As a result of ongoing reporting issues with the testing vendor, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced on Friday, June 10, the Texas Education Association will be removing student consequences attached to STAAR testing for grades 5 and 8 for the remainder of the 2015-16 assessment cycle.
In addition, Morath also announced the TEA will be modifying the requirements for Student Success Initiative (SSI) and the reporting requirements for Confidential Student Reports (CSR).
The decisions outlined in his communication are based on TEA’s commitment to our districts and students, and with the priority of ensuring that those affected are not penalized due to our ongoing vendor reporting issues.
“I apologize for the continuing problems our students and staff are being forced to deal with because of ongoing reporting issues with our testing vendor,” Morath said in a statement. “Kids in the classroom should never suffer from mistakes made by adults. We intend to hold the vendor, Educational Testing Service, accountable.”
Given that June STAAR test results will not be required to be used for promotion decisions for SSI purposes and are not used for accountability, Morath has canceled the June administration of STAAR for grades 5 and 8.
“The tests results were not coming back consistently, so it became a timing issue for many students in the state,” Morath continued.
Students in grades 5 and 8 who did not perform satisfactorily on the March 2016 or May 2016 STAAR mathematics and/or reading tests will not be retested in June. The TEA is encouraging districts to use local discretion to determine on an individual basis whether accelerated instruction should be offered in the applicable subject area for students who did not pass the mathematics and/or reading assessments in March and/or May.
For the 2015–2016 school year, districts are not required to convene grade placement committees based solely on grade 5 and 8 STAAR results. Instead, these districts should use local discretion and all relevant and available academic information to make promotion/retention decisions for these students as they see fit, such as the recommendation of the teacher and the student’s grade in each subject.
Given delays in reporting, TEA is altering the start of the five-day timeline for sending CSRs to families. CSRs must still be distributed to families within five days, once reporting issues are resolved and final data files are provided to school districts.
TEA is moving as fast as possible to address any reporting concerns that are being identified. Expect further communication regarding revised timelines around score reporting for grades 3-8 and EOCs, and data file distribution in the coming days. If you need more information, please contact the Student Assessment Division at 512-463-9536.
This is the first year the New Jersey-based ETS has administered the STAAR tests. But the vendor is not new to testing; it provides such services around the world and oversees the GRE test taken for graduate school admissions.
But testing season in Texas has been chaotic. Computer glitches in March caused as many as 14,220 tests to be disrupted when online testing programs froze, erased answers or gave wrong versions of the tests.
High school counselor Kim Dierschke noted that summer school has not been cancelled for those in credit recovery. Students who did not master the retest of the STAAR test just completed a week of summer school, but the retesting for this week was cancelled after the announcement.
However, Kelley Elementary Principal Lori Alexander said summer school would continue on her campus the remainder of this week up until Wednesday of next week for those students who need some intervention on mastering parts of the STAAR test.
“Even though we don’t have to test, we do need to have intervention for these kids. It’s required by the state,” Alexander said.
Should you have any questions you may contact Dierschke at the high school or Alexander at Kelley Elementary.
