The New York Times has lowered the boom on the "Texas Miracle," claiming that its own analysis of SAT-9 test scores of Houston ISD students from 1999-2002 shows that the district made at best modest gains in reading and math, despite claims (based on the now-defunct TAAS assessment) that Houston schools had dramatically increased scores and closed the minority achievement gap. As far as statistics go, the Times' analysis seems persuasive. After all, there is no doubt that some of the claims made on behalf of Houston schools were overstated when compared against national tests. The district has made some gains (unusual for a district of its size and beset with the challenges it faces, we'd note) but hardly the kind that could be called a "miracle." It's the Times' rather disingenuous reading of the political situation and implications that we take issue with. For example, the No Child Left Behind act does not require states and districts to "match Houston's success and bring virtually all children to academic proficiency," as the Times tendentiously remarks. And, Houston's record has little bearing on whether the federal government, through its Title I funding, ought to require schools to close the achievement gap and bring all students up to proficiency. The Times concludes that Houston's achievement gains were the result of a too-easy test, which Texas has already begun to correct on its own by scrapping the TAAS in favor of the more-rigorous TAKS. We would also note that this supposed scandal - by the Times' own admission, Houston showed achievement gains on the SAT-9 "large enough to be considered significant," the horror! - wouldn't have even been discoverable without the kind of large-scale, objective, equatable assessment system that the New York Times has spilled quite a bit of ink decrying over the past decade. On the strength of this article, we assume that the Times is now in favor of more such testing to round out the data set, which gratifies us immensely.
"A miracle revisited," by Diana Jean Schemo and Ford Fessenden, New York Times, December 3, 2003 (registration required)
