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Great things are happening in Texas Public Schools -- Friends of Texas Public Schools

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Texas public school students earn top national rankings

Texas students outperform peer groups on NAEP science exam

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90 percent of 5th grade students pass TAKS math; 67 percent of those who take test in Spanish pass

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June 2006

Billboards go up across the state

The new banner for this newsletter is the same design as billboards that went up on several major Texas highways to reach summer traffic. You can spot them if you are driving on I-35 southbound between Dallas and Austin, Westbound on I-10 between Houston and San Antonio, or on HWY 71 between Columbus and Bastrop... the more funds we raise the more boards we can put up!

Texas public school students earn top national rankings

When scores are examined by ethnic groups, Texas students earned top national rankings on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exams.

“While Texas 8th graders ranked 20th overall and 4th graders ranked 9th overall, a closer look tells a much different story,” says Scott Milder, President and CEO of Friends of Texas Public Schools. “Overall scores are misleading because student populations are radically different from one state to the next. When all results are lumped together they fail to account for ethnic and socioeconomic variables.”

When comparing student subgroups by state, Texas 4th and 8th graders (the only two grade levels at which NAEP state data is collected) actually outperformed their peers in nearly every other state on the math portion of the NAEP exam.

Following are the results:

Hispanic 4th graders and 8th graders rank 2nd in the nation.

African American 4th graders and 8th graders also rank 2nd in the nation.

Asian 4th graders rank 1st in the nation and Asian 8th graders rank 3rd in the nation.

White 4th graders rank 1st in the nation and White 8th graders rank 3rd in the nation.

“When you consider that Texas arguably has the most diverse and challenging student population in this country, these results really are extraordinary,” says Milder. “Contrary to popular opinion and the day’s headlines, Texas students and educators lead this nation when it comes to results and we congratulate them for their success.”

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African-American, Hispanic, white, Asian/Pacific Islander, economically disadvantaged and English language learners in Texas’ fourth-grade class outperformed their peer groups nationally on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science exam.

Texas’ white and African-American fourth-grade students ranked second on the science test with only Virginia’s students from these two ethnic groups earning statistically significantly higher average scores than the Texans, according to information released today by the National Center for Education Statistics. Hispanics in only four states earned a statistically higher average scale score than did Texas fourth-grade Hispanics. Those states were Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky and Florida.

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Friends of Texas Public Schools Cofounders Leslie and Scott Milder deliver an inspiring, uplifting and optimistic message about Texas Public Schools.

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90 percent of 5th grade students pass TAKS math; 67 percent of those who take test in Spanish pass

Ninety percent of Texas fifth-grade students passed the mathematics portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills by the end of the school year, the Texas Education Agency announced.

Students must pass both the TAKS math and reading portions of the test in order to be promoted to sixth grade. The latest math results are cumulative passing rates based on the first two administrations of this exam. Eighty-one percent of the students passed the math test April 4 when it was first given. Those who initially failed the test retook a fifth-grade math exam on May 16 and have just received their results. Students have one other opportunity to take the test on June 27.

Read more about school success...

“In our rush to reform education, we have forgotten a simple truth: reform will never be achieved by renewing appropriations, restructuring schools, rewriting curricula, and revising texts if we continue to demean and dishearten the human resource called the teacher on whom so much depends. Teachers must be better compensated, freed from bureaucratic harassment, given a role in academic governance, and provided with the best possible methods and materials. But none of that will transform education if we fail to cherish--and challenge--the human heart that is the source of good teaching.”

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Featured summer reading

“Teacher-bashing has become a popular sport. Panic- stricken by the demands of our day, we need scapegoats for the problems we cannot solve and the sins we cannot bear. Teachers make an easy target, for they are such a common species and so powerless to strike back. We blame teachers for being unable to cure social ills that no one knows how to treat; we insist that they instantly adopt whatever "solution" has most recently been concocted by our national panacea machine; and in the process, we demoralize, even paralyze, the very teachers who could help us find our way.”

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach