This Week in Performance Reporting: October 23, 2020

Good afternoon, Performance Reporting bulletin members.

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What’s New in Performance Reporting

A–F Accountability

2021–2022 Public Education Grand (PEG) List Available

Last week, Performance Reporting released the 2021–2022 Public Education Grant (PEG) List. The PEG List identifies campuses that received an F rating in both the Student Achievement domain and the School Progress domain. However, because ratings were not issued in 2020, the campuses identified for PEG based on 2019 ratings remain on the 2021–2022 PEG List.

More information can be found at the PEG FAQ page.

Local Accountability System

Due to COVID-19-related uncertainty about school schedules, the local accountability team is adopting a flexible approach to district development of a local accountability plan. The Local Accountability Guide provides information about plan requirement and example components.

An updated Frequently Asked Questions has been posted.

Districts wishing to learn more about the local accountability system and how to develop a district local accountability plan can participant in an hour-long overview webinar with time for Q & A.

Registration links are available for upcoming webinar dates in October and November.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020 at 3 pm

Thursday, November 5, 2020 at 11 am

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 at 9 am

Friday, November 13, 2020 at 1 pm

Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 2 pm

Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 3 pm

Please contact the local accountability system team at LAS@tea.texas.gov for additional information or to set up a virtual meeting to discuss specifics related to your district.

Local Accountability website: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/accountability/academic-accountability/local-accountability-system

Assessment Scoring and Reporting

Assessment Results

The Student Portal is updated with the latest assessment information. Parents can access their child’s results using a unique access code, which can be found on any previous state assessment Report Card. Additionally, parents can view their child’s performance relative to the campus, district, and state.

Raw score to scale score conversion tables are posted here.

For questions or help with accessing and interpreting STAAR, STAAR Alternate 2, TELPAS, and TELPAS Alternate results, districts and parents can email assessment.reporting@tea.texas.gov or call (512) 463-9704.

2020–2021 STAAR and STAAR Alternate 2 Progress Measure

The following notification, which was sent to district testing coordinators and ESC staff earlier last week provides background information about STAAR progress measures and their use for this year.

The STAAR progress measure is calculated based on a student’s gain score—the scale score difference between the current year and the prior year, while STAAR Alternate 2 progress measures are determined by a student’s stage change from the prior year to the current year. Since STAAR testing was suspended for spring and summer 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, this year’s calculation differs slightly and measures progress across two years, from 2018–2019 to 2020–2021.

Due to the gap year, it would be a rare scenario for students enrolled in grade 4 in the 2020–2021 school year to be enrolled in grade 3 in 2018–2019 school year. Therefore, STAAR progress measures will not be calculated for grade 4 students. English II progress measures for the 2020–2021 school year will use 2018–2019 school year English I scale scores as the prior year data.

STAAR progress measures will be calculated for STAAR and STAAR Alternate 2 for the following grade levels and subject areas:

• Grade 5 Reading English, Reading Spanish (STAAR only), Mathematics English, and Mathematics Spanish (STAAR only)
• Grade 6 Reading and Mathematics
• Grade 7 Reading and Mathematics
• Grade 8 Reading and Mathematics
• Algebra I
• English I (STAAR Alternate 2 only)
• English II

While 2020–2021 STAAR progress measure outcomes will be provided on STAAR data files, whether they will be used for 2021 academic accountability evaluations in the School Progress and Closing the Gaps domains in the same manner as in the past has yet to be determined. 

The 2020–2021 STAAR progress measure will be included on STAAR Report Cards and in the Student Portal to help parents gauge their child’s academic performance from 2018–2019 to 2020–2021. Similar to previous years, STAAR progress measures will not be included on STAAR Alternate 2 Report Cards. When interpreting this year’s STAAR progress measure outcomes, districts and parents should be mindful of the unusual instructional, social interruption and learning conditions of the 2020–2021 school year, as well as that this year’s STAAR progress measure calculation varies from the traditional adjacent prior year to current year methodology. Further, districts should exercise caution when using this year’s outcomes for evaluation or planning purposes (e.g., district/campus goal setting) and should use this data point in conjunction with other, more stable data points. Districts should not use this data point to measure student growth for the Teacher Incentive Allotment.

In addition, the Parent’s Guide to the STAAR Progress Measure will be updated to include information about the 2020–2021 STAAR progress measure in early 2021.

If you have any questions, please contact the Performance Reporting Division at (512) 463-9704 or performance.reporting@tea.texas.gov. 

This Week’s FAQ

In the communication regarding the progress measure, it mentioned that 2020–2021 English II progress would be based on progress made since the student's 2018–2019 English I end-of-course (EOC) assessment. On an individual student basis, most current sophomores would not have had English I in 2018–2019. They would have been in 8th grade. How is progress calculated for these students?

For English II, if a student took English I in 2018–2019 and English II in 2020–2021 as first-time testers, this student would receive a progress measure. Since the administration of EOC assessments is course based and not grade based, this is possible (although we do not anticipate many students that fall into this group).

For English II, the “prior” year test is always English I. There is no progress measure from grade 3–8 reading to English II.