A Survey of the Seven Major School Districts in Texas Regarding Their Attitudes about a Statewide Standardized Achievement Testing Program
Abstract
This research paper takes the national issue concerning standardized testing programs and relates it to Texas. The research paper began as a result of the Brown Report and "A Position Paper on Accountability/ Renewal".
The research paper contains two surveys. The descriptive data from the first survey was obtained from surveying selected administrators within the seven major urban school districts in Texas which included Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. The purpose of the first survey was to obtain the attitudes and opinions of selected administrators about a statewide standardized testing program in Texas. The second survey sought to determine the attitudes and opinions of specified mathematics educators from the same seven major urban school districts.
The data from the sampled population indicates that the administrators and the mathematics educators do not feel a statewide standardized test should be a requirement from a Texas high school. Nor do they feel a statewide standardized test should be administered and passed in order to proceed to the next grade level. The sampled administrators and mathematics educators do agree to a large extent with the reading and mathematics objectives outlined by the State Board of Education. They indicated that their specific school districts have objectives similar to those outlined by the State Board of Education.
The administrators feel teachers and educators are accountable to their school districts without a statewide standardized testing program. If required, administrators want standardized tests to be developed and scored locally but funded from the state level. The mathematics educators indicated that if a statewide standardized test was given at the twelfth grade and required to pass in order to graduate from high school, mathematics items on such a test should be at the eighth grade difficulty level. If a statewide standardized testing program was developed in Texas, the results indicated that the Legislature should survey a representative sample of school districts and obtain statistical results to insure adequate local input.
Description
Program year: 1977-1978Digitized from print original stored in HDR
Subject
standardized testing programsschool districts
administrators
Texas schools
mathematics educators
representation
Citation
Bett, Kathleen J. (1978). A Survey of the Seven Major School Districts in Texas Regarding Their Attitudes about a Statewide Standardized Achievement Testing Program. University Undergraduate Fellows. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /CAPSTONE -BettK _1978.