A Case Study of the Pittsburg (Texas) Independent School District

and Its Role as a Partner in the NSF‑Supported Texas Rural Systemic Initiative

Camp County is the second smallest of 254 counties in Texas, covering approximately 198 square miles. Although the boundaries of the county are not rectangular, it covers an area of about 12.5 miles by 16 miles. The county seat of Camp County is Pittsburg, the setting for this case study. Camp County and Pittsburg lie at the northern end of the Piney Woods of East Texas. Pittsburg is located on the 4-lane State Highway 271, approximately 120 miles east of Dallas, and some 12 miles south of Interstate Highway 30 (I-30), which traverses between the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex and Little Rock, Arkansas. Pittsburg is also at the crossroads of freight-hauling railroads. Major train lines, notably the Kansas City Southern and the Southern Pacific, transport goods for the nation between the east and west coasts and the industrial northern USA and the Gulf Coast. Seven motor freight companies also serve the area. Thus, Pittsburg is economically positioned to grow and prosper because of its location, climate, and transportation system.

Pittsburg and Camp County are located in a region that includes portions of East Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas that receives moisture‑laden winds off the Gulf of Mexico year round. The average annual rainfall is approximately 46 inches, with the months of March through June and September through December recording approximately two‑thirds of that total. Temperatures range from an average high of a humid 94° F in July to an average low of 30° F in January. The growing season extends for an average of 240 days.

The land is nearly level to hilly; the largest portion of the county is undulating to rolling. The area is heavily forested with a great variety of softwoods and hardwoods, especially pine, cypress, and oak. Nearly 40 percent of the county is considered prime farmland.

Six major lakes within 18 miles of Pittsburg are reputed to be among the best bass‑fishing lakes in Texas. The 2 most prominent are Lake Bob Sandlin and Lake O’ The Pines.

The major agricultural commodities of Camp County and the surrounding area include livestock (horses and cattle), poultry, peaches, vegetables, and timber. Cotton was a major product in the early 1900s, but has not been grown in the region since the 1950s. Although 50 years ago raw lumber was a major forest product in the area, pulpwood almost entirely replaces it now.

Camp County was originally part of Upshur County but, in the late 1800s, because the roads were nearly impassable during the rainy season, citizens clamored for a change. John Lafayette Camp, state senator from Gilmer (now the county seat of Upshur County and some 22 miles south of Pittsburg) introduced a bill to create a small, separate portion of the northern part of the area under a new county government, closer to the people of that area. Thus, Camp County came into existence in April 1874, named for the senator who helped create it. By people’s vote, Pittsburg, with a population of 2,400, became the county seat.

In 1855, Major William Harrison Pitts and his family arrived from Warren County, Georgia, to homestead in the area. Other Pitts families came from the southeast United States in the ensuing years. When the Reverend J. W. Harvey Hamill of Mt. Pleasant, Texas, came to Pittsburg in the late 1800s to organize a Methodist mission church, he remarked that so many of the locals were named Pitts that “this must be Pittsburg.” Thus, came the birth of the community’s name. An 1896 description of Pittsburg concluded that the city was an “exceptionally desirable location for factories” because of its rail connections and the quantity of lumber available. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Pittsburg had sawmills, wagon makers, builders, a foundry, a tannery, an ice factory, and a bottling works. However, the town’s main industry remained supply and shipping for agricultural products such as cotton, grain, and vegetables well into the 1900s.

Perhaps the most remarkable early manufacturing enterprise in Pittsburg involved a flying machine built by B. B. Cannon, a local saw miller, mechanic, and part‑time minister. The contraption, named the Ezekiel Airship, was designed after a description in the Old Testament bible book of the same name. In 1902 the airship flew a few feet in a pasture outside of town. This preceded the famous work of the Wright brothers in North Carolina. In the spring of 1904, Reverend Cannon put the Ezekiel on a flatbed car on a train bound for the St. Louis World’s Fair. However, a storm destroyed the flying machine by blowing it off the rail car. Currently, a full‑sized replica of the vehicle known–at least in Pittsburg–as “Man’s First Powered Flight,” reportedly may be found in a downtown museum.

Today, Pittsburg, the county seat of Camp County, Texas, with a population of approximately 4,500, is the only incorporated city in the county. Although it has a rather aging and small‑town “feel” to the first‑time visitor, the community’s economy appears to be anything but struggling. The major, indeed, overwhelming, industry of the area is Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation. In January 2001, Pilgrim’s Pride acquired Wampler Foods, placing it in the turkey business and elevating the corporation to the second largest poultry producer in the United States. Pilgrim’s Pride started in the late 1940s as a country store in Camp County to supply feed to area farmers for chicken flocks. It has grown to employ nearly 25,000 people and process approximately 2.5 billion pounds of chicken, 300 million pounds of turkey, and 50 million dozen table eggs each year. The company owns and operates 7 processing facilities in several states, 3 “further‑prepared” food facilities, 7 distribution centers, 7 grow‑out facilities, 2 sales and marketing divisions located in Dallas and Mexico City, and the corporate office in Pittsburg. Food service and industrial products are sold nationally, and approximately 12 percent of sales are exported to countries worldwide.

The immediate economic impact on Camp County and northeast Texas is twofold: (1) Pilgrim’s Pride annually “sponsors” hundreds of local, small farm chicken growers by providing millions of newly hatched chicks, feed, medicine, and technical advice. The local growers provide facilities and labor. With the latest techniques and managed care, a newborn chick can be raised from birth to a 4-pound bird in just 6 weeks with a 1.5:1/feed:bird conversion rate; and (2) as Pilgrim’s Pride expands its production and further processing capability, it is employing more workers in the immediate Pittsburg‑Mt. Pleasant area. Many of its recent hires are of Hispanic origin. The impact of this trend on the Pittsburg schools will be discussed more fully later in this case report.

One other development regarding the Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation: The company has a pending application to relocate its main processing plant in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, (10 miles north of Pittsburg) to a new, modern, and expanded facility in rural Camp County (Walker Creek) within the boundaries of the Pittsburg Independent School District (PISD). If and when this application is approved, further employment will support this expanded operation with an additional resulting impact on the PISD’s student body.

Other businesses of note in Pittsburg include the historical Pittsburg Links, a sausage production facility that employs 50; an industrial custom casting foundry; a small metal fabrication plant; an industrial air‑conditioner filter manufacturer; and a formal gown sewing company.

Table 1 illustrates that Camp County and, by association, Pittsburg, have not kept pace with the rest of the state and nation in terms of population growth, especially during the last half of the twentieth century. In the 30-year period following World War II, the area’s population declined, primarily due to government policies that reimbursed farmers to idle cotton acres. During the 1940s and beyond, tenant farmers continued to desert the land in search of other employment opportunities offered by the country’s WWII industrial production boom and afterwards by urban jobs produced as the state’s industrial base expanded.

This area of East Texas did not participate in the explosive population and economic growth of the state during the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, neither was it totally left behind. Population in the metropolitan areas of the Lone Star State increased almost exponentially in the last two decades of the twentieth century with the fast‑paced growth of the telecommunications, electronics, and information‑age industries. In the decade of the nineties, however, Pittsburg and Camp County have shown a population resurgence rivaling that of the state and nation. This upward trend has been led primarily by the growth of Pilgrim’ s Pride as described above.

Tables 2 and 3 provide other insights into the evolution of Camp County and the state of Texas with respect to changes in the racial composition and income levels of the residents over the last 20 years. Income growth in Camp County during the 20-year period–1980 to 2000–nearly kept pace (on a percentage basis) with the Texas statewide average. This is significant when one considers the rapid growth in the high‑tech industries in and around the state’s metropolitan areas versus the more modest gains made by the rural counties. One observer in Pittsburg opined: “In ten to fifteen years, Pittsburg will look like Mt. Pleasant (in terms of its size, economy and industry).” Mt. Pleasant, Pittsburg’s “big brother” 10 miles north on Interstate 30, is approximately 4 times the size of Pittsburg and growing rapidly, primarily due to its advantageous location on a major commercial highway as well as aggressive pro‑industry growth policies.

The major employers in Pittsburg are Pilgrim’s Pride, the school district, and the miniregional medical center.

Population changes in Camp County reflect the growth at Pilgrim’s Pride. While the white and African-American population were declining as percentages of the total over the last two decades, the Hispanic population nearly tripled as a percentage of the total population in just ten years, increasing from 121 to 1,709 citizens of Hispanic origin (a head count increase of 1,588).

Table 1. Population Summary: Camp County, Texas, and the USA from 1900 to 2000

	Camp County		Texas		United States of America
Year	Population	Ten‑Year Change (%)	Population	Ten‑Year Change (%)	Population	Ten‑Year Change (%)
1900	9,146	N/A	3,048,710	N/A	76,212,168	N/A
1910	9,551	4.4	3,896,542	27.8	92,228,496	21.0
1920	11,103	16.3	4,663,228	19.7	106,021,537	15.0
1930	10,063	-9.4	5,824,715	24.9	123,202,624	16.2
1940	10,285	2.2	6,414,824	10.1	132,164,569	7.3
1950	8,740	-15.0	7,711,194	20.2	151,325,798	14.5
1960	7,849	-10.2	9,579,677	24.2	179,323,175	18.5
1970	8,005	2.0	11,196,730	16.9	203,211,926	13.3
1980	9,275	15.9	14,229,191	27.1	226,545,805	11.5
1990	9,904	6.8	16,986,510	19.4	248,709,873	9.8
2000	11,549	16.6	20,851,820	22.8	281,421,906	13.2

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000

Table 2. Summary of Population Trends in Camp County, TX, by Race and Income: 1980 to 2000

	Race					Income
Year	White (%)	AA^a ^(%)	H/L^b ^(%)	Other^c ^(%)	Total (N)	HHI^d	Below Poverty Level (%)
1980	73.7	25.5	1.3	0.0	9,275	$13,824	22.4
1990	70.3	23.8	5.2	0.6	9,904	$19,673	22.5
2000	65.0	19.2	14.8	1.0	11,549	$27,269	17.7

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000

To emphasize the dramatic impact of the Pilgrim’s Pride Company on the local economy, we quote some findings from an independent study conducted by economists from the University of North Texas (Clower & Weinstein, 1999):

§ Overall, the economies of Camp (Pittsburg) and Titus (Mt. Pleasant) counties have exhibited substantial growth since the early 1980s with per capita income higher than most other non‑metropolitan areas (in the state) and a strong industrial base. Much of this growth reflects the rapid expansion of the Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation.

§ Current Pilgrim’s Pride operations in Camp and Titus counties generate more than $724 million in area economic activity, support more than 8,900 jobs, and increase total local earnings by over $268 million. In addition, direct and indirect payments to local taxing entities exceed $3.2 million per year.

§ (If and when the new Walker Creek facility is built and initially opened) it will add almost $30 million to local economic activity in the first year, and more than $475 million in annual economic activity in Camp and Titus counties (ten years hence).

Income growth for the area, when adjusted for inflation, has increased moderately over the last two decades. When compared with the state of Texas, household income in Camp County and the Pittsburg Independent School District (PISD) has kept pace, if not slightly outgained the state, since 1980. This may be explained by the growth at Pilgrim’s Pride, the increase in

compensation for teachers and administrators at PISD over the last decade, and an increase in the number of relatively high‑income homeowners who have established residences on Lake Bob Sandlin in the northern part of Camp County.

The most dramatic change in the racial/ethnic composition of Texas is among the Hispanic population. It has gained “market share” of about 50 percent, moving from approximately 21 percent of the state’s population in 1980 to 32 percent in 2000 (see Table 3).

Table 3. Summary of Population Trends in Texas by Race and Income: 1980 to 2000

	Race					Income
Year	White (%)	AA^a ^(%)	H/L^b ^(%)	Other^c ^(%)	Total (N)	HHI^d	Below Poverty Level (%)
1980	65.9	11.9	21.0	1.3	14,229,191	$16,708	19.7
1990	60.8	11.7	25.3	2.3	16,986,510	$27,016	18.1
2000	52.4	11.5	32.0	4.1	20,851,820	$34,478	16.7

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000

Table 4 exhibits a more formal summary of the types of occupations engaged in by Camp County and area residents over the age of 16. Education, health, and social services lead the list with more than 21 percent of the population engaged in jobs at the school district, the hospital, the Northeast Texas Community College (11 miles northeast of Pittsburg in Titus County), and the county and state government health and social services. Manufacturing employment is led by Pilgrim’s Pride, Pittsburg Hot Links, the industrial air-conditioning filter firm, and various other small production operations. Retail trade and construction, both commercial and residential, support a vibrant economy along the north-south route of highway 271 and between

Table 4. Camp County, Texas, Occupational Summary, 2000

Occupation	Number	Percentage
Educational, health, and social services	986	21.37
Manufacturing	715	15.49
Retail trade	628	13.61
Construction	460	9.97
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, mining	354	7.67
Wholesale trade	260	5.63
Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services	251	5.44
Other services (except public administration)	223	4.83
Transportation	219	4.75
Finance, insurance, real estate, and rental and leasing	202	4.38
Public administration	164	3.55
Professional, scientific, management, administrative, & waste mgt. services	102	2.21
Information	51	1.11
Total	4,615	100.00

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000

the two interstate highways (I‑20 and I‑30). These account for nearly a quarter of the jobs listed for Camp County in the 2000 U.S. Census.

The School District

Pittsburg Independent School District (PISD) is the only PK‑12 public school district in Camp County. As such, its attendance boundaries are nearly contiguous those of the county. PISD was formed by combining a number of small, rural, kindergarten‑through‑eighth grade one‑room schoolhouses, which were closed during the 10‑year period after World War II because of a decreasing country student population and increasing cost of educating pupils in remote locations. There were 20 small school districts in the black and white Camp County school systems in 1946. A consolidation in 1953 created a single (white) Pittsburg‑County Line School District, so named at that time because the district included parts of Upshur and Woods Counties.

In 1964, the United States Civil Rights Act was enacted into law. Among other changes, this landmark legislation mandated that all school systems be integrated. Prior to this time, the black school system in the county developed separately. For the school years 1965‑66 through 1967‑68, Pittsburg and Camp County students could attend the school of their choice. In the fall of 1968, all freshmen from the Frederick Douglass School were integrated with the Pittsburg schools, and complete integration was accomplished in the fall of 1969. High school students attended the formerly black Douglass campus, and all other students were enrolled on the Pittsburg campus. At that time, the PISD student body was 55 percent white and 45 percent African American.

Table 5 exhibits some salient facts about the current Pittsburg Independent School District (PISD). Total student enrollment has remained relatively stable for the last 9 years with a

Table 5. Pittsburg ISD Enrollments and Finances, 1996‑97 through 2001‑02

School Year	Enrollment (K‑12)	St/T Ratio^a	Revenue/ Student^b	TVPP^c	LATR^d	State Aid^e	Fund Balance^f
1996‑97	2,100	14.1	$4,490	$135,871	1.546	48.2%	2.7%
1997‑98	2,115	13.7	$5,326	$152,949	1.440	50.2%	4.5%
1998‑99	2,083	13.0	$5,362	$154,102	1.440	51.5%	9.1%
1999‑00	2,187	13.1	$5,642	$150,742	1.515	54.4%	12.4%
2000‑01	2,236	13.1	$5,592	$169,558	1.440	55.0%	15.6%
2001‑02	2,195	13.6	$5,798	$171,718	1.440	51.7%	29.6%

Source: Pittsburg Independent School District Academic Indicator System, TEA, Austin

“rolling average” enrollment of approximately 2,150 students in PK‑12 (Table 6). Likewise, the district financial picture appears to be relatively stable with revenue per student and local taxable (property) value per pupil (TVPP) growing in the range of 5 to 6 percent per year. State aid, through the Texas school finance formula, hovers around 50 percent. Since the current superintendent arrived in 2001, the district’s fund balance, a measure of the stability of a district’s budget administration, has risen dramatically to nearly 30 percent.

Table 6 provides further evidence of the impact of Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation’s expansion on the PISD student body’s racial and ethnic composition. While the district’s white student enrollment has remained fairly constant around 1,200 and the African-American student body seems to have leveled out at approximately 500‑520, the Hispanic enrollment has risen significantly from fewer than 200 eight years ago to more than 500 in 2001‑02. This trend has important implications for the school district in that many of the Hispanic children moving into Pittsburg/Camp County and enrolling in the school district come from homes where English is not spoken or, at best, is a second language. Table 6 also shows the apparent relationship between the minority status of students and their socioeconomic position, although this may also partially be a function of the way in which students labeled as economically disadvantaged are counted.

Table 6. Pittsburg ISD PK‑12 Enrollment Trend: 1993‑94 through 2001‑02

	Total Enrollment	African American		Hispanic		White		Economically Disadvantaged
Year	N	N	Percent	N	Percent	N	Percent	N	Percent
1994	2,055	604	29.4	189	9.2	1,260	61.3	818	39.8
1995	2,085	594	28.5	221	10.6	1,268	60.8	919	44.1
1996	2,093	555	26.5	257	12.3	1,279	61.1	950	45.4
1997	2,100	544	25.9	309	14.7	1,245	59.3	1,048	49.9
1998	2,115	533	25.2	341	16.1	1,239	58.6	1,115	52.7
1999	2,083	510	24.5	358	17.2	1,210	58.1	1,144	54.9
2000	2,187	521	23.8	426	19.5	1,236	56.5	1,225	56.0
2001	2,236	534	23.9	481	21.5	1,219	54.5	1,297	58.0
2002	2,195	511	23.3	520	23.7	1,159	52.8	1,277	58.2

Source: Pittsburg Independent School District Academic Indicator System, TEA, Austin

As shown in Table 7, a profile of the PISD student body relative to its racial, ethnic and socioeconomic composition is displayed as well as that of districts located in Texas Education Service Center Region 8 and the state of Texas. The noticeable difference in the percentage of Hispanic students between PISD and its Region 8 neighbors is testimony to the increase brought about by the changes taking place at Pilgrim’s Pride. The socioeconomic status of students in America’s schools is measured by the percentage of students participating in the partially federally financed free‑and‑reduced price hot- lunch/breakfast program.

Although we did not investigate in depth, the decrease in the number of white students enrolled in the PISD schools (about 10 percent from its peak in 1995‑96) was reported by one district informant to be, in large measure, the result of parents transferring their children to Mt. Vernon ISD, 20 miles to the northwest, or to private schools in the Tyler‑Longview area, some 40 miles to the south of Pittsburg. Mt. Vernon is a public school district on I‑30 with a PK‑12 student body three‑fourths the size of PISD, 80 percent white, and one‑third economically disadvantaged. There was no evidence of a huge home‑schooling movement in the area, but it does exist.

Table 7. Pittsburg ISD Pupil Enrollment by Race and Cost Per Pupil as Compared with Texas Region 8 Education Service Center and the State of Texas, 2000‑01

Unit	Districts	Enrollment	Hispanic	White	AA^a	Other^b	ED^c	Cost/Pupil
Pittsburg ISD	‑	2,236	22%	55%	24%	0%	58%	$5,592
Region 8	48	55,223	9%	66%	24%	1%	48%	$5,599
State of Texas	1,199	4,059,619	41%	42%	14%	3%	49%	$5,915

Source: Texas Education Agency Snapshot 2001

Table 8 exhibits a brief profile of how Pittsburg ISD teachers compare, as a group, with the teaching force in the other 47 school districts served by Texas Region 8 Education Service Center and the state on the variables of experience, formal education, and turnover rate.

Table 8. Pittsburg ISD Classroom Teacher Cohort Profile Comparison, 2000‑01

Unit	Experience (Average Number of Years)	Advanced Degree Holders (%)	Teacher TO^a Rate (%)
Pittsburg ISD	12.0	28.1	13.2
Region 8	12.9	26.1	13.2
State of Texas	11.9	23.9	16.0

Source: Texas Education Agency Snapshot 2001

The 170 classroom teachers in the Pittsburg schools appear to be a well‑educated, dynamic force. Many come to PISD as natives of the region with earned bachelor’s degrees and basic teaching credentials from area colleges and universities such as Texas A&M‑Commerce, North Texas (Denton), and Stephen F. Austin (Nacogdoches). As a group, they possess, on

average, 12 years of classroom teaching experience, a number in excess of the state average. Approximately 30 percent have an advanced degree. The district teacher turnover rate is below the state average, but similar to that of ESC Region 8.

The issue of recruiting and retaining quality mathematics and science teachers does not seem to present the challenge for PISD that it does for other rural districts in Texas, especially those in the remote western counties. Pittsburg is an attractive town in which the cost of living and raising a family is relatively low. It is located two hours from Dallas; one hour from Shreveport, Louisiana; and lies in the heart of an area with abundant outdoor recreation opportunities. Further, most of the educators who have stayed in Pittsburg any length of time stated that there is good support for the schools in the community. For the most part, parents support the work of teachers with their children; and there is an intangible but definitely perceptible sense of good will and collegiality between the school administration and the classroom teachers. One science teacher informant who commutes from a neighboring town with a slightly smaller student population, more local property wealth, higher teacher salaries, and a better supply of classroom materials and equipment, stated that he would rather drive to Pittsburg daily to teach because of the “can‑do” and positive attitude that permeates the PISD system.

At the time of the second case study visit (April 2002), the PISD administrative team was comprised of seven professionals: the district superintendent, secondary and elementary curriculum directors, and four campus principals—high school (grades 9‑12), middle school (grades 6‑8), an intermediate elementary school (grades 3‑5), and a primary school (PK‑2). At the time of the first case study visit (April 2001), the superintendent was in his first year of administering the district, succeeding a long‑term superintendent who was terminated in the middle of the 1999‑2000 school year, apparently for irregularities in budget management. The associate superintendent for curriculum, who initiated the original contact with and membership in the Texas Rural Systemic Initiative (TRSI) in 1998‑99, served as the interim superintendent. She left for a professional position with Texas A&M University‑Texarkana at the end of 2000‑01 school year. She was replaced at the district curriculum coordination level with two long‑time district administrative veterans, one from the principalship of the middle school, the other from the principalship of the intermediate school. Beginning with the 2002‑03 school year, the secondary curriculum coordinator took the high school principalship, virtually changing places with the high school principal who had only served one year (2001‑02) in that position, following a long‑time veteran. All this changing and rotation “at the top” of the district seems to have had little adverse effect on the performance of the students or teacher stability. The district superintendent, a veteran Texas school administrator, vowed it (PISD) is “the best job I’ve had. There are competent people running the main mission of the school: academics. The board has learned not to micro‑manage. Pilgrim’s Pride is supportive of education, buying curriculum materials to support the programs introduced to intervene in the language and learning difficulties of the ESL students. Mr. Pilgrim is also supportive of the idea of building an elementary campus in the vicinity of the new processing plant, if and when it is approved.”

In May, 2000, the district school board submitted an $11.5 million bond issue to the voters to renovate two existing buildings—the old, vacant primary attendance center and the middle school. Enrollment increases and resultant overcrowding in the middle grades (3 through 8) were the primary reasons given for the request. The issue failed. The fact that the district was between superintendents and there was distrust about the management of the school district were given as reasons for the community turning down the bond issue at that time. However, the new and current superintendent reworked the plan, obtained state and federal matching funds, and had the old primary campus renovated and ready for occupancy in the Fall 2002. When asked about increased administrative overhead of adding another attendance center, the superintendent spoke of increased efficiencies in transportation of students, reconfiguration of administrative teams at each campus, and other plans that would more than offset the increased cost of operating an additional campus.

Thus, PISD began the 2002‑03 school year with a new campus configuration. A “before and after” look is exhibited in Table 9. As shown, there is a more equitable distribution of students in the middle and upper elementary grades and the middle school. This allows for reasonable class sizes as allowable under state law and within the resource constraints of the district. The enrollment at the PISD primary campus continues to rise, reflecting, in part, the increasing number of families of childbearing age moving in to work for Pilgrim’s or other businesses in the county.

Table 9. Pittsburg ISD Campus Reconfiguration, Effective School Year 2002‑03

	Former Attendance Configuration (through 2001‑02)		Current Attendance Configuration (as of 2002‑03)
Campus	Grades	Enrollment	Grades	Enrollment
Primary	PK‑2	574	PK‑2	600
Elementary	n/a	n/a	3‑4	360
Intermediate	3‑5	523	5‑6	358
Middle School	6‑8	504	7‑8	375
High School	9‑12	594	9‑12	567

Source: PISD web page www.esc8net/pittsburg/

The district mathematics and science classroom facilities seem functional and usable. There are large computer labs as well as individual desktop units at the high school. These classrooms also appear to have equipment that would adequately support a good-quality science curriculum. A husband‑wife science teaching team in the PISD system who are also TRSI teacher partners created a teaching greenhouse at the middle school. Students are able to experience and learn earth and environmental science concepts in a hands‑on, inquiry‑based mode. They raise and sell plants and learn the art and merits of composting and re‑cycling. It is an excellent facility for the students at the PISD Middle School.

The Texas System of Elementary and Secondary Education

The Texas public elementary and secondary education system is administered by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The TEA executes policy and provides oversight of education laws and regulations established by the legislature and the state board of education. This is a huge responsibility in that there were more than 4 million students attending 1,199 Texas local independent school districts and charter schools in 2001‑02. The TEA administers state curriculum policy and frameworks, budgetary policy and distribution procedures, and attends to the needs of student special populations. The TEA also administers the Texas accountability program–one of the most unique, structured, complete, and consequential student testing programs in the United States.

The TEA is assisted in its administrative responsibilities by a network of 20 regional Education Service Centers (ESCs) with defined geographic areas of service. The largest ESC, in terms of the number of local school districts served, is located at Richardson (in the Dallas metropolitan area) with 107; the smallest is at El Paso, serving 16 districts. The ESCs employ specialists in curriculum, telecommunications and computer technology, testing and assessment, finance, grant acquisition and administration, professional staffing of special and cooperative education programs, and special needs student population services (e.g., special education, bilingual education, etc.). ESC Region 8 located in Mt. Pleasant serves Pittsburg Independent School District, along with 47 other public school districts located in the northeast Texas counties that border Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

No discussion of any aspect of the PK‑12 public education program in the Lone Star State could be held without including an overview of the Texas School Accountability Rating (AR) system. Texas entered its third decade and fourth generation of a statewide criterion‑referenced testing (CRT) program with the commencement of the 2002‑03 school year. This movement gained momentum and national attention in the 1980s with the report of the Texas Select Committee on Education, chaired by H. Ross Perot, CEO of Educational Data Systems and independent candidate for president of the United States in 1992 and 1996. In 1984, the Texas legislature enacted a comprehensive education reform law mandating the most sweeping changes in public elementary and secondary education in years. The law established the framework for a statewide curriculum (called the Essential Elements), required students to achieve a score of 70 to pass their high school courses, mandated the “no pass, no play” rule (students participating in varsity sports and other extracurricular activities must pass their high school courses in order to participate), required teachers to take and pass a statewide curriculum exam, and mandated changes in the statewide testing program (including testing of kindergarten and first‑grade pupils, ostensibly for the purpose of sound program placement and instructional intervention). Although other measures beside CRT scores make up a Texas school district and campus Accountability Rating (AR)—e.g., student attendance and dropout rates—the student assessment process, which some call “high stakes” testing (HST), clearly drives the process.

Texas is cited in the literature (Haney, 2000; Amrein & Berliner, 2002) as one of 18 states in America that currently administers an HST program in the elementary and secondary schools. High stakes tests are defined as any form of assessment where the results have definable consequences (good, bad, or indifferent) for students, teachers, campuses, and/or school districts. Texas and North Carolina lead with as many as 8 out of 10 selected “stakes” associated with their statewide HST programs:

1. Graduation from high school is contingent on passing the state exam.

2. Grade promotion is contingent on passing the state exam.

3. The state publishes an annual school (campus) or district report card (in Texas, school districts are required by law to disseminate these reports to parents).

4. The state rates or identifies low performing schools according to whether they meet state standards or improve each year.

5. Monetary awards are given to high performing or improving schools.

6. Monetary awards can be used for staff bonuses.

7. The state has the authority to close, reconstitute, or revoke a school’s accreditation or take over low performing schools.

8. The state has the authority to replace school personnel due to low test scores.

9. The state permits students in low‑performing schools to enroll elsewhere.

10. Monetary awards or scholarships for in‑ or out‑of‑state college tuition are given to high performing students.

Texas incorporates all but numbers 2 and 10 above. However, the state is preparing to add number 2, “grade promotion contingent upon passing the state exam,” to the list of identified high stakes in its accountability program beginning with the introduction of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in 2003.

The benefits of high stakes testing, as posited by various researchers and state education agency officials, include the following:

1. Challenging academic expectations for students, teachers, and schools are established and clarified.

2. Schools return to focusing on the mission for which they were originally established: student basic skill acquisition—reading, writing (verbal), and mathematics (quantitative).

3. Student achievement gaps can be easily identified and efficiently addressed.

4. Student learning performance is boosted.

5. The public is given some concept and confidence in their “return on investment” in the schools.

6. Delivery of curricula is improved.

7. Teacher and administrator professional development is focused on and built around “what works.”

8. An awareness of the learning needs of ALL students is sharpened.

9. Educators’ knowledge of the integral role of assessment in the teaching and learning process is increased.

10. The dialogue about what schools should be about is improved, both internally, between teachers and teachers and administrators, and between schools and their publics.

High stakes tests (HSTs), as they are now promulgated across the United States, often generate unintended and negative consequences. A representative list of these documented effects of HSTs include such observations as the following:

1. They encourage “teaching to the test.”

2. Student test performance is shaped by factors other than content knowledge, e.g., teaching test‑taking skills, motivating students through extrinsic reward programs, modifying the curriculum to match the test, and elevating test‑taking skills to the forefront as the most important of student characteristics.

3. Results are used for inappropriate tracking, grade promotion, and retention.

4. Students who don’t test well become labeled as liabilities because their scores lower the group average.

5. They narrow the curriculum (“If it isn’ t on the test, we don’t teach it!”).

6. Vital resource and curriculum decisions are made on the results of a single test score.

7. They tend to transfer control over the curriculum to the body that controls the test.

8. They are used to make extremely important, high stakes decisions about individual students, e.g., grade promotion, graduation, etc.

9. They are culturally biased against certain groups of students.

10. They perpetuate the idea (some would say myth) that “good” education equals a high test score and vice versa.

The 2001‑02 school year marked the last year in a ten‑year run in the implementation and use of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) as the major marker of student academic achievement in the public elementary and secondary schools. In addition to being used to insure student learning, TAAS results are also used to hold school districts accountable for student learning (Haney, 2000). The Texas State Board of Education is mandated by law to rate the performance of schools and school districts according to a set of “academic excellence indicators,” including TAAS test results and student dropout and attendance rates (TEA, 1998). State law also prescribes that student performance data be disaggregated by ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The TEA school accountability rating system holds that district and campus performance is not acceptable if the achievement results of all subgroups are not acceptable. Based primarily on the percentage of students passing each TAAS test, since 1994 more than 6,000 campuses in Texas have been rated as “exemplary,” “recognized,” “(academically) acceptable,” or “(academically) unacceptable” (Haney, 2000).

Beginning in 2002‑03, the statewide test will be changed to the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) (see Table 10). Reasons given by state officials for the change at this time are that “the (TAAS) test items are no longer ‘fresh’ (classroom teachers and students have become adept at anticipating the correct answers on each succeeding year’s form of the test) and elected and appointed state policy‑makers believe the state suffers from score inflation. The results are not reflective of sound student learning.” However, the Pittsburg ISD superintendent likened the whole process of changing the test “when the scores get too high” to a sports analogy. “We can teach a basketball player to shoot free throws with 80 or 90 percent accuracy. When he/she reaches that goal, we don’t then suddenly raise the hoop to 12 feet. We need to decide as a state and nation what constitutes acceptable learning in this country and how to assess it, then stay with it and not change every few years.”

After undoubtedly millions of professional person‑hours of collective effort and input by classroom teachers, district curriculum personnel, state agency officials, test‑construction contractor representatives, and student field‑testing, the new state high stakes test, the TAKS,

will be implemented Spring 2003. It reportedly will be more rigorous than the TAAS and will more accurately measure students’ higher order and inferential thinking skills. This same claim

was made in 1990 at the time of the transition from the Texas Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) to the TAAS. This change, or what some would call “raising the bar,” creates what is known as the “saw tooth effect” in state test scores over time (Linn, 2000).

Shown in Table 10 are the number, level, and types of tests that will result with the discontinuance of the TAAS (Spring 2002) and introduction of the TAKS in 2002‑03. By the end of the fifth year of the TAKS implementation, 2007‑08, Texas will have evolved from requiring 19 tests at 7 grade levels with a single graduation requirement under TAAS to the administration of 26 tests over 9 grade levels with multiple test‑driven graduation and grade promotion requirements. The high stakes requirement of third graders passing the state exam in reading for promotion to fourth grade and the passage of reading and mathematics exams at the fifth and eighth grades will be introduced with the TAKS. Finally, whereas there will be statewide mathematics testing with high‑stakes consequences at every grade from third through the rising junior level in high school (eleventh grade exit exam), the state will require 3 science exams. With the move of the TAAS eighth grade science test to the TAKS fifth grade test, a 5‑year gap in assessing science instruction at the state level will be created. This is of professional concern to 2 primary groups: fifth grade teachers who previously have not taught science in any depth and middle school/junior high school science teachers who worry about the

possible diversion of local school district resources away from their content areas to address other changes in the state high stakes testing program.

NSF‑supported Texas Rural Systemic Initiative (TRSI) specialists are busy addressing the concern of the fifth grade teachers in their member schools. One who serves PISD told this writer that the state tends to “back‑end load” any new testing program, meaning that new tests are created and implemented, the achievement bar (standard) is raised, and then teachers must adjust to the new expectations after the fact by scrambling for training, resources, equipment, and supplies.

Table 10. TAAS to TAKS Conversion Chart

TAAS

TAKS

Grade

2001‑02

2002‑03

2003‑04

2004‑05 Thru 2006‑07

2007‑08 and Beyond

Reading

Mathematics

Reading*

Mathematics

Reading*

Mathematics

Reading*

Mathematics

Reading*

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Science

Reading

Mathematics

Science

Reading*

Mathematics*

Science

Reading*

Mathematics*

Science

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Reading

Mathematics

Writing

Science

Social Studies

Reading

Mathematics

Social Studies

Reading

Mathematics

Social Studies

Reading

Mathematics

Social Studies

Reading*

Mathematics*

Social Studies

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading

Mathematics

Reading**

Mathematics**

Writing**

Eng./Lang.Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Eng./Lang.Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Eng./Lang.Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Eng./Lang.Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Eng./Lang.Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Eng./Lang.Arts***

Mathematics***

Science***

Social Studies***

Eng./Lang.Arts***

Mathematics***

Science***

Social Studies***

Eng./Lang.Arts***

Mathematics***

Science***

Social Studies***

*Students must pass TAKS test at indicated grade levels to be eligible for promotion to next grade

**Students must pass TAAS test to be eligible to graduate from high school

***Students must pass TAKS test to be eligible to graduate from high school

Source: John Taylor, Counselor. Clarendon (TX) Consolidated Independent School District