The Texas Education Agency has released a transition plan with details on the change from TAKS to the new STAAR standardized testing beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. Because of the increase in number of tests from four under TAKS to 12 under STAAR, the number of days high school students will spend taking standardized tests will nearly double, according to the plan.

According to the highlights of the transition plan (.pdf file) posted on the TEA website, performance standards for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) will be tougher than Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) standards. The stakes for students will be even higher for STAAR scores than under TAKS.

Performance standards will be set in February 2012, and reports on high school STAAR end-of-course (STAAR EOC) exams will be released June 2012 after the first tests are administered in May 2012. Results of STAAR testing for grades 3-8 will be released in fall 2012.

State lawmakers overhauled public school testing and accountability standards in House Bill 3 passed in 2009.

High school students taking the recommended curriculum program will have to take 12 STAAR EOC exams to graduate instead of the current four under TAKS. According to the plan: “Currently on TAKS there is a total of 25 testing days, including exit level retest administrations. With three testing opportunities each year (fall, winter, and spring), STAAR EOC will require up to 45 testing days when it is fully implemented.”

Unlike TAKS, STAAR EOC scores will be used to determine student readiness for college and will also account for 15 percent of the student’s final grade in the relevant course. STAAR EOC assessments at the high school level will be administered in Algebra I, geometry, Algebra II, biology, chemistry, physics, English I, English II, English III, world geography, world history and U.S. history.

According to the plan: “Because of the number of high stakes EOC assessments that will be administered at the same time and the provision in statute to allow students to retest an EOC assessment for any reason, there will be much greater security challenges associated with the STAAR program” than with TAKS.

At grades 3-8, STAAR assessments will be administered as follows: math and reading (grades 3-8), writing (grades 4 and 7), science (grades 5 and 8) and social studies (grade 8). Spanish versions of the tests will be available for students in grades 3-5.

A new school accountability program based on STAAR will be developed in the 2011-2012 school year and implemented in 2012-2013. According to the plan, “The intent of the accountability development process is to design a new accountability system rather than modify the current system. The new system may look very different from the current state accountability system.”

The new accountability system, for example, may incorporate longitudinal STAAR EOC performance measures that track a group or class of high school students as they work their way toward graduation.

The first crop of new campus and district accountability ratings will be issued in fall 2013, based on the percentage of students meeting the satisfactory level of STAAR standards. College readiness ratings will be released in 2013 but won’t be incorporated into official accountability ratings until 2014.

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/ccarlstead)