‘Valid test data’ means teachers and students must push faster in math classes this year

I’ve got a story up today about the struggles that some school districts are reporting concerning the new state math standards. It begins:

Parents, teachers and local school officials across Texas are complaining that this year’s upgraded math standards are leaving too many students behind.

The outcry is not universal, but it is widespread enough a third of the way through the school year that the State Board of Education has added a discussion to this week’s agenda.

What happened is that the state created new and tougher standards for math. Probably a good idea, since the old ones were approved in 1996. But the implementation wasn’t really phased in. So some teachers and kids who were doing OK last year aren’t this year. Teachers are having to push students through what they should have already known under the new standards, plus the new material at their grade level. (A more complete explanation is in today’s story.)

Grades 5 and 8 are in particular trouble. Most years, those kids are required to pass the math STAAR to be eligible for automatic promotion. So the test is given in April, to give time for re-tests. That’s a month sooner than other STAAR exams. This year, the promotion requirement has been waived. But the date of the tests has not been changed. Which mean that teachers are having to push even harder to get through the curriculum in a month less time. What’s the reason for not pushing the STAAR tests back a month or so? Here’s the official answer:

With the transition to the new mathematics curriculum this year, the Texas Education Agency considered the timing of the STAAR grades 5 and 8 mathematics assessments (part of the Student Success Initiative) since only one assessment per grade will be administered in the 2014–2015 school year. Although there has been some interest in moving these assessments later in the school year, the decision was made to maintain the traditional schedule. This decision was based on the following rationale.

· The primary reason for maintaining the traditional test schedule is the reliability and validity of the test data. Moving the administration later in the school year to allow for additional instructional time would have an effect on the data gathered for the test questions as well as the student performance data. The potential impact could not only skew the data gathered for this year but would affect the reliability and validity of the future test administrations when the tests moved back to the traditional time frame.

o Performance data on individual test questions will be used to establish new performance standards and construct future tests.

o Performance data on the test as a whole (e.g., impact data from the spring 2015 administrations) will be used to establish new performance standards as well as phase-in standards.

o Student performance data (e.g., raw scores) used by parents, districts, and the state may be different in year one than in future years, making it less meaningful.

· In addition, the logistics for administering and the systems for reporting the STAAR mathematics assessments to coincide with the reading assessments are already in place at the local and state level.

· The general consensus from educator advisory and focus groups was that changing the testing dates for just one year would unnecessarily complicate the testing calendar.

Which is fine for the adults running the system. Maybe not so good for the kids in those grades this year? Perhaps this will be part of the discussion at Thursday’s state Board of Education meeting.