Kristi Hassett

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced recently the implementation of optional standardized end of year (EOY) and beginning of year (BOY) assessments as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One concerned parent shares her concerns about the testing.

By Kristi Hassett
May 15, 2020

I am thankful the Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath advocated in March to remove the state assessment requirements for our Texas students this school year. I also appreciate the information posted by TEA to districts and parents during this pandemic. I was surprised the TEA released a statement on May 7th that parents and schools could choose to give their students a version of STAAR. TEA suggested these End of Year (EOY) assessments would provide a better understanding of the progress their students have made this year.

My primary concern is how the TEA will use the data to research the statewide educational impact of the current crisis to prepare for the next school year. This leads me to multiple questions. How valid will this limited dataset be? How will this data be used? If only a small portion of students participate, how will it provide any insight into the statewide education impact on students? Drawing group or statewide decisions, conclusions, or recommendations on this limited data is problematic at best and potentially harmful at worst.

Another issue with using these optional tests is the TEA will continue to post-equate the EOY assessments. Post-equating is a statistical process, rather than an educational analysis, used to adjust scores after the students take the test so TEA can compare tests from year to year. How can TEA use such a limited student dataset to scale the scores to compare against previous tests?

Another concern I have is Texas Partnership campuses (Senate Bill 1882), which are controlled by charters and universities, may choose to administer the EOY assessments even if the district chooses not to administer these tests to its students.

My last concerns surround the TEA’s new, optional Beginning of Year (BOY) assessment for next school year. Districts are only allowed to benchmark the state’s assessment twice a year; thus, how is the TEA using all of these assessments – the EOY, BOY and Interim assessments? Also, the TEA has said these BOY assessments are diagnostic. Knowing STAAR questions have multiple embedded TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills learning standards), how is the TEA going to provide results to teachers and schools to identify deficits in students? The results provided after STAAR are not diagnostic.

Everyone is working very hard during this pandemic to support students educationally and mentally. Rather than taking a very small, possibly invalid dataset of student assessment to prepare students for next school year, I think the TEA should broadcast known strategies schools have used in the past to create authentic, effective learning for students.

Kristi Hassett is a mother of two public school graduates and another current public school student in Texas. An elected school board trustee, Hassett also serves on the board of Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessments (TAMSA), a group of Texas parents concerned about the overuse and potential abuse of Texas' standardized testing regime.