Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I, for one, am very concerned about this new law and the concern is that most people don't really understand STAAR scores and how low Texas is setting the bar for students to be enrolled in the advanced math. The law calls for any student scoring in the 60th percentile on Grade 5 Math STAAR. Students in Texas are not doing well on their STAAR tests - that is the 1st problem. IN order to score in the 60th percentile students ONLY have to get 55% of the questions/material/skills correct on the STAAR. Does anyone on these posts think that learning and knowing only 55% of the grade level material means that you are ready to be in an accelerated program. More students will struggle and just get pushed along and these students will not go on to take advanced math - they will not even score "college ready". Texas is really good about not being clear on what the results on STAAR actually mean. There are so many scale scores it is confusing to most people.
That doesn't really pertain to 99% of the people on this board who are in the Washington DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area. Most of the conversation in this topic has been focused on Fairfax County's math advancement path.
These sort of ideas get adopted to try and reach policy goals.
The current TJ 1.5% formula is loosely based on the texas college system.
That system passed constitutional muster and so should the TJ method unless they reverse Fisher.
There is no question that the university of texas system adopted its method to create racial diversity but adopting race neutral methods to adjust the racial composition of selected candidates may not be impermissible discrimination.