Texas Assessment of Academic Skills Exit Test--Driver of Equity or Ticket to Nowhere

In Texas, assessment tests dominate education. Is this good for the children of Texas? Is TAAS a good tool with which to evaluate the success of schools, principals, and teachers? Should it also be used to evaluate the performance of individual students? What are the educational, social, and political consequences of this policy? These questions were raised but not resolved in the recent case of GI Forum v. Texas Education Agency. Three issues emerge as most important in this debate. The first focuses on the indirect impact of TAAS on school curriculum, retention rates, and drop-out rates. The second focuses on the connection between the content of the TAAS test and its stated goals of testing academic achievement. The third focuses on the metronomic aspects of the test and whether the process used to select items for the examination systematically disadvantages minority test-takers