Keller School District Officials Expect Rating Change (Bedford, Howe: low income, section 8)

[babs7907]

This certainly was not the reason why I bought a house in Keller, what the hell is going on?.

Here's the post (http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/05/30/3113696/keller-school-district-officials.html - broken link)...

KELLER - Keller administrators expect the school district's accountability rating to drop from recognized to academically acceptable, they announced at Thursday night's board meeting.
Preliminary results on the 2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) indicated that one school dropped to academically unacceptable based on writing scores, said Deana Lopez, assistant superintendent of learning.
Overall, scores were high enough to sustain a recognized rating, but based on rules set by the Texas Education Agency, a school district cannot be rated recognized if it has a campus that is academically unacceptable, Lopez said.
District officials were not releasing individual campus ratings because more information is coming on math and reading re-tests, scores of English Language Learners and other factors that could affect ratings. Final ratings will be released in July.
Earlier this year, state officials dropped the Texas Projection Measure (TPM), a tool that projected future success based on student trends, from the rating process. Lopez said about half of Keller's schools had boosts in ratings last year because of TPM.
This is the last year Texas students will take the TAKS test. A new test, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and new End of Course exams will be implemented next year. According to information on the TEA website, no accountability ratings will be given for the first year to give schools a chance to adjust to the new system.

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[ClarenceBodiker]

Keller still has great schools. I wouldn't worry too much about it just because ONE school has fallen off and lowered the ranking of the entire district. Most likely they'll put their efforts into that one school since it's hurting the district ranking and will probably turn it around.

The TPM was a dumb idea to begin with, and TEA rankings can be useless at times. 90% of the school could ace the TAKS test, but if one "subgroup" has a high percentage of failing kids it can hurt the ratings of the entire school. I wouldn't buy too much into it unless your kid goes to the one unacceptable school in the district.

[loves2read]

Same thing happened to the local elemtary for our house in Bedford--
4th grade writing was unacceptable--and that lowered the rating for the entire school
some people got their asses kicked for it
but the people who bear most of the responsibility--the students/parents of those 4th graders who failed just won't get any of the blame--they will be viewed almost as victims when they --the ones that failed--have no desire to get better--
this class has from the get go shown lack of respect for authority and unwillingness to do what it takes to improve--
not all of them but a significant number
so the entire school is penalized for the actions (or inactions) of a few students

[hypocore]

One high school where I know someone who teaches, dropped to unacceptable due to ONE subgroup in which 7 students failed. SEVEN. That's all it took to bring a school of over 2000 students down to unacceptable. So, you cannot judge an entire district by one rating, one school or one anything.

It is just one factor to consider in the journey.

[5stones]

Humm, it will be interesting to see what school it is and for what reason.

I know the drop out rate at Fossil had some worried. Just a few kids can plumment a rating.
Not that there is any excuse, I don't think we even had a school rated acceptable last year, except the new directions HS for high risk kids.

There were 2 elementary schools that have a high percentage of low income and bi-lingual kids.

Interesting...I am sure the Admin is NOT happy and they are double checking everything to make sure it wasn't a computer error etc...

[loves2read]

and the ratings can be improved when officals go through and ask for exemptions or reclassifications--
sometimes students who took the test and scored poorly are not really the liability of the testing school--and that info/result is traded back to their original school after the main TAKS scores are sent out in spring...

there is cut off day during the school year--any student moving after that date from one DISTRICT to another is the test responsibility for the first district--

if a student moved from one school to another INSIDE the district then there is no cutoff date since students are supposed to be receiving an equal education--
that is not true and some schools do take a hit when they get sub-par students from other "sister" schools

[5stones]

After reading more it appears that the overall ratings were enough to keep the district at Recognized. However, the rules of the TEA say that if 1 school falls to unacceptable the district can not keep a Recognized/Exemplary rating it must go down to Acceptable.
It appears the score that cause the fall was in the writting portion. I am very interested to see waht school it is an what the demographics are.

Keller ISD is a big district with VAST diffrences in economic status. 1million dollar homes verese trailer parks, section 8 rentals etc...

[loves2read]

same can be said for some other districts in the area--not just Keller

and I have heard that 4th grade writing has tripped up several schools with otherwise very good results
makes me wonder what the topic was and who did the grading
would not surprise me if some genius with the TAKS program decided to use a rubrik that was more harsh than previous years or had a grading team with less experience--
that could influence the scores of dozens of schools for that test

[5stones]

Well a school can fall short esp in writting since it can be subjective.
I was amazed last year (my youngest was 4th grade) and her school (WLE) REALLY focused on writting. Not only in ELA but for science, writting papers, using good descriptors for labs etc... Every subject they had a journal for and had to journal everyday in all subjects (math..had to use complete sentences when anwsers etc)
In all thier English writting papers they had "tired words" that they were not allowed to use (pretty, good, big etc...) ELA focused alot on proper sentence structure etc... Her writting improved vastly!

On the other hand as I go to different schools in the district I see that this is NOT a district wide teaching policy for 4th grade. A few schools were really doing the minimal for writting. They did not have listed in the classroom words that were no longer used, they didn't have the writting labs that listed new adj, adv etc... to help give the kids prompts etc... It seemed the kids in a few schools were just not being pushed enough etc... I was really amazed, since I thought it a district wide writting emphasis in 4th grade.

That's why I am VERY interested to see what school it is... for a whole school to fail, that is a failing of the Admin and policies as well as yes the teachers. ( I want to know if my "gut" is right on the school..there are 2 or 3 that will no longer work at due to the envirnoment of the staff) The Admin sets the tone and if they don't care etc...that mood trickels down. It can be said that every school in every district has that "bad" teacher (who doesn't really care, who is burned out etc... what ever the reason) But no way is an entire school filled with 'bad" teachers!

Since I live and work in KISD this really hits home (and makes me very angry and sad). But I will stand by the district and say it is a very good district and has many more very good schools than poor schools. (and quite a few EXCELLENT schools)

[hypocore]

Originally Posted by 5stones

Well a school can fall short esp in writting since it can be subjective.
I was amazed last year (my youngest was 4th grade) and her school (WLE) REALLY focused on writting. Not only in ELA but for science, writting papers, using good descriptors for labs etc... Every subject they had a journal for and had to journal everyday in all subjects (math..had to use complete sentences when anwsers etc)
In all thier English writting papers they had "tired words" that they were not allowed to use (pretty, good, big etc...) ELA focused alot on proper sentence structure etc... Her writting improved vastly!

On the other hand as I go to different schools in the district I see that this is NOT a district wide teaching policy for 4th grade. A few schools were really doing the minimal for writting. They did not have listed in the classroom words that were no longer used, they didn't have the writting labs that listed new adj, adv etc... to help give the kids prompts etc... It seemed the kids in a few schools were just not being pushed enough etc... I was really amazed, since I thought it a district wide writting emphasis in 4th grade.

I've found over the years that the schools who focus that much on one subject often have a reason for doing so. Either it's been given as a direct goal to a principal or school, or they believe that particular grade of students are highly lacking in that subject and need the extra focus in order to meet the standards. Sometimes it's just the way they want to approach it, based off a seminar they took and got excited about.

In our district and in several others, 4th grade rotates students among teachers so that writing has one teacher who teaches all the students, or two teachers who teach half each. The same goes for other core subjects, so that each teacher is more or less specializing in one or two subjects instead of all subjects. Is that something that Keller does too?

Where my son is, the school was intent on looping teachers between two grades every year. However, come the end of this year and we discover that's not happening next year. Instead there are teachers coming to teach 3rd grade that have been teaching 4th or 5th and 'rumor' has it the reason is because they feel this group overall is in need of extra help in the subject of reading since they will be taking standardized tests for the first time.

In general, this school does not make a huge deal of the TAKS tests. They do what is needed, but it is a very relaxed atmosphere unlike the previous school we were in did that made a big deal and made it very stressful.