STAAR testing and school assessments are valuable tools. Don’t discard them
By Dustin Marshall, Dallas Morning News
December 15, 2022
The educators and hardworking staff of the Dallas Independent School District should be applauded for what they’ve been able to accomplish during the last few years in spite of the historic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. More Dallas ISD students are performing on grade level in reading and math than were in 2016 when I first became a board trustee, thanks in part to the policies we’ve enacted and the investments our community has made.
But it’s worth noting that without our state’s system of assessments and accountability, it would be difficult to track this forward progress, let alone use it to guide future decision-making. While it is easy to deride the idea of “standardized testing” and the A-F accountability system, the fact is data provided by these tools are critical to making choices in the best interest of students and their ability to achieve grade-level proficiency in key subject areas.
Take, for example, this report on last school year’s STAAR results provided to the board by the superintendent earlier this year. It shows, on the whole, how hard our teachers worked to recover learning to pre-pandemic levels. But it also demonstrates where greater engagement is necessary: reading scores were strong, but less so for emergent bilingual students. Meanwhile, math achievement has not recovered at the same rate as reading, across all grades and demographics. This is critical information that educational leaders can use to guide resource allocation and ensure equity.
These scores also inform and focus our A-F system of accountability, which provides a transparent framework for stakeholders to determine where more support is needed, as well as what districts and campuses can serve as models to emulate. Dan D. Rogers Elementary in my trustee district is just one example, achieving an A rating with 75% of students experiencing economic instability and 50% learning English for the first time.
It’s incredibly important that we give our parents and families a clear sense of how well the schools in their neighborhood are serving students, both their own (through scores on STAAR and other assessments) and the community as a whole (through the campus and district’s A-F rating).
Even if you don’t have kids in the public school system, you are directly impacted by the outcomes it produces. Our state accountability metrics include “college, career and military readiness,” making accountability ratings a leading indicator for the strength of our state’s economy.
Currently, less than 1 in 4 Texas students go on to achieve any type of certificate or degree six years after their scheduled high school graduation. In Dallas County, it’s less than 1 in 5. But students attending A or B rated schools are more likely to be considered “college, career and/or military ready” than their peers on other campuses.
Our public education system must prepare more students to obtain trade certificates as well as two- or four-year degrees. Otherwise, small businesses — like the one I run — will struggle to fill the jobs they are creating and our economic growth will grind to a halt.
I’m glad our state has so far resisted calls to “cancel STAAR,” but it’s clear there are those seeking to take up this mantle of unaccountability in the upcoming legislative session. Any effort to eliminate testing or lower accountability standards will only serve to obscure how our schools are doing and withhold valuable information from educators, legislators, business leaders, and most important, parents.
Texas taxpayers devote over $60 billion a year to Pre-K through 12th grade, and our system of assessments and accountability offers the clearest insight into the return on that investment in the form of student success. We should prioritize working together to act upon the vital insights it provides.