All Schools In Clear Creek ISD Met State Standards

LEAGUE CITY, TX — All of the campuses in Clear Creek ISD met the state's standards, according to The Texas Education Agency's recently released accountability ratings.

Although none of the district's campuses were on the state's list of low performing schools this year, two intermediate schools barely cleared the student progress bar.

The annual ratings are designed to provide a snapshot of a school's performance, but the system has come under fire for relying on scores from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, exams — the latest model of Texas' high-stakes standardized tests.

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Given the problems that plagued this year's tests — glitches in online tests, testing materials being sent to other schools and in one case to a church, scores being attributed to the wrong schools, flimsy answer sheets — it's a stretch to think that this year's fill-in-the-blank could be used to measure anything other than how much money the state saved by switching vendors.

Expect legislation to change the ratings game to be introduced when the filing period opens at the end of the year. Given how much time is guaranteed to be devoted to the three "G's" of Texas state politics — gays, guns and God — whether or not education bills will get a hearing when the Lege gets back next year is a bit of a crap shoot.

The two campuses that barely hit the mark in student progress were Bayside and Brookside intermediate schools. Both campuses needed a 30 in student achievement and both got a 33, not much of a pad there.

However, given the shortcomings of this year's tests perhaps both schools should get a round of applause for even getting in the end zone, what with the goal line constantly shifting.