A-F Accountability

The STAAR was redesigned as a result of House Bill (HB) 3906 passed by the 86th Texas Legislature in 2019. The redesigned STAAR assessments were implemented in the 2022–2023 school year. The STAAR redesign was done to more closely align the test with the classroom experience. The changes included several components: 

• Online Testing and Accommodations: All STAAR tests will be taken online to provide robust accommodations for students with specific learning needs.  
   

• New Question Types: New Question Types were added, including non-multiple-choice questions that are more consistent with the types of questions teachers ask in class.  

  • The maximum number of multiple-choice questions on a test is 75%. This means the other 25% of the test will be made up of open-ended questions, graphs, number lines, free response questions and more. This is different than what students are used to.  
     

• Cross-curricular Passages: Writing will be added to the reading test as early as third grade, where students were previously assessed only on multiple choice questions. There will be an increase in the number of cross-curricular informational passages that reference content aligned to the TEKS for other subject areas (e.g., social studies, science, mathematics, fine arts, etc.). While the questions will include topics from other subject areas, the questions will only assess a student's reading and language arts performance, students will not be scored on their understanding of the other subject areas.  
   

• Evidence-based Writing: Beginning with the 2022–2023 school year, RLA assessments will assess both reading and writing (grades 3–8 English, grades 3–5 Spanish, and English I and II End-of-Course) and will include new question types and an extended constructed response, or essay, at every grade level.  

  • A lot of the questions now will also have multiple answers. Instead of just picking A, B, C or D, students could be asked to choose the two or three best answers. There could also be multiple parts to a question. For example, what you answer in part A of a question determines what you answer in part B.

TEA eliminated some of the popular industry-based certification courses and added course requirements to be considered career ready. This change has an impact on our high school students who are considered career ready because of the industry-based certifications they earn.  In addition, the TEA raised the CCMR score for earning an A from 60% to 88%.  

This is the domain that measures the performance of various different student groups. In the past, you needed at least 25 students in a group for that group's performance to count towards your accountability rating. The number of students was decreased to 10 per group in the redesigned accountability. This truly puts a focus on all students, and in MISD when we talk about students, all means all.

The way campus grades are averaged together to create the district’s overall rating was changed. Under the original A-F system, campuses, no matter what size, were averaged together in the same way. In the redesigned A-F accountability, campus grades will count for more or less of the district’s rating based on the campus’s size. This proportional weighting will have a significant impact on all districts across the state.