Redefining Success for Texas Students May 1, 2013

Although the achievement gap in Texas may appear to be closing, a recent report from The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education suggests that students in the state are falling behind academically in ways not measured by standardized testing.

Published by education professors Richard Reddick and Julian Vasquez Heilig, “Is Texas Leading Its Peers in the Nation? A Decadal Analysis of Educational Data” examines an array of student success indicators. The report covers 2000 to 2010 and assesses Texas students’ academic achievement relative to California and New York, which are considered peer states.

According to the report, between 2003 and 2010 the number of African American students passing the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) math exit exam jumped from 25 percent to 81 percent and the number of Latino students who passed went from 30 to 85 percent.

Although test scores, considered alone, suggest that the achievement gap is shrinking, other factors, Heilig and Reddick assert that several other factors should be examined in order to determine the success of accountability policies. Their report takes into consideration additional factors such as time spent studying outside of class, graduation rates, incarceration rates, money saved or allotted for college, and voter registration. The report suggests that “student success” must be defined more broadly.

“No Child Left Behind has us focus on one very blunt instrument: these high stakes exams,” said Heilig, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Administration and expert on how accountability-based reforms and incentives measures impact urban schools. “But what we as a society care about are all these other outcomes, such as accessing higher education, career readiness, incarceration and citizenship. These are what really mean ‘success.’”

Although standardized test scores show students have made gains, the independent measures examined in the report demonstrate that more must be done in order to improve education for Texas’s increasingly diverse classrooms.

“Accountability is a really critical part of what we do in education, but it seems we’ve gone all in with accountability and we haven’t thought about other things, like funding streams and supporting teachers so that they can do their jobs well,” said Reddick, an assistant professor in educational administration whose research focus is diversity in higher education. “ When examining the Lone Star state’s results in this report comparative to our peer states - New York and California - Texas lies in the middle on most measures. Dr. Heilig attributes this to each state’s spending on education.

“You hear that money doesn’t matter, but if you ask anyone or you simply go to the mall or the grocery store – you see money clearly does matter. New York has clearly done better than we have. You see the exact opposite with California, where their divestment in education has really cost them.”

As education policy continues to be debated and altered in Texas, Reddick and Heilig hope that data from reports such as theirs will be factored in. Heilig specifically would like to see the introduction of and support for what he refers to as “community-based accountability.”

According to the researchers, tools like their most recent report can help communities better assess the needs of classrooms in their own neighborhoods and spur improvements by taking a more personal responsibility for the education of their students.

 “We need to use multiple measures to consider the success of our schools,” said Heiig. “We can’t trust tests that are controlled by the state. We need to trust an independent and broad set of measures to understand how we are doing.”

Reddick added, “A lot of folks seem to be thinking that accountability is going to solve inequity problems, and it’s not enough. It’s necessary, but it’s not enough.”

—Christine Benson, College of Education Communications Assistant