How English is taught in Texas likely to change
Education board may take conservative turn on reading, writing standard
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau, July 5, 2006

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AUSTIN - The State Board of Education, an elected body with a history of fierce ideological debates about textbook content, now wants to put its stamp on the curriculum that guides the instruction of 4.4 million Texas schoolchildren.

At its meeting Thursday, the 15-member board is expected to scrap a curriculum revision process dominated by teachers and the Texas Education Agency and discuss a new timetable for revising the English reading and writing standards.

Many on the board want to replace a student-centered curriculum that calls on students to use their own attitudes and ethics to interpret texts with teacher-centered instruction that emphasizes the basics of spelling, grammar and punctuation.

It was a fight social conservatives on the board lost in 1997, when moderates and liberals adopted the curriculum for all subjects. Now, with social conservatives expected to have a majority on the board for the first time after the November elections, the plan to rewrite the English standards is viewed by some as the opening shot in an effort to put a conservative imprint on the state's curriculum.

'A big battle'
"This is really going to be the big battle in public education over the next few years — what is it our students are going to learn," said Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors the state board for influence by the religious right. "We could see a lot of textbooks that are based on personal and political beliefs of a majority of the state board rather than on facts that students need to learn."

Quinn said that though it's unlikely that the English curriculum discussion will veer toward any political ideology, the effort could set the stage for 2008, when science standards are up for review.

The board defeated efforts to weaken the discussion of evolution in biology textbooks in 2003, but Quinn said that if the science curriculum is rewritten to include religious-based ideas such as intelligent design, the books will follow suit.

Texas' national impact
Because Texas is such a large market for publishers, textbook adoptions here have national repercussions.

Board member Don McLeroy, a Bryan Republican who is pushing the effort to change the reading and writing standards, denied any agenda to inject religion into the Texas curriculum.

"That's a false thing to worry about," said McLeroy. "You never heard me interject religion into anything, and I'm a very religious guy."

McLeroy said he had wanted the biology books to include more information about the "weaknesses of evolution." He said he doesn't envision including creationism or intelligent design — a theory that holds that a supernatural force played a hand in creation — in the state's science curriculum.

McLeroy said his only motive is to make the learning standards more understandable for teachers and parents. He wants to implement a back-to-basics curriculum that could drive achievement on reading and writing tests.

"Texas standards are not grade-level specific, most of them are noise. They can't be measured and are just a bunch of fuzzy words," McLeroy said.

Weakened authority
State law gives the board authority over curriculum content standards, called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. It is one of the few duties left to the board, which has seen some of its authority over textbooks stripped by the Legislature.

Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a Corpus Christi Democrat who often clashes with conservatives about textbook content, said she believes McLeroy is leading a "good-faith effort" to help students learn. But she also said as the process moves forward, "we're going to have to be very watchful."

The education agency is revising the standards subject by subject. The board accepted the math revisions proposed by the TEA last year.

The education agency already has convened a teacher study group to study the English TEKS, and the revisions were scheduled to be presented to the board for approval later this year. But the board stopped that process in April and set a June 14 work session to hear from reading experts about the curriculum.

That meeting changed the minds of some board members, including board chairman Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, who apologized to McLeroy at the end of the meeting.

"I really was convinced we had an incredible curriculum, and it just needed a little tweaking," said Miller, R-Dallas. "We need to stop this process right now."

One criticism voiced at the session is that the TEKS are too student-centered, often asking students to use their attitudes, behaviors and ethics to interpret texts. For example, students in fourth through eighth grades are expected to "describe mental images that text descriptions evoke" and "compare text events with his or her own or other readers' experiences."

McLeroy calls such standards "fuzzy English" and wants to expunge them from the state's curriculum. He said such standards can't be measured on state tests.

Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, voted in 1997 in favor of an alternate set of standards that was heavier on the basics of spelling and grammar. Critics said the alternate standards would wind up micromanaging teachers by dictating what and how they must teach rather than giving them the flexibility to determine how to reach individual students.

Fierce fight in 1997
The 1997 struggle to revamp curriculum for all subjects was billed as the "education battle of the decade." Then-Gov. George W. Bush blasted a first draft as "mushy" and replete with "feel-good" philosophies, but supported later versions as "good documents."

The state spent more than $9 million preparing the 1,000-page document. More than 350 Texans served on committees that drafted the TEKS and more than 18,000 people wrote or called the education agency with comment.

Little debate on math
Last year, the board approved modifications to the math curriculum with little debate. Education agency spokesman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe said English standards are more difficult to write than some other subjects because there are many alternate theories.

"Whether you like it or not, certain historical events happened on certain dates. With English you can just take off and go so many different directions," said Ratcliffe.

Barbara Foorman, director of the Center for Academics and Reading Skills at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, helped write the English TEKS in 1997. However, she has changed her mind and told the board last month that the standards need change.

Foorman said the standards aren't teacher friendly, and that many districts have had to spend money to translate them into classroom lesson plans.

Foorman would like to see the standards reduced in number and made more specific.

But she said there is a danger that the standards might become too prescriptive or too political if designed by the board.

"I'd hate to have politics mixing too much with it," Foorman said. "I'd much rather have a disinterested panel make some suggestions."

One issue that could prove contentious is whether to mandate specific reading lists for students. That now is considered a matter of local control, either by the district or individual teachers.

Board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, said at last month's work session that she's worried students aren't reading enough classic literature.

janet.elliott@chron.com

Editor: Harvey Kronberg
P.O. Box 8 Austin, Texas 78767
Voice: 512-292-8191
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Email: kronberg@quorumreport.com

June 16, 2006 1:43 PM
by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved

SETTING ACADEMIC STANDARDS PROVES TOUGHER THAN ONCE THOUGHT
SBOE wrestles with setting standards for testable standards

Texas schoolchildren still fail to pass the state-mandated Texas Assessment Knowledge and Skills. A panel of nationally renowned reading experts has suggested the problem may not be the children; the problem may be the standards set by the state.

This was news to the State Board of Education, which was assured when it drafted its English/language arts objectives back in 1997, after two years of diligent work, that the product was cutting edge. At a work session this week, though, scholar Sandra Stotsky assured the board that many states, in this new age of accountability, have drafted initial goals they considered to be great work. Instead, the results were "pretty awful."

"It was their first stab at a standard, and most didn’t know what they were doing," Stotsky said. "They simply didn’t know what standards to set, even what verbs to use. As these standards have been revised, they’ve become more refined, with a better understanding of what a standard has to do, and how it relates to an assessment."

Which is to say, without saying it, that Texas is in the same boat as most states, drafting a set of academic standards that are often difficult, if not impossible, to measure because of a heavy preponderance of vagueness and objectives littered with "educationese."

Texas standards are plagued with such non-specific jargon as "will develop an appreciation of" or "gain increasing control of" or simply "listen responsively." These are broad goals that are impossible to measure as standards, Stotksy said. Most lack a clear beginning and ending point that a teacher could use to plan a school year of instruction. If the goal is going to eventually be measured by an assessment instrument, every teacher in every classroom should be able to recognize and meet the same goal.
School districts clearly have struggled with how to interpret and teach these standardized goals. SBOE Member Barbara Cargill, a science educator who has tracked this area, could name three different ways her school districts had handled it: Aldine hires district instructional specialists that prepare detailed curriculum guides that are followed, to the letter, by teachers in the district. Conroe pulls a district-wide team of teachers who interpret what standards mean in each subject area. And Newton, which can’t afford specialists and is too small to put together district teams, simply uses a model in which teachers on a campus get together to make choices on curriculum.

Stotsky said standards should not be so vague, or broad, that it requires extensive interpretation by outside teams for the objective to make sense.

"Teachers shouldn’t have to interpret a standard," Stotsky said. "The academic standards should be understandable to the average citizen."

Stotsky picked out a standard from the sheet in front of her. In the fourth grade, according to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, a child should be able to "describe mental images that text descriptions evoke." That’s all well and good for a pedagogical strategy, but there’s no way to assess that goal in an objective way, Stotsky said.

What Stotsky and her colleagues, Barbara Foreman and Reid Lyon, were looking for were clear, measurable standards. A student recognizes a main idea. Or a student should be able to paraphrase and summarize a passage. Or a student should be able to recognize how details support the main idea of the paragraph.

Of course, it’s not simply as simple as stating a goal. Standards must be progressive. For instance, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills frequently repeats goals, such as "understand the major ideas and supporting evidence in spoken messages." That’s a goal for grades 4-8. Yet, clearly, a fourth-grade student’s interpretation of such an objective is going to be far less sophisticated than an eighth-grade student’s interpretation of the same goal. Yet the standard makes no differentiation for the difference in skill level.

That leaves a big hole open for interpretation. And, for some teachers, the problem may not be that they are not teaching the standard. The problem may be that they are teaching the standard at a level that falls below expectations for that particular grade.

Foreman, a leading expert on early linguistics, recommended that the state scrap any suggestion that goals be repeated from grade level to grade level, without specificity. Yes, a fourth-grade teacher should recognize what a child has not mastered in third grade, but the goals for Grade 4 should build upon those goals already accomplished in Grade 3.

"I would go through the whole (TEKS) document and dump everything that is not a standard and everything that is being repeated," Foreman said. "Suddenly you would see gaps and holes that you need to fill."

Looking through the list, Foreman suggested that half the goals could easily be discarded by simply cutting items that were not measurable or repeated. Goals and objectives for each grade level should be no longer than one to two pages, Foreman said. Too many objectives, Lyon said, simply creates curricula that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

After some discussion among the board members, Chair Tincy Miller agreed that the English/language arts TEKS, which are up for review soon, should be put on the board’s agenda in July for further discussion.
Board members also had an interesting exchange with the panel on early literacy. Member Terri Leo, like many parents, noted that her children liked to read particular types of literature and that broader reading lists could encourage early literacy.

Lyon disagreed with Leo’s interpretation, noting that children like particular types of literature only after they had mastered the basics of reading. Most students stop reading because they fail to master the fundamentals of literacy and no longer enjoy the process. Students who fail to read – who find it painful and unrewarding – stop reading. It’s only after they master those fundamentals that they actual move on to what they like to read.

Leo lamented that many children are not familiar with classic literature. Lyon said that still went back to the skills that the students had mastered.

"There is a high relationship between not exploring literature and not being able to read," Lyon said. "The majority of kids who don’t move on to more complex material don’t do so because it’s painful. That’s different than it not being painful from a skill perspective and then the child deciding he really doesn’t want to do it."

Stotsky did throw in an aside that gender differences should be taken into account on reading lists. Research shows that boys enjoy reading non-fiction chock full of facts and statistics, a fact that has crosses all racial and ethnic lines, Stotsky said. Yet fifth-grade teachers still wonder why boys in their classes aren’t enamored with the tale of a 19th century mail-order bride when they assign Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Members of the panel agreed that early literacy skills cannot be taught in isolation and that vocabulary must be pulled across classroom activities for real mastery. Teachers cannot pick a few words out of the basal, teach them, and then expect perfect understanding, Foreman said. Real vocabulary grows out of a comprehensive approach, such as Teacher Talks, , which combines read-aloud texts, active talk and direct instruction to cement vocabulary.

Copyright June 16, 2006 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved