During nearly seven years at the helm of Houston's public schools, Roderick R. Paige earned a reputation as one of the nation's best urban educators. His tough-minded leadership is credited with fostering not only impressive gains in student test scores, but also an unprecedented level of confidence in the public school system. At the heart of the reform brought about by Paige, President-elect Bush's choice to head the Education Department, is the use of standardized tests to measure the performance of students and, ultimately, teachers and administrators.
Test scores are indeed up dramatically in Houston, as they are throughout Texas.
Among black and Hispanic 10th-graders, the pass rates more than doubled in the same time period a fact that will undoubtedly be highlighted during Paige's Senate confirmation hearing today. But an increasingly vocal group of researchers says the improving test scores mask deep, continued problems in Houston from a plague of dropouts to a curriculum that some analysts contend is too closely geared to preparing students for standardized tests. That critique is potentially important to school districts across the country. That is hotly disputed by education researchers who have closely examined public schools in Texas. People have been focusing so much about test scores they forget to ask the basic question of . . .