Do the TEKS help your child or students to learn more? How are they connected to high-stakes testing?
Literally, the acronym TEKS stands for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. They are a set of skills that the state of Texas has determined are essential for each student to learn. Each grade level has a very specific set of TEKS for each content area. The state's standardized test, the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test, is TEKS based. Texas requires that its textbooks teach the TEKS as well, which means that the major textbook publishers must specialize their content for Texas, in many cases, creating textbooks that are different from those purchased by the other states.
What do the TEKS Look Like?
In many subjects, such as math and language arts, the TEKS build upon one another. Children will learn broad skills, and then build upon them from year to year. For example, in language arts, the skills of listening, speaking and communication begin in Kindergarten and continue through the 12th grade. In other content areas, the TEKS can become more specific. The TEKS are one of the most explicit curriculum guidelines that exist. Here is an example of a social studies TEKS expectation for a 5th grade student:
The student is expected to describe the accomplishments of significant colonial leaders such as Anne Hutchinson, William Penn, John Smith, and Roger Williams.
This is one of 87 expectations for this particular course, which all Texas 5th graders are expected to learn.
Who Develops the TEKS?
The Texas Administrative Code (TAC), Title 19, Part II, Chapter 74, in addition to setting forth graduation requirements, also provides for specific curriculum requirements. This is from where the TEKS originates. The Texas Education Association (TEA) has a Division of Curriculum that develops these standards and ensures that they are implemented in school districts across the state.
How Does the TEKS Affect Standardized Testing?
Since each TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test is based entirely on the TEKS, educators frequently utilize practice tests in order to identify which TEKS items their students are performing well on, and which items need additional work. The practice tests can be broken down and analyzed so that the curriculum can be adjusted for a class or a group of students, so that their test scores will not suffer. Often, schools who are concerned about their overall testing scores will have workshops where they break down student scores and identify the specific test questions that students are having difficulty with. If, for example, they determine that the inferential questions are a problem for a significant percentage of the student population, they will direct staff to focus more on the inferential questioning strategies and practice during the upcoming year in the hope of increasing the test scores.
Does My Child Learn More Because of the TEKS?
Theoretically, it would seem so. However, because the TEKS build on one another from year to year, if a student falls behind, it can become very difficult for him to catch up. Some districts have very specific instructional guides for teachers to follow each six or nine week period, and if a students do not master the TEKS taught in a certain time period, often there is no time for the teacher to go back and reteach the class, as he must move along to the next section of the guide given to him. This can cause stress for both students and teachers, and can be in conflict with the very premise behind the No Child Left Behind Act.
Consider the prior example of the 87 TEKS for the 5th grade social studies class, and the fact that there are 180 days in the school year, some of which are occupied with testing and test preparation. As a parent and educator, to inquire how much depth of learning is taking place would not be out of line. On the other hand, it is clear that the expectations are high, and that Texas is striving, through the TEKS, to teach our children a broad base of knowledge and skills.
Ultimately, how much your child learns will have a great deal to do with the value that his classmates' parents put on education, the experience of the teacher and the child's affinity for a given subject. Your willingness to reteach specific skills will also contribute to his scholastic success.
