Скачать или смотреть Accountability Part 3: How TEA measures student growth

Oct. 10, 2023

As we continue our video series on the changes in testing and accountability from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), I want to dive deeper into how the state measures academic growth, or progress, for every child through the STAAR test. 

Our children took the STAAR test last spring and their parents can see their scores in the Texas Assessment Family Portal (texasassessment.gov). What we don’t have from the state yet is how those test results impact your school’s A-F Accountability rating. 

The state’s accountability system uses STAAR results to measure districts and schools in three domains – student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. Each of these accountability domains are being changed in some way by TEA, and as a reminder, we still don’t have the final accountability rules. 

Today I would like to focus on the changes being proposed to academic growth under the school progress domain. I have said many times that I believed the most recent accountability system to be the fairest in my career because it recognized the hard work of our educators who contributed to the academic growth of a student even if that student failed the STAAR test. If students grew their test score by at least 82 points, the accountability system rewarded that growth. That was math that we could understand, and the system recognized that not all students start at the same place or make the same progress.

Now the state has created new levels of achievement and new expectations for growth under the redesigned accountability system, which I believe does a disservice to measuring student progress. 

The new system expands the number of performance levels, which you can see on your screen – those are ‘Did Not Meet Low,’ ‘Did Not Meet High,’ ‘Approaches Low,’ ‘Approaches High,’ ‘Meets,’ and ‘Masters.’ A student’s test score falls into one of these six performance levels or categories.

To measure student progress, a student must grow from one year’s test to the next by scoring high enough to move up a performance level. Here’s one example: if a student scored in the ‘Approaches High’ category last year, they must score high enough to land in ‘Meets’ this year for the school to get full credit for growth. 

You can also see in the chart that the 2023 STAAR test is longer than the previous version. In an earlier video I talked about STAAR 2.0 and how the test was redesigned at the same time as the state redesigned the accountability system. The length of the test is an important factor to consider. Even if a child scores higher than the previous year, there are more hurdles to jump to earn credit for growth. 

There will be a child who increases a couple of points and moves up to the next performance level. But another child may make significant growth, but just fall short of crossing into another level. Did the child who gained two points and moved into the next performance level really have more growth than the child who earned 7 points but stayed at the same level? This concept is frustrating to parents and educators who work to help children set and meet academic goals. Growth matters, but the proposed new system is not fairly recognizing it.

TEA is delaying the issuance of the final rule for the accountability manual and delaying the issuance of ratings to conduct further analysis of the growth data. We should know more about the state’s final decisions at the end of October or early November. 

In my next message, we will explore additional changes in how STAAR results are weighted in the new accountability system. 

You can view other videos in this series or my previous messages by visiting the link on your screen (neisd.net/superintendent).  

Thank you for watching. I’ll see you around our District. 

North East Independent School District
8961 Tesoro Drive, Ste 112
San Antonio, TX 78217
http://www.neisd.net