Test Results Affected By March 2016 STAAR® Online Testing Issues

Below is a letter letter from the State of Texas’ new Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, to school districts and administrators across Texas explaining how they will handle the online testing issues that happened during the online testing.

The purpose of this communication is to provide information about how March 2016 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test results affected by online testing issues will be used in state accountability and performance-based monitoring. The decisions summarized below will help ensure districts are not penalized because of these issues.

State Accountability

The test results of the affected students (grades 5 and 8 reading and mathematics; grades 4 and 7 writing; and the English I and English II EOCs) will be excluded from all index calculations. In addition, as noted in my April 20, 2016, correspondence, any results from the May Student Success Initiative (SSI) retest administration for the affected students will also be excluded. Prior to the August 12 ratings release, TEA will conduct an analysis to determine whether including the affected results would change a district or campus rating from Improvement Required to Met Standard. Should that analysis result in a campus or district receiving a Met Standard rating, the data reported for the district or campus will not change; only the rating will be raised.

The results evaluated for distinction designations and system safeguards will also exclude the affected results. The Division of Program Monitoring and Interventions will provide further guidance on campus improvement plan requirements for affected campuses in August after the 2016 ratings are released.

Performance reports, such as the Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) and the School Report Card (SRC), will also exclude the affected results. This also applies to the legislative report required by House Bill 2804 (84^th Texas Legislature, 2015) that will be released by January 1, 2017.

Performance-Based Monitoring (PBM)

The affected test results will only be included in the Performance-Based Monitoring Analysis System (PBMAS) if the student meets or exceeds the applicable standard for Satisfactory Academic Performance. In addition, the PBM Student Assessment Data Validation selection process will ensure districts are not held accountable for the affected results.

Contact Information

If you have questions about state accountability, please contact the Performance Reporting Division at 512-463-9704 or performance.reporting@tea.texas.gov. If you have questions about PBM, please contact 512-936-6426 or pbm@tea.texas.gov.

Sincerely,

Mike Morath
Commissioner of Education