After Years of Low Ratings, TEA Will Take Over Marlin’s Public School System

Marlin ISD is a small, rural school district in central Texas. It sits about 30 miles southeast of Waco and about 900 kids attend its schools. And Marlin is struggling. Under the Texas Education Agency’s accountability ratings, the district has needed improvement every year since 2011.

The STAAR exam is one of the metrics used to judge districts around the state. Its online portion was riddled with problems: tests lost, connectivity issues and the like. The problems were so bad that some claimed the test was not just unfair, but illegal. In late September, Marlin ISD joined a lawsuit arguing that the scores should not be valid.

Michael Seabolt, superintendent of Marlin ISD, says the tests got attention a few years ago after Texas passed a law requiring a percentage of children to be able to finish standardized tests in a reasonable amount of time.

“That came to parents’ concerns,” he says. “Why do we have third graders taking tests that last four hours? TEA ignored it.”

Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/after-years-of-low-ratings-tea-will-take-over-marlins-public-school-system/#