Texas Education Agency Faces Sanctions

The Texas Education Agency has been accused by the U.S. Department of Education of not living up to the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. U.S. education officials are challenging whether the special-education student exam, and the spanish version of the TAKS are on the same difficulty level as the regular english TAKS. The TAKS is required by federal law, and is supposed to measure how well students have learned the state-approved curriculum. Education officials are also concerned about discrepencies between translations of english and spanish versions of the TAKS.

The TEA has until the end of this month to file reports with the Department of Education detailing how these problems will be fixed. If they do not satisfy the Department of Education, the TEA stands to lose 10% [$1.2 million] of its Title I administrative funds. That money would be sent directly to the schools and not be filtered through the TEA, so the school districts would not lose money.

This is just like the republican leadership in our state. They've already screwed up the funding of our schools, and now it looks like their screwing up the teaching of our children. What do you do when you find too many hispanics are not doing well on the test? Well, our officials just take the easy way out and make the test easier. Never mind that the students will pay for it the rest of their lives. We have got to vote these guys out in November.

Here are how some of the states are doing on this Dept. of Education review:

Fully approved - Arizona, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, & West Virginia.

Approval expected - Alaska, Connecticut, & Massachusetts.

Approval pending - Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming, & Puerto Rico.

Approval pending with sanctions - Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, & TEXAS.

Not approved - Maine & Nebraska.

More information needed - Washington

Not yet reviewed - California, Louisiana, New Hampshire, & Mississippi.