Texas Testing Humor

Diagnostically speaking, the author of this has excellent language and symbol manipulation skills…

Since the average half life of previous state-wide tests (TABS,
TEAMS, TAAS) has been 5 years, “we” have decided it is not too
early to plan the next test.

To tie it into the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) we have the Motivationally Effective Kit of Surprises (MEKS) (thus….TEKS - MEKS).

The new instrument will be the Texas Assessment of Cognitive
Operations (TACO). It will have a remedial version (soft TACO), a regular version (hard TACO), and an advanced version which has so many pages it is quite fat (the Gordita).

It will be graded on a normed curve (the TACO bell).

Districts will be offered a final report of their standings:
the Summative Administrative Assessment Survey (SAAS—pronounced sauce).

Ratings may be excellent (TACO bueno), satisfactory (mild SAAS) or unsatisfactory (hot SAAS).

Districts receiving the latter will be put on probation with a
Basic Educational Appraisal - Not Satisfactory (BEANS).

A second failing rating earns the dreaded supplement:
REmediation FactoRs IdentifiED REFRIED BEANS), which will cause a lot of hot air at meetings.