This Week in Performance Reporting: November 15, 2019

Good afternoon, Performance Reporting bulletin members.

Welcome to this week’s update. 

Have a coworker who needs to sign up? Bulletin subscriptions can be managed on TEA’s website at https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/TXTEA/subscriber/new.

What’s New in Performance Reporting

A–F Accountability

The confidential (unmasked) preliminary longitudinal cohort reports for districts have been updated to reflect 2018–19 data.  They are now available through the Texas Education Agency Login (TEAL) Accountability application under the RES tab.  Per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), these reports are confidential and are intended for district use only. 

The agency builds the high school longitudinal rates used for accountability, monitoring, and reporting purposes from student-level cohort groups based on a student's first-time ninth grade year. The preliminary cohort lists are being provided for information and planning purposes only. Districts are advised to use the lists to help them determine in what year a student is expected to graduate for district planning, agency reporting, and accountability purposes. The preliminary cohort lists provide cohort membership information and selected demographic information only. Final student statuses are not provided.

If you have questions about your preliminary longitudinal cohort lists, please call the Division of Research and Analysis at (512) 475-3523 or email research@tea.texas.gov.

2020 A–F Estimator

This week the agency released the 2020 A–F Estimator, which is available in TEAL Accountability and on the 2020 Accountability Development Materials website. The A–F Estimator provides school districts and open-enrollment charter schools with a way to calculate and estimate their 2020 performance in each domain as well as their overall score. The tool prepopulates domain and component values with 2019 results. District and charter school users can enter 2020 component values to estimate the corresponding 2020 domain and overall results. The accuracy and validity of the estimation is based solely on the data inputted by the district or charter school.

Domain and overall rating estimations in the tool are based on the 2019 accountability system methodology and are intended as a planning resource for districts. The tool does not include alternative education accountability (AEA) bonus points, Local Accountability, or updates based on the development of the 2020 accountability system, which will be finalized this spring. An additional selection was added to see results for a new campus for which no data was available for 2019.

Local Accountability System

The Local Accountability System Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provides additional information about the process of developing a plan and district and campus participation. This week, we highlight the standards for reliability and validity.

What are the standards for reliability and validity?

Local accountability system measures must meet standards for reliability and validity. In terms of specific measures, tests, or ratings:

A measure is considered reliable if it delivers consistent results across administrations.

Examples include forms of assessments that have been created and tested to be equivalent to each other and observational ratings conducted by trained and assessed raters who have reached a level of consistency with each other.

A measure is considered valid if the resulting outcome represents what the test is designed to measure.

Examples include content-specific tests focused on the related content topic, surveys designed to capture beliefs and attitudes about certain topics, and rating protocols with clearly defined observational evidence.

Reliability and validity are closely related, and both must be evident for a measure, test, or rating to be included as component outcomes in a local accountability system plan.

In terms of the overall local accountability system plan, in addition to including reliable and valid measures:

A plan is considered reliable if it is applicable over time across campuses.

A plan is considered valid to the degree that the results show progress toward meaningful local student outcome goals.

Have a question or comment about the local accountability system? Drop us a line at LAS@tea.texas.gov  or call (512) 463-9704.

This Week’s FAQ?

When will the PDF TAPR be released? 

The PDF version of the TAPR, which includes only major data points and is designed to allow districts to fulfill their public notification requirements, will be available in the TEA Login (TEAL) accountability application and on the TEA public website in December. Once the PDF TAPR is available, the district’s board of trustees must hold a public hearing to discuss the district’s TAPR report within 90 days. Guidelines to help districts fulfill their legal responsibilities regarding the TAPR report will accompany the PDF TAPR release in December.  TAPR data downloads and a comprehensive glossary will also be released in December. The advanced data downloads, which include numerators, denominators, and rates, will be available on the public TAPR site in January.

Accountability Fall Learning Webinars

Performance Reporting is happy to announce the continuation of our learning webinar series this fall. These presentations will review components of the 2019 accountability reports, the Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR), and distinction designations. The series is designed for audiences who are not familiar with the topics or need training on the most crucial components.

All webinars are offered through Zoom, a free video conference service. You can sign up using a Zoom, Google, or Facebook login. If you don't have an account, you can sign up for free.

Accountability Fall Learning Webinar Dates

Understanding the 2019 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR)—December 11, 2019 at 1:00 pm 

Understanding Distinction Designations recording—from October 30, 2019

Walkthrough of the 2019 Accountability Data Reports recording — from September 26, 2019 

Factoid Friday

Last week, Performance Reporting released the HTML version of the 2018–19 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR). The TAPR pulls together a wide range of information on the performance of students in each school, district, region and the entire state each year. This week, we’re focusing on statewide enrollment of students in Texas public schools. Using TAPR and Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) enrollment data for the past 10 years, we see the total count of all students enrolled increased by approximately fourteen percent, from 4,728,204 students enrolled in 2009 to 5,416,400 students in 2019. To interact with this chart, or to download these percentages in an Excel format, click on the graphic below.

 

 

Performance Reporting Calendar

December—Final list of campuses identified under PEG criteria for 2020–21 school year are released (TEAL)

December—2019 PDF TAPR, School Report Card, and Federal Report Card are released (public website)

January—2019 TAPR data downloads are released.

Additional Performance Reporting Resources

TexasAssessment.gov contains valuable resources for parents, administrators, and educators. Parents can view their child’s scores in the Student Portal as well as access resources such as the Find a Book Tool. Administrators can access training materials, manuals, and assessment information. Educators can view student data in the Teacher Portal.

TXschools.gov gives users a detailed look at academic accountability ratings, analyze tools to compare data, and a find a school feature that allows users to search schools by rating using location on a map.

 

Contact Information
Texas Education Agency
Performance Reporting Division
(512) 463-9704
performance.reporting@tea.texas.gov