Ector County ISD had a mixed bag in terms of STAAR test results from spring 2024 and is working to improve them.
Subjects they will be working on are fifth and eighth grade science, eighth grade social studies and the English I end-of-course exam.
Interim Superintendent Keeley Boyer said they will continue to work on tier 1 instruction, which is the first time kids receive instruction in a subject. This is as opposed to intervention where you are re-teaching, trying to get students to master a standard that they may not have mastered during tier 1.
The STAAR was redesigned in 2022-23 to be more rigorous and complicated with different question types. In 2023-24, the open-ended responses on the English language arts part were graded by an automatic scoring engine, Interim Superintendent Keeley Boyer said.
They used to be graded by humans, she added.
“We had some areas that declined from the previous year. We had some that we improved on. … We did improve in some areas and we did decline in some areas. … We’re pretty aligned with the state in terms of trend on where there were declines and where there were growth areas,” Boyer said.
In elementary school, more time is allotted for reading and math. Boyer said the Curriculum and Instruction team is considering how to change up the instructional framework to allow more time for science and social studies instruction.
“But also what the curriculum instruction team has done is they have, like for our fifth grade science, they have taken some of those standards and are working those into third and fourth grade as well, to make sure that our third and fourth graders are also seeing some of the tested STAAR standards that are shared amongst the grade levels … so that kids are being exposed to those fifth grade standards, starting in third grade. C&I has made those adjustments this year,” Boyer said.
There are also gaps in testing. Students in fifth grade take the STAAR science test, but aren’t tested in the subject again until eighth grade.
Robert Trejo, executive director of Accountability and School Improvement, said math testing starts at third grade and goes all the way to algebra I. It is the same for English language arts, but science and U.S. history, for example, there are gaps in testing.
“They test one time in elementary school for STAAR science, which is fifth grade. They test one time in middle school for science, which is eighth grade,” Boyer said.
Students test for social studies in eighth grade. Social studies is also broken up into content areas. Sixth grade is essentially world history and cultures; seventh grade is Texas history; and eighth grade is U.S. history.
Ninth grade is world geography, 10th grade is world history and 11th grade is U.S. history.
“Eighth grade U.S. history is beginnings of United States up through Reconstruction, post-Civil War, and then you pick up post-Civil War through modern day in 11th grade,” Boyer said. “You don’t see the same alignment that you do with reading and math. You don’t see the same with social studies year after year, because you do world history, Texas history, U.S. history, world geography, world history, U.S. history,” Boyer said. “That is the state standard.”
In high school, the sciences are biology, chemistry and physics, Boyer said.
There is also environmental science or forensic science.
“The senior level changes depending on the track that the kids pursue,” Trejo said.
The majority of high school students get biology and they are tested in it, Boyer said.
Trejo said they had an overall four-point gain in biology and closed the gaps compared to the state.
“The difference of score between how the state performs relative to ECISD. We had a 5 percentage gap in biology, for example, in 2023; 2024, this last assessment, we closed the gap by 1 percentage point, so now it’s a 4-point difference,” Trejo said.
Boyer said they did prepare for the change in the test. ECISD has had students take the tests online for several years.
“The change this year was how the ELAR tests were scored. The test itself changed in 2023 so that was the STAAR 2.0, the STAAR redesign. The test itself in ‘22-23 became more rigorous, more complicated, different question types; ‘23-24 is when … our essays, our short constructed responses, extended construction responses, … were graded by an automated scoring engine. That is really the difference between ‘22-23 and ‘23-24 is the way our open-ended responses were graded. They previously were graded by humans. This year, they were graded by a computer, an automated scoring engine,” Boyer said.
Asked if the state will reconsider grading the English language arts part of the test with humans instead of an automated scoring engine, Boyer said there has been a lot of discussion about it.
“There are many districts that have concerns about that across the state. I don’t know if that will change or not, but those concerns have been expressed pretty widely because it impacted a lot of kids. A lot of kids got zeros on their writing responses because it was not scored by human; it was scored by computer and so it did affect our kids. There’s a lot of question around fairness, validity,” Boyer said.
She noted that a step the district has taken is adding five additional professional development days for teachers to spend more time on content specific instructional strategies.
“That’s probably one of our biggest changes, is being able to provide additional, more specific and targeted professional development,” Boyer said.
The accountability system puts a lot of emphasis on STAAR and student performance, but another large component of the accountability system is college, career, military readiness. This year, ECISD gained 15 points and is 12 points ahead of the state.
“As we shared the other day, we’re at 88% and so our kids, teachers, staff, are doing really well in preparing our kids for college, for the workforce, for military. That’s an A under the accountability system. We actually scored an A in college, career, military readiness, so it is part of the accountability system. So yes, STAAR is an important part of the accountability system, but there are other measures of student success, and college, career, military readiness is one of them. We are, again, growing. We were 73 percent last year and this year we’re 88 (percent). But an 88 even though, numerically, we might say that’s a B, but that is an A in the accountability system,” Boyer said.
The state was at 70 percent last year and went up to 76 percent this year.
Students who earn dual credit also save their families money on college.
Trejo said CCMR has 10 different indicators such as providing students access to AP classes, dual credit classes, CTE pathways to earn industry-based certifications, TSI preparation, college prep classes and enlisting in the military. The Texas Success Initiative (TSI) Assessment (TSIA) is a test that helps determine if students are ready for college-level English, reading, and math courses.
“All of these indicators are just opportunities for kids, so it’s more about tailoring that experience for the student. This is what I want to pursue in my career post-high school. It’s providing that effective advising, guiding them and giving them those opportunities,” Trejo said.
Boyer added that CCMR is a big team effort by teachers, counselors, administrators and central office departments.
“(The 88 percent) was actually the class of 2023 because that’s a lagging indicator. … We won’t know the 2024 number for a while, but that was the class of 2023,” Boyer said.
Some Texas school districts are suing the Texas Education Agency over the agency’s accountability ratings, including the A-F grades, for the second year in a row. The lawsuits challenge the TEA’s use of the STAAR test and the AI grading system used for written responses. The lawsuits also claim that the TEA did not provide enough notice of the changes to the accountability ratings.
Boyer said they don’t have the 2022-23 ratings or the 2023-24 ratings yet.
Trejo said the redesign of STAAR goes in cycles and it has to go through a legislative process to be redesigned. Then a notice has to be issued that the test is going to be redesigned.
“The accountability system is more on a five-year cycle, so we’re technically in year three of five for that,” he added.
