Test standards finally move up, but only a little

Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams announced Friday he’s ready to ratchet up performance standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests required in the state’s public schools.

It’s about time.

STAAR tests have been used to measure student achievement for four years. The performance standards were scheduled to be moved up two years ago, but Williams has been holding them down.

The Texas Education Agency, which Williams heads, has said the initial standards remained in place “to allow educators and students to adjust to the more rigorous curriculum and assessments.”

Each time the performance standard is increased, TEA pointed out in a news release, “a student must achieve a higher score in order to pass a STAAR exam.”

Translation: Raising the passing standards would cause performance ratings of too many school districts and charter schools to go down. We don’t want to make schools look bad or students feel like underachievers.

OK. That’s understandable. But we also don’t want to completely give up on the idea of rigorous standards, of moving the bar upward and pushing schools to help students learn more.

Williams acknowledged that concern, but he announced a new approach.

Standards were scheduled to bump up significantly for exams administered next spring, then again in 2019 and once more in 2022.

Williams wants to start the upward climb but to raise it in smaller increments every academic year.

Think of the previous approach as stair steps, with a lot of space between steps. Williams is calling for a straight and steady incline.

“This approach is intended to minimize any abrupt single-year increase … for this school year and in the future,” he said.

Increasing the standards in smaller increments will still put them at the same level in 2022 as is called for in the current schedule, the TEA release said.

That’s acceptable, but Williams also must resolve to stick with it. No more breaks to allow educators to “adjust.”

Recent trends in the way state lawmakers and officials have approached standards in public schools have not upheld rigorous standards.

Under political pressure in 2013, the Legislature backed away from previous requirements on high school end-of-course exams, cutting the number of required exams from 15 to five.

Maybe the pendulum had swung too far on testing, but at some point it’s time to refocus on rigor. Williams appears to have done that.

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Test standards finally move up, but only a little."