By George Scott, Project Director
Academic Equity Advocates
In an earlier story on this website, you learned that the same Senate Bill 7 in 1993 that the Texas Legislature established the TAAS-based public education accountability system affirmed the State Board of Education maintained absolute authority to determine what “satisfactory” performance was on the tests.
You also learned details about the judicial foundation that led to testing and Texas’ subsequent agreement to close achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students statistically dominated by children of color.
That’s been important all through the three eras of student accountability testing since the 1990’s as we will report extensively on the website. But in this story, we’ll focus on the current STAAR tests and the performance threshold of APPROACHES to put the entire issue in the context of academic integrity. Why is that important?
For the bottom-line, let’s turn to a board meeting of the Texas Association of School Boards back in 2019 where I had the opportunity to ask the TEA commissioner a direct question and get a direct answer. The Commissioner had no place to run; no place to hide. In truth, I was asking a question of substantial disinterest to many members of the TASB board. The Commissioner was speaking with home field advantage.
As a representative of the Katy ISD Board of Trustees on the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of School Boards in 2019, I had the opportunity to question the Commissioner on the TEA’s academic definition of constitutional equity – actually a humongous issue to those that care about judicial and statutory integrity of a commitment to disadvantaged children.
The exchange was not recorded, but any of the dozens of TASB Directors who witnessed the exchange would NOT dispute that it happened as described here. Importantly, Commissioner Morath answered my question honestly, even if reluctantly.
Scott: Commissioner, how does the Texas Education Agency define having met its statutory and constitutional burden of closing the academic equity gap: by the STAAR cut score of “Approaches” or the cut score of “Meets”?
Morath: Well, I don’t want to get into the precise legal issues…
(Scott politely interrupts. Yes. I was polite)
Scott: That is exactly what I want you to do. Let me re-phrase the question: How does the Texas Education Agency define having met its statutory and constitutional burden to close the academic equity gaps pursuant to the following: Senate Bill 7 passed by the Texas Legislature in 1993; The Supreme Court of Texas decision in January 1994 confirming the constitutionality of Senate Bill 7; The January 2000 decision by the Federal District Court in San Antonio confirming the constitutionality Senate Bill 7: the cut score of “Approaches” or the cut score of “Meets”?
Morath: The cut score of APPROACHES.
In a moment of unmitigated honesty, when confronted by someone whom he knew understood the motivation and underlying facts for his initial reaction, Morath told the truth in front of important witnesses. The direct answer to that simple but profound question acknowledged that the TEA defines its constitutional equity burden as including below-grade-level performance.
Left unsaid, of course, is the State Board of Education (the TEA) has the power to play games, so to say, with genuine academic integrity which is exactly what the State Board of Education and the TEA have done for three decades.
Let’s take one peak at one grade level test (8th grade STAAR Math) to get a start on understanding how vital this power is to the State of Texas. There will be extensive reporting on this issue. It is essential to understand the performance standards to fully understand the volume of student academic performance data you will be provided.
The table above condenses the performance standards of the 8th STAAR math test (primary Spring administrations) for academic years 2008-19, 2021-22, and the most current year of 2022-23.
Think in terms of content mastery: (A Perfect Score Contrasted With The Scores Students Actually Receive)
- RAW SCORE MAX: The total number of raw score points that constitutes making a perfect grade on the tests. That would be 100% content mastery.
- TOP FAIL RAW: If a student got 16 raw score points or fewer on the test in 2022-23, the student would have failed the test. For that year, that would be content mastery of 33% on the test. Read the other years the same way.
- JUST APPROACH RAW: If a student got 17 raw score points up to 25 raw score points, the student would have achieved just the approach standard. That would represent a passing standard (or as the TEA Commissioner acknowledged) the constitutional equity standard of as little as 33% content mastery on the test.
- MEET RAW: If a student got 26 raw score points correct, the student would be said by the TEA to be performing at GRADE LEVEL or above. In other words, grade-level starts at 54% content mastery on the 8th grade math test.
Every important piece of analysis in terms of grade-level integrity starts at this point.
What does it mean to pass a test in Texas?
What does it mean to make grade-level on a test in Texas?
If closing academic achievement gaps on a criterion test starts at 45% or 35% content mastery, has Texas closed achievement gaps at a honest grade level standard?
Here’s a link to the performance standards of the other STAAR tests structured exactly as the one above.
Follow this link to tables that show what RAW SCORE content mastery is required in these grade level STAAR tests to PASS the test or MEET grade level.
LINK: The Following Tables Document STAAR Performance Standards