STAAR testing begins this week in Texas. Here’s what Fort Worth school leaders expect
Last year, state test scores underscored the pandemic’s devastating academic effects on students in classrooms in Fort Worth and across the state.
As Fort Worth students gear up to begin the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness this week, school officials aren’t sure this year’s results will be much better.
End-of-year STAAR testing in Algebra 1, Biology and U.S. history begins Tuesday. Testing for students in grades 3-8 continues through May 13. High school students took end-of-course exams in English I and II last month.
Texas students lost ground during COVID-19
Last year, students in Fort Worth and across Texas lost substantial ground in math and reading on the STAAR test. The number of students across the state who didn’t meet grade level on the test increased across all grade levels and subject areas except English I and II, the Texas Education Agency reported. Results were worse in math than in reading: The number of Texas students who missed grade level in math grew by 16 percentage points over 2019, while the number of students who missed grade level in reading grew by just four points.
In Fort Worth, only about one in four third graders scored on grade level last year in reading. Only 17% of third-graders scored on grade level in math.
State education officials attributed those declines to the effects of the pandemic, school shutdowns and the shift to online learning. Across Texas, districts in which most students attended school in person fared far better than districts where most students attended remotely.
Fort Worth schools project little improvement in STAAR scores
During a Feb. 22 school board meeting, Sara Arispe, the district’s associate superintendent of accountability and data quality, presented projections showing no growth in third grade reading over last year’s scores and only modest growth in math. The district projected 26% of third graders will meet grade level in reading on this year’s test, the same percentage as last year.
Black students were expected to gain a small amount of ground, while Latino students and English language learners were expected to lose a small amount of ground. White students and economically disadvantaged students were expected to hold steady. Special education students were projected to lose the most ground, falling from 21% meeting grade-level last year to just 10% this year.
District officials projected two points of gain in third grade math, climbing from 17% meeting grade level last year to 19% this year. Latino, Black and white third-graders were all expected to make modest gains in math, as were English language learners and economically disadvantaged students. But special education students were expected to lose substantial ground in math as well, falling from 21% meeting grade-level last year to 10% this year.
“Clearly, 19% is not where we want to be,” Arispe said.
Arispe stressed that those grade-level thresholds are based on norms set before the pandemic and assume an average schooling experience, which students haven’t had since early 2020.
Those projections are based on students’ scores on mid-year assessments. Marcey Sorensen, the district’s chief academic officer, was unavailable for an interview. But in an emailed statement, Sorensen said Thursday that those projections are just that — estimates based on the data that was available at a single point in time. Teaching and learning has taken place since then, she said, and district officials are “anxious” to receive end-of-year scores from both the STAAR and MAP exams to see how student learning compared with projections.
Texas plans changes for STAAR testing format
School districts across Texas, including Fort Worth, are moving toward online testing this year. Passed in 2021, House Bill 3261 requires that all students take tests online by the 2022-23 school year.
The move is a part of a broader redesign of the STAAR exam that state education officials say will give students a testing experience closer to what they see in the classroom. The new test, which students will see beginning next year, will give students more non-multiple-choice questions that look more like the open-ended questions teachers might ask during classroom discussions.
Kurt Geisinger, director of the Buros Center for Testing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the large majority of research into the matter suggests that tests taken online and those taken with pen and paper are “highly comparable.” But there are some potential concerns with a move from paper tests to an online format, he said. He pointed to a “horror story” in 2014 in which testing was disrupted in the Omaha and Lincoln school districts when bandwidth issues wouldn’t allow students to complete tests online.
Texas’ online testing system had similar issues last year. Districts across the state, including the Fort Worth school district, had to pause or postpone state testing due to technical issues with the state’s testing vendor, Educational Testing Service. TEA officials announced the New Jersey-based firm would no longer be administering online state tests. Another vendor, Cambium Assessment, took over those duties starting this year.
In cases of serious technology problems, Geisinger said districts would simply need to retest students who were affected. States that are looking to move all of their testing online need to make sure in advance that their systems are up to the task, he said.
The move could also affect the scores of students in poverty and students and families who recently immigrated to the United States, who may be less likely to have computers at home, and could, therefore, be less comfortable with an online testing format, he said. But like many districts across the country, Fort Worth schools began distributing tablet computers and Wi-Fi hotspots to students without internet access at home at the beginning of the pandemic. Those efforts could help mitigate some of the impact of the move to online testing.
Geisinger said schools also need to be willing to make accommodations for students who can’t take tests online because of a disability. Geisinger recently served as an expert witness in a lawsuit against a testing company brought by a blind student who couldn’t complete a test because one section required test-takers to draw diagrams in order to come up with the correct answer. In cases where the state’s testing format doesn’t work for a student, he said schools need to have a backup plan in place.
