testing has been done?
Testing is a two-headed monster, with some results going to the state
and other results going to the federal government.
“We have to be able to serve both masters right now,” Williams said.
The federal government requires reports on all children. While the
state collects reports on all children, it tracks information on just
five subgroups: white, African-American, Hispanic, economically
disadvantaged and “all students” (which is defined as the total of
the four subgroups).
“Special ed is not a sub-group evaluated for the state,” Williams
said.
The result of the disappearing exemptions has forced teachers to go
to the mat for every child, searching out ways to reach each one.
Collaborative teaching has been helpful here, Camp said.
“We’ve come around to the realization that teachers can’t teach kids
alone. They can’t do it all by themselves. With professional learning
communities, we have developed teams where teachers work together to
insure that these kids will learn.”
Teachers can no longer settle for presenting academics only, she
said. “It’s working with the psychological part of (learning), where
the kids know they can accomplish things. Sometimes when you have low
expectations for a child, they will fulfill those low expectations,
and they won’t go any further. (Testing) is preventing any of us as
educators from having low expectations for kids any more.”
Times have changed, she said. “When the accountability wasn’t so
fierce, we just kinda looked at kids and said, ‘These will be capable
of this much and these of that much.’ We did lower expectations for
kids a lot of times. Now, kids with learning disabilities like
dyslexia or any kind, we really expect them to come right along and
do what they need to do.”
When teachers put their heads together to help children learn, it’s
amazing how successful they can be with children, she said.
“We see it every day in our severely profound classes that these kids
are being successful. Years ago, people would have taken children with
severe disabilities and put them in an institution. Now, it is amazing
what these kids can do,” Camp said.
Education reporter Ann Work can be reached at (940) 763-7538 or by
e-mail at [email protected]
Link:
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/jan/07/state-giving-no-taks-exemptions/
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