Administrators at Taylor Independent School District are keeping a closer eye on students’ achievement in reading and math this year.
A few weeks ago, students in Taylor ISD took the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness interim test, a free optional online assessment that gives administrators important data to help them prepare for the STAAR, a key assessment used in determining the district’s rating each year from the Texas Education Agency.
The TEA’s A-F rating system was established by House Bill 22 in the 85th Legislature to offer parents, educators and other stakeholders a “transparent view of academic performance.”
“I am encouraged,” said Superintendent Devin Padavil. “It’s definitely trending towards being stronger than last year, but we know that there is work to do.”
Padavil said the STAAR interim does not provide an exact score of how many kids are passing, but is rather a projection on if nothing were to change, on this date in November how would students do.
“The state tests us at this point in the year on things we haven’t had time to teach yet,” Padavil explained. “They may not be covered until January or February. We have no way of controlling that, so what we are trying to figure out is if there is anything we have already taught that our kids did well in or didn’t do well in and that helps us determine what do we do about it.”
Padavil said for the 2021-22 school year, the test was not required at Taylor ISD.
“Last year I gave principals the choice of whether they wanted to use this state projection test, and this year, I am not giving them the choice,” Padavil said. “I made it mandatory that all schools do the assessment because we have to know how our students are performing so our teachers don’t have to guess who needs help and what needs to be covered.”
According to the school district, results were varied, but where year-to-year data were available, often showing a positive trend.
For example, seventh graders had a 50 percent probability of approaching grade level, which is 10 percent higher than last year’s probability.
Where results were not available for multiple years, achievement was also varied.
For example, third graders at Naomi Pasemann Elementary, which have no previous practice with the opportunities with the STAAR test or anything comparable, had a 23 percent probability of approaching grade level in math, while fourth graders at the same school had 72.5 percent demonstrated a probability of approaching grade level achievement in math.
“Fourth-grade math did very well,” Padavil said. “Math as a whole showed a lot of progress.”
However, Padavil stressed that the important thing is not the results so much as what the district does with them.
“This is one of these situations where we have to continue to address the areas where our students are showing deficits,” Padavil said. “The beauty of this year is we know how big the challenge looks like at this point going into the start of 2023. Last year, we didn’t have good data.”
