TSTA: Don’t replace STAAR with another high stakes test

posted on July 28 - 08:38 AM
By Joe - TexasISD.com
 


Today, the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability adopted a recommendation that the Legislature should replace the STAAR test with “an individualized, integrated system of multiple assessments using computerized adaptive testing and instruction that are administered throughout the school year to measure individual student performance and growth.” The stated purpose of the new testing regime would be “to provide useful, real-time feedback to educators, parents, and students.”  Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria issued the following statement regarding the Commission’s recommendations:

“Parents, educators and students will welcome the news that the STAAR test may be scrapped, but only if that really means the elimination of high stakes standardized testing, value added models and other measurements that have nothing to do with real teaching and learning.
 
“In the past, the state has eliminated the TAAS test and the TAKS test, only to replace them with a different high stakes test, and we must not make that kind of mistake again.
 
“Teachers have always tested to measure how our students are progressing throughout the school year. It’s time to free teachers to teach students to learn much more than how to take a standardized test. Getting rid of STAAR could be a small step in that direction, but only if we replace it with a diagnostic testing system that is designed to improve curriculum and instruction to benefit our students.”