STAAR is the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, which replaced the TAKS test this year. There are significant differences in the two tests including more complex questons, the total number of test items, and there is now a four-hour time limit, as opposed to TAKS, which was untimed. In grades 3-8, students will be tested in mathematics and reading. Students will also be tested in writing at grades 4 and 7, science at grades 5 and 8, and social studies at grade 8. STAAR EOC assessements will be given for Algebra I, geometry, Algebra II, biology, chemistry, physics, English I, English II, English III, world geography, world history, and U.S. history.
The way student performance is reported will also be different. For STAAR, STAAR Modified, and STAAR L, the labels for the categories are:
* Level III: Advanced Academic Performance
* Level II: Satisfactory Academic Performance
* Level I: Unsatisfactory Academic Performance
The new system focuses on increasing postsecondary readiness of graduating high school students and helping to ensure that Texas students are competitive with other students nationally and internationally.
Our tutors are already familiar with the new standards that have been set so please call today and let us help your child get ready for these assessments!

President Obama's administration recently estimated that 82% of the nation's schools could miss meeting standards mandated under No Child Left Behind. Wait...what? We are all aware that the state of educational achievement in this country is not what it should be...but...82% seems an extraordinarily high estimate of the total schools that will fail in 2011.

No Child Left Behind, signature legislation of the Bush Administration, includes an aggressive review system developed with the ultimate goal of assuring that all public school students are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Under the law, students are tested in reading and math in grades three through eight and again in high school. These scores, along with attendance and graduation rates are used to determine the effectiveness of individual schools. 

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Policymakers across the country are quick to blame insufficient funding for education as the primary cause of low student achievement. Polling data from 2004-2007 make it clear that American adults are making the same assumption. Yet, recent studies show that increasing education spending is not having an impact on improving students' academic achievement.

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The new Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report has just been released. This report compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world and the results weren't pretty. US students were ranked average. Average...really? What happened to American Exceptionalism? To be honest, this is not a new trend. US students have been consistently lagging behind their peers around the world since the first PISA evaluation in 2000. In 2009, the US ranked 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and 25th for mathematics.

So, what is really going on? Is the proficiency of US students as dismal as it seems? Well, yes and no.

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In 2007 the US Vaccine Court settled the case of a Georgia girl who developed autism symptoms after receiving nine vaccines in one day. Their report concluded that the “vaccinations she received aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.” [BALCELLS] Additionally, Giulivi et. al. concluded in an article published in JAMA that "children with autism were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children." Could reseachers be homing in on an underlying cause of autism?

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