Dan Cooper’s grandson spent the last year as a boy in a bubble.
The eighth grader deals with respiratory health issues, uses two inhalers a day and occasionally requires a nebulizer. He is one of the few students at his Hill Country-area middle school who has remained a remote learner since the pandemic hit last March.
The Ingram school district Cooper’s grandson attends made a push for all in-person learning earlier this school year. After some cussing and raising of hell, an exception was made for the eighth grader to remain at home. And that’s not going to change because of STAAR, Cooper said.
This week federal officials told states that the Department of Education wouldn’t waive assessment requirements as was done last year after COVID-19 suddenly forced campuses to shut down. Texas schools will begin administering the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams in late March and early April, but the tests will be offered only in person at schools or alternate sites.
But Cooper’s grandson — and thousands more like him — won’t be there as they opt out of STAAR.
“The concerns are fairly obvious,” Cooper said. “There are health risks during a pandemic to go on campus, particularly when you’re accustomed to not being there. It creates certain anxiety levels that adds to the pressure of test taking.”
Educators and a large group of lawmakers have called for the state to shelve the exams in recent months because of the pandemic’s disruptions and the related stress students and teachers are experiencing. Education Commissioner Mike Morath, however, maintains that the state needs the tests to identify how much learning loss students face after such a disruptive year.
Federal officials gave similar reasons for wanting such assessments to continue but did give states the flexibility to adapt exams –– tests can be shortened, offered remotely, or delayed into the summer or the beginning of the next school year.
Texas did not announce plans to implement any of these flexibilities for STAAR in updated state guidance released Thursday. The state did extend the testing window for English language learners taking Texas’ alternative exam for such students.
In-person exams level the playing field so students all have the same testing environment, state officials said. If students took the exams from home, they might have to deal with internet outages, distractions or varying levels of help from nearby adults.
Schools are preparing for testing days by creating more space on campus so students can be spread out, said Melissa Steger, Grand Prairie ISD’s chief data and information systems officer. Campuses also have the option to send students not testing to learn from home.
Still, districts expect some students to opt out of the exam altogether.
“Obviously we’re going to do everything in our power to get as many of our students to come and to participate,” Steger said. “We know what we’re up against, and we know that much of the state is up against the same struggles.”
With STAAR tests rapidly approaching and more than 40% of students still learning remotely, participation will likely drop.
Data and equity
Both federal and state officials say tests are necessary to ensure equity for students — essentially, if you don’t test everyone on the same material, you can’t ensure each student learned the same thing or was held to the same standards.
Morath pitched the exam as a helpful tool to diagnose students’ needs during a turbulent academic year.
“If we don’t know where [students] are, then how do we know how effectively to support them?” Morath said in a recent Texas Tribune interview. “How do we know to make these grand sets of changes that we will need to make to honor our moral commitment to children?”
In a normal year, participation rates top 99%, Morath said at a Feb. 22 Senate committee meeting. Texas won’t get anywhere close to that this year, he noted.
Many states will grapple with uneven participation rates, Chris Domaleski said. Domaleski is the associate director for the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit that helps states and districts design and implement assessment and accountability programs.
The variation in who and how many students take exams will make comparing results from this year to previous ones a challenge.
“Reporting in context becomes particularly important,” he said. Education agencies should note factors like the learning method a school or student operated in for the majority of the year and the number of students who tested, he said.
David DeMatthews, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s department of educational leadership and policy, predicted that the turnout of the state’s most vulnerable students could suffer.
“It’s not exactly clear who’s going to be missing … but it’s likely that the people who are most affected by COVID and people who are experiencing poverty in some ways, they’d be the ones that are least likely to attend,” DeMatthews said.
Other ways to assess students provide a more holistic picture of performance, the UT professor suggested. Some North Texas parents agree.
Richardson ISD parent Elizabeth Simpson concedes that her eighth grade daughter’s STAAR results typically align with her favorite and least favorite subjects. However, she doesn’t believe it is a great benchmarking tool compared to others.
For instance, several districts conducted MAP, or Measurement of Academic Progress, testing this year, creating a baseline for students and families to understand academic performance. The test is administered online and adapts questions based on the students’ knowledge and skills.
MAP results showed Dallas ISD leaders that half of students experienced learning loss in math and one-third lagged in reading.
If students could take STAAR online, Simpson’s decision would be different, but because the tests are only available in person, she feels her choice is straightforward.
“We’ve been declining to send her in person all year, and we don’t feel like the STAAR test is a compelling enough reason to send her,” Simpson said.
Wylie ISD parent Shari Sanders hasn’t wavered in her decision to keep her eighth and 10th grade students at home for the remainder of the school year.
Sanders doesn’t buy the argument that the exams are necessary to evaluate students. The time and resources necessary to bring in remote learners for in-person exams could be used to catch kids up, she said.
Plus, schools “will try to put as many safety measures in place as possible but when you get the kids who aren’t used to being in person, they don’t know the routines,” she said. “I think there are some additional risks that aren’t necessary.”
High stakes removed?
Opting out of the exam during a regular year brings consequences for many students. This year, the state removed almost all of the high stakes associated with the exams.
Students in fifth and eighth grade who normally have to pass their STAAR tests to advance to the next grade level won’t face the same requirement because the governor waived it. Texas also won’t assign campuses or districts letter grades for academic accountability that are largely based on student performance.
New TEA guidance notes that districts may be subject to agency review if there are “excessive absences.” Excessive was not defined in the document.
The only remaining stake impacts high school students, who have to pass three of five end-of-course exams to graduate. If they don’t pass these tests, they are ineligible for graduation.
The state assumed every high schooler who passed their class last year passed their exam. But the same provision is not in place this year, and Morath doesn’t have the power to waive the requirement, he said. The governor or lawmakers can remove this mandate but have yet to do so.
By senior year, most students have already taken all of their end-of-course tests. That means that younger high school students could be most impacted by delaying their end-of-course tests until months or years after they have taken the associated class, Grand Prairie’s Steger said.
Some parents, like Tamala Daniels, see the fear surrounding in-person learning as its own high stake.
Daniels’ son Louis is an eighth grader in Troup ISD and one of a smaller group of students still learning remotely in the district located south of Tyler. Louis doesn’t want to be around others at school after witnessing several relatives contract the virus and his campus close for three weeks because of COVID-19 exposures and a substitute shortage.
When Troup Middle School required Louis to come onto campus for some tests earlier this year, Daniels said, she told Louis “keep your mouth closed, stay away from others, don’t talk to anybody. Just go in there, take your test, and call me when you’re finished.”
That’s what he did, but still, Louis was scared he was going to get sick.
Seeing her son respond with fear made Daniels’ decision clear. For Louis, taking the STAAR isn’t worth it.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
