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May 25, 2016      3:43 PM

Next-Gen commission grapples with revamping Texas tests, accountability

Specifics aren’t emerging, but group agrees the burden of the accountability system ought to rest more fully on teachers rather than students

Recommendations out of the Next-Generation Assessment and Accountability Commission are due to the legislature in September. Today’s meeting was intended to pin down what content should be evaluated, which standards should be measured, how to make the reports understandable to teachers and parents, and how the outcomes should be used.

Specifics for the group’s recommendations are hard to come by. As the group started its post-lunch discussion session, ideas being discussed included using real-world targets for students, using already established assessments tied to student career goals. The group also supported the use of a portfolio of work, and a system that encouraged all teachers, and not just those in the four tested subject areas, to be committed to improvement.

Superintendent Kim Alexander of Roscoe Independent School District told the group it was his hope the commission would adopt the work of the TASA Visioning Institute, which has met for almost a decade to discuss the future of accountability. A number of school districts across the state, including Clear Creek and Northwest, currently are piloting accountability models.

By Kimberly Reeves