TAAS at the crossroads
8
to quell the concern about the TAAS test. As teachers began to feel greater pressure, and as their
jobs became more dependent on the success of their students on the TAAS, many claimed that
preparation for TAAS overwhelmed the other essential curriculum in the classroom, and called
for a return to prior forms of school ranking systems (Garcia, 1994, “TAAS value”).
In 1995, the TEA (1999) officially tied expectations of TAAS scores to the school
ranking system. Although students who had entered the system in 1990 or beyond, when TAAS
testing was first implemented, seemed to have little or no difficulty passing the test, students who
had spend years in the system before the test was developed continued to have great difficulty
(Lee, Christopher, 1995; Deller, 1996).
External Constituents: In October of 1995, the Texas branch of the NAACP filed a
complaint with the U.S. Education department, charging that the TAAS test discriminated
against minorities (Stutz, 1995). This complaint sparked a storm of charges claiming both racial
and socioeconomic bias, and reciprocating studies and institutional assurances that no such
discrimination was apparent (Stutz, 1996, “Probe set”; Stutz, 1996, “Education chief”; Ramos,
1996; Sanchez, 1997; Cisneros-Lunsford, 1997; Tracey, 1998; Melendez, 1998; Fleming, 1998;
Pearce, 1998; Hood, 1998; Russell, 1999).
Other outside organizations joined the fray in the complaints against the TAAS test in
1995. Tonya Bonner, Lubbock district president of the PTA (Parent Teacher Association)
asserted that, “It may have looked good on paper at first, but what it (the test) developed into is a
monster (Lee, Mike, 1995).” The Texas State Teacher’s Association complained that the
intensity surrounding the TAAS ratcheted up each year, and that their teachers felt it had become
the “be-all, end--all” of public education (Bernstein, 1995, “Opinions Mixed”).
Convention