For Parents
Throughout the year, the Department of Research, Assessment & Accountability will provide readers with reports, test administration materials, brochures, and external links that provide additional information related to student learning and measurement.
The following is a list of websites, articles, and reports that may be of interest to parents.
MISD School Web Sites
staar update
What are the most significant differences between the STAAR assessments and the TAKS assessments?
§ The rigor of items has been increased by assessing skills at a greater depth and level of cognitive complexity. In this way the tests will be better able to measure a greater range of student achievement and establish stronger links to postsecondary readiness.
Texas Education Agency Student Assessment Division March 2012
§ The total number of test items for the STAAR assessments has been increased for most grades, subjects, and courses.
§ A four-hour time limit has been established for STAAR assessments, as opposed to TAKS, which was untimed.
§ STAAR assessments in mathematics and reading will be linked from grade to grade as well as to postsecondary-readiness standards for the Algebra II and English III assessments.
§ STAAR assessments have been designed to focus on "readiness" standards, which are defined as those Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) student expectations that are not only essential for success in the current grade or course but also important for preparedness in the next grade or course. By focusing on the student expectations that are most critical to assess, STAAR will better measure the academic performance of students as they progress from elementary to middle school to high school.
§ STAAR EOC assessments will differ from the current TAKS high school assessments in that each STAAR EOC assessment will cover only the content from a particular course (e.g., Algebra I will assess only Algebra I content) rather than content from multiple courses (e.g., Algebra I and grade 8 mathematics were assessed on the TAKS grade 9 mathematics tests).
§ STAAR writing assessments at grades 4 and 7 will be extended to two days.
§ STAAR EOC assessments for English I, II, and III will be administered over two days, with the writing component on day one and the reading component on day two.
§ The test designs for STAAR grades 4 and 7 writing and STAAR English I, II, and III will require students to write two essays addressing different purposes for writing rather than one longer personal essay, which TAKS required.
§ In reading assessments for STAAR, greater emphasis will be given to critical analysis rather than literal understanding. The test designs for English I, II, and III will allow for the reading and writing components to be equated and scaled separately so that reading and writing scores can be reported separately. This means that a student will need to retake only the portion of the STAAR English I, II, or III assessment (reading or writing) that he or she did not pass.
§ Most STAAR mathematics and science assessments will have an increased number of open-ended (griddable) items to allow students the opportunity to derive an answer independently without being influenced by the answer choices provided with the questions.
§ STAAR grade 3 assessments will have separate answer documents instead of scorable test booklets.
How will student performance be described on STAAR?
There will be two cut scores, which will identify three performance categories. For the general STAAR assessments, STAAR Modified, and STAAR L, the labels for the performance categories are
§ Level III: Advanced Academic Performance
§ Level II: Satisfactory Academic Performance
§ Level I: Unsatisfactory Academic Performance
For the STAAR Alternate assessments, the performance labels are
§ Level III: Accomplished Academic Performance
§ Level II: Satisfactory Academic Performance
§ Level I: Unsatisfactory Academic Performance
EOC
With the new STAAR program, the exit-level tests will be replaced with 12 end-of-course (EOC) assessments, which students will take as they complete the corresponding course.
The 12 EOC assessments are:
• English I, English II, English III
• Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II
• Biology, Chemistry, Physics
• World Geography, World History, and U.S. History
If a student is enrolled in grade 8 or below and is taking a course for which there is a STAAR EOC assessment, that student will be required to take the applicable STAAR EOC test. For example, an eighth grade student enrolled in Algebra I will take the STAAR Algebra I EOC, as well as the grade 8 reading, science, and social studies assessments. How are the STAAR EOC assessments related to graduation requirements?
Depending on their graduation program, students will be required to meet the passing standard, Level II: Satisfactory Academic Performance (or at least achieve a predetermined minimum score), on eight to twelve STAAR EOC assessments. In order to graduate, a student must achieve a cumulative score that is at least equal to the product of the number of EOC assessments taken in that content area and a scale score that indicates satisfactory performance (Level II). For example, if the scale score range is 0-1000 and the passing standard, or satisfactory performance, is 700, a student would need to achieve a cumulative score of 2100 (3 assessments × 700 = 2100) in each of the four foundation content areas. A student must achieve a minimum score on an EOC assessment for the score to count toward his or her cumulative score. A student's cumulative score is determined using his or her highest score on each EOC assessment within a content area.
Cumulative score requirements do not apply to students taking STAAR Modified or STAAR Alternate, as there are no cumulative score requirements planned for these programs.
Texas Education Agency
Math and Reading Help for Kids
The following is a list of topics that are available at this site.
Parents who are interested reading about any of these topics
should go to: http://math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org/index.html.
|
|
|
National Center for Educational Achievement (NCEA): Just for the Kids
To access the Just 4 Kids website go to: http://just4kids.org/en/texas/higher_performing/grade3_schools.cfm.