School districts see many STAAR problems
Superintendents’ group compiles list for state’s top education official.
Texas education commissioner sent letter by dozens of districts about hundreds of testing issues.
Dozens of Houston-area school districts have questioned the reliability of this year’s Texas standardized tests, pointing to a long list of glitches and miscues, putting pressure on state officials to exclude some scores from their state ratings.
In a letter to Education Commissioner Mike Morath, the group of district superintendents lists nearly 100 problems, blaming many of them on a new vendor that develops the tests, scores them and gathers test data. For example, one test question had no correct answer. Answers to more than 14,000 state exams were erased because of computer problems. Testing shipments didn’t arrive on time and confidential testing materials were delivered to the wrong campuses or, in some cases, the wrong district.
At least three Central Texas school districts — Austin, Hays and Manor — experienced similar problems.
“At this time, there is a lack of confidence in the entire testing system,” the Houston-area superintendents wrote.
The superintendents penned the letter to the Texas Education Agency on April 12, listing the dozens of issues they’ve had with the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, over the past few weeks.
The state’s new vendor, Edu-
cational Testing Services, is in its first year administering the STAAR. Last year, the testing company won a fouryear, $280 million testing contract with the state after Texas dumped Pearson Education, the state’s sole testing contractor since 1980. Earlier this month, Morath said the new testing company will be held financially liable for the STAAR issues, and if they’re not fixed by May, the state will reconsider the contract.
Austin district officials said their problems included test materials that were initially missing and didn’t arrive until the day of testing, after the exam was scheduled to begin. The district says it also received conflicting or inaccurate information from the vendor.
Austin is documenting those and other problems and passing the information along to the Texas School Alliance, which is compiling a list to be forwarded to the Texas Education Agency.
“What we’re seeing is consistent with what the other districts are seeing,” said Edmund Oropez, the Austin district’s chief officer for teaching and learning. “We are very concerned with ETS and their ability to process and report our students’ progress out accurately.”
Other problems reported across the state:
7,000 students who retook the test in December were included in the wrong district’s data file.
School officials were put on hold for up to two hours when calling the testing vendor.
Student information on documents was filled out incorrectly.
Test-scoring errors were found in one North Texas district.
In Manor, boxes were mislabeled, the boxes didn’t contain the correct materials, and the district received a box of tests that officials didn’t order.
Hays County school officials are also documenting issues they’ve experienced, which include computer glitches that wiped out test answers of some special education students. “We just want to be on the record with the anomalies,” said district spokesman Tim Savoy.
Last week, Lewisville district leaders decided to pay nearly $50,000 to double-check thousands of test results after the district uncovered errors in the scoring of some exams. District leaders there are questioning the accuracy and validity of the scoring of end-ofcourse high school English exams, required for students to graduate. Some students, including high performers and those taking Advanced Placement courses, received zeros on the short-answer portion of the exam.
Morath has said that students whose answers were erased wouldn’t be penalized for the glitch, and left it up to the school districts to decide whether to retest affected students.
“Commissioner Morath and TEA student assessment staff have been visiting with superintendents and testing staff to hear their concerns,” said Debbie Ratcliffe, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman. “Utilizing the information provided by the school officials, TEA has been in dialogue with ETS about what steps will be taken to ensure issues like these do not happen again . ... Finally, Commissioner Morath has spoken about liquidated damages being assessed against ETS in regard to the issues brought forth by superintendents. That tabulation is taking place now.”
ETS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by late Thursday.