I was working with a Texas secondary campus last Monday. On Thursday, district unit tests were scheduled, in STAAR tested courses. Planned instructional activities for the week were as follows: Unit test review on Tuesday; unit test review on Wednesday; administer the district unit on Thursday.

 

Here is the brutal math, a mere 5-weeks before the state accountability test, this campus is WASTING at minimum, 60% of the week’s instructional time on a test that does NOT matter.

 

I’ll repeat, does NOT matter. The State of Texas does not care how students perform on district unit tests. Not even one little bit. The state only cares about STAAR test performance.

 

I pointed this out to the campus administrative team. Their protest? “But our bosses care.”

 

Maybe, if they are short sighted.

 

But once the STAAR results come in, they won’t give a second thought to district unit test scores, good or bad.

 

Campus leaders, keep your eye on what really matters. You can survive low a district unit test score. You won’t survive poor STAAR results.

 

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

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