Posted 10:39 pm Thursday, December 20, 2012
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Tyler ISD to hear update on accountability system
BY EMILY GUEVARA
A Tyler ISD administrator will provide an update about the state's new accountability system at today's monthly board meeting.
Although nothing has been finalized, Dr. Karen Raney, TISD's director of assessment and accountability, will provide an overview of the current recommendations for the new system.
Dr. Raney is one of 27 members of the state's Accountability Technical Advisory Committee. This committee exists to develop and provide recommendations to the Texas commissioner of education for the state's new accountability system.
Last year, Texas introduced a new standardized test called the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness.
Performance on this test would be among a variety of factors considered under the proposed performance index framework, according to information on the Texas Education Agency website.
The proposed framework calls for measuring student performance in several areas, including student achievement, student progress, performance gaps between different racial and socioeconomic groups and postsecondary readiness, according to the TEA website.
In other business, the board is scheduled to vote on several purchases, including 90 Smart Boards for 12 TISD campuses; 58 iPad 3 tablets for Moore MST Magnet School; and about 70 instruments for middle and high school bands and orchestras.
The district's desegregation order also is on the agenda to be discussed in closed session.
The order still is in place, but, in 2011, TISD began talks with the U.S. Department of Justice to determine how the lifting of a statewide desegregation order might have affected the district's individual desegregation order, and what the district could do to have the order lifted.
The 42-year-old order was put in place in July 1970 and because of it, TISD submits paperwork to the Justice Department twice a year and keeps records about the number of students and staff and the racial makeup of the district down to individual classrooms.
School district attorney John Hardy previously described the order as one that has served its time.
He has said present-day laws would continue to ensure the district operates in a way that is nondiscriminatory in terms of hiring practices and other actions.
