STAAR Advanced Performance

Background

Campus Dashboard Metric

The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) program is designed to measure the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum standards.  In spring 2012, the STAAR assessment replaced the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) assessment.  The STAAR assessment includes grade-level assessments for grades 3-8 and end of course (EOC) assessments for high school level subjects.  STAAR assessments for grades 3-8 are in a defined testing window in April and May.  Students that do no meet standards may be re-assessed in July for promotion consideration.  Students in grades 3-8 will be assessed in the following subjects:

  • Mathematics (Grades 3-8)
  • Reading (Grades 3-8)
  • Writing (Grades 4, 7)
  • Science (Grades 5, 8)
  • Social Studies (Grade 8) 

The STAAR assessment is available in the following forms: paper, online (EOC only), braille, and Spanish.

There are four versions of the STAAR assessment:

  • STAAR replaces the TAKS assessment and includes assessments for grades 3-8 and End of Course exams for high school level subjects.
  • STAAR Alternate 2 meets the federal requirements mandated under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and is designed for the purpose of assessing students in grades 3-8 and high school who have significant cognitive disabilities and are receiving special education services.
  • STAAR L is a linguistically accommodated English version of the STAAR for grades 3-8 and EOC mathematics, science, and social studies assessments.  It is provided for English Language Learners (ELLs) who meet participation requirements for a substantial degree of linguistic accommodation in these subject areas. After the December 2016 administration, STAAR L will no longer be administered.
  • STAAR Spanish is available in grades 3-5 in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. STAAR Spanish is administered to eligible students for whom a Spanish version of STAAR is the most appropriate measure of their academic progress. STAAR Spanish tests are grade-level assessments and test the same grades and subjects as the general STAAR.?

There are three levels of academic performance for the STAAR assessment:

  • Level III: Advanced - student is well prepared and has a high likelihood of success in the next grade or course; student also demonstrates the ability to think critically and apply the assessed knowledge and skills in varied contexts both familiar and unfamiliar and will require little to no academic intervention.
  • Level II: Satisfactory– student is sufficiently prepared and has a reasonable likelihood of success in the next grade or course; student also demonstrates the ability to think critically and apply the assessed knowledge and skills in familiar contexts and may require short term, targeted academic intervention.
  • Level I: Unsatisfactory– student is inadequately prepared and unlikely to succeed in the next grade or course; student does not demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the assessed knowledge and skills and will require ongoing academic intervention.

 

The dashboard will display the percent of students who are performing at or above Level III in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Science.

Primary Metric

  • STAAR Advanced Performance

User Interface

Dashboard Example

Figure 1 shows the STAAR Advanced Performance metric as seen on the campus dashboard.

Figure 1 TSDS STAAR Advanced Performance Metric

Status Definition on the Dashboards

This metric provides information regarding the advanced performance of students on a campus for the STAAR Assessment.  The Status Indicator is determined by the campus-specific thresholds (campus goals) which are set at the district level.  The Texas Student Data Systems (TSDS) default threshold is 40% of students performing at or above Level III.

Table 2 Metric Indicators for TSDS STAAR 3-8 Performance Metric

Metric Indicators

Comparisons

Container Name

Granular Name

Metric Status Indicator (a)

Trend:

Campus Goal (Delta) (b)

STAAR Performance

Reading

Red = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is less than the campus goal (40%)

Green = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is greater than or equal to the campus goal (40%)

Prior year to current year

Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students meeting the goal

Writing

Red = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is less than the campus goal (40%)

Green = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is greater than or equal to the campus goal (40%)

Prior year to current year

Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students meeting the goal

Mathematics

Red = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is less than the campus goal (40%)

Green = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is greater than or equal to the campus goal (40%)

Prior year to current year

Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students meeting the goal

Science

Red = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is less than the campus goal (40%)

Green = if the percentage of students performing at or above Level III is greater than or equal to the campus goal (40%)

Prior year to current year

Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students meeting the goal

(a)   The Metric Status Indicator column displays the percent of students who attained Level III on the most recent STAAR assessment.

(b)   Campus Goal (Delta) directly relates to the “Difference from Goal” column on the campus dashboard.

Trends

Trend Indicators: Objective is to indicate STAAR Advanced Performance

Up Green

If the value for the current time frame is more than 10 percentage points higher than the prior time frame, then display a green arrow trending upward.

Unchanged

If the value for the current time frame is less than or equal to 10 percentage points higher or is less than or equal to 10 percentage points lower than the prior time frame, then display two gray arrows pointing outward indicating no direction.

Down Red

If the value for the current time frame is more than 10 percentage points less than the prior time frame, then display a red arrow trending downward.

The trend does not show for the first occurrence of a time frame since data is not available.

Delta Definition

The Delta column displays the absolute value of the difference between the campus percentage (Status column) and the campus goal percentage (Campus Goal column).

Table 4 Delta Indicators for STAAR Performance Metric

Delta Indicators: Objective is to indicate STAAR Performance

Metric Name

Sub-Metric Name

Campus Goal

Delta

STAAR Performance

Reading

Set campus goal

Red (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is less than the campus goal

Black (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Writing

Set campus goal

Red (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is less than the campus goal

Black (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Mathematics

Set campus goal

Red (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is less than the campus goal

Black (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Science

Set campus goal

Red (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is less than the campus goal

Black (Delta Percentage) = if the STAAR Advanced Performance percentage is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Periodicity

Best practice is to load the data for this metric each time there are new assessment files.

Table 3 Recommended Load Characteristics for TSDS STAAR 3-8 Performance

Recommended Load Characteristics

Calendar

Late Spring and late summer

Frequency of data load

When new files are available

Latency

Yearly

Interchange schema

Interchange-StudentAssessment.xsd

Tooltips

The standard tool tips for the metric definition, column headers, and help functions display for this metric.

The following are tooltips specific to the metric:

  • Green metric status: OK
  • Red metric status: Not Met
  • 'More' indicates drill down views for this metric
  • “Getting better from prior period.”
  • “Getting worse from prior period.”
  • “No change from the prior period.”

Business Rules

STAAR Advanced Performance metric contains data for the STAAR, STAAR – M and STAAR – Alt.  The subject areas will display as granular metrics. 

This metric displays the percent of students who have performed at or above Level III for the most recent administration of the STAAR Assessments in the following subject areas:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Mathematics
  • Science

Business Rules that apply to this metric:

  • The status is determined by the calculation of how many students met the goal divided by how many students took the assessment.
  • If a student meets Level II requirements it is inferred that the student met Level I requirements.
  • If a student meets Level III requirements it is inferred that the student met Level I and Level II requirements.
  • All students who met the goal for STAAR, STAAR – M, and STAAR – Alt will be included in the calculation of students who met the goal.

What to display:

  • Always display container and granular metrics.
  • Elementary and Middle school students are included in this metric. 

Data Assumptions

  • The data will indicate the performance level (Level I, Level II, Level III) for a student.
  • The data will provide historical information.
  • The data will provide the number of students who met the goal.
  • The data will provide the number of students who took the administration.

Computed Values

This campus metric is a roll-up for the cohort of current students, across all grades in the campus.  It is computed from the last set of STAAR scores loaded as follows:

  • For the majority of the year, the previous year’s STAAR scores are reflected
  • Toward the end of the year, the current year’s STAAR scores will be loaded

STAAR Performance

Calculation

Excluded Students

Each subjects’ percentage

(Number of students in cohort who met the goal for the subject / total number of students in cohort who took the test in the subject) * 100

  • Absent or exempt students
  • Transfer students with no STAAR data (previous or current year) available

Data Anomalies

Anomalies

  • Metrics are sensitive to when and how often the data is loaded
  • Early education and Pre-Kindergarten students and students in grades 1 and 2 are not included in the data.
  • Students receiving instruction in a grade higher than the grade in which they are enrolled will be assessed at the higher level if the content covers the entire curriculum for that subject.
  • Late enrollees may have taken the STAAR at their previous school.
  • Data will be loaded from multiple administration dates.
  • STAAR metric will display the most recent exam data.
  • Campus rollups for current year STAAR Performance will display the performance of students who took STAAR that are still enrolled on that campus.  (Ex: when an 8th grader moves to high school their data will no longer be reflected in their middle school’s campus STAAR Performance metric)

Footnotes

  • students who took alternate or modified version of the assessment
  • students who missed the assessment
  • see the student list for a complete list of those students who were excluded from the metric calculation

Date of Refresh

Best practice is for the date of the last data refresh to appear next to the metric in the following format:

  • (Through April 2010)

Implementation Considerations

STAAR Apparent Non-Participation

The STAAR assessments are administered in spring and summer. Students’ non-participation can only be detected to the extent that the district has received and loaded timely test result data from STAAR. Information from one district’s coordinator indicated the STAAR deliveries of results were “random” throughout the year.

STAAR Participation Expectation

Students will take the STAAR assessments in grades 3-8.  Proper application of the metric requires the district or campus establish clear expectations for when students should take the STAAR assessments based on state requirements, and if a student has not taken the assessments, at what point an intervention is in order.

Incomplete Transcripts and Missing STAAR Scores

Transfer students may have incomplete transcripts that do not show prior STAAR participation. Timely acquisition of a transfer student’s transcript is imperative to apply this and other metrics.

Drill Downs

Drill Down View

This metric includes the option to drill down for information that is associated with this metric. Table 5 lists the drill down views that are defined for this metric.

Table 5 Metric Drill Down Views for STAAR Advanced Performance

Grade Level Chart

Metric values by grade level.

Historical Chart

Metric values displayed over multiple time periods.

Student List

List of students who achieved Level III on the most recent administration of the STAAR assessment in that subject area.

The objective is to provide a measure of readiness for the next grade level.

User Interface Notes

Dashboard Example

Figure 2 shows the STAAR Advanced Performance Grade Level Chart Drill Down the campus dashboard.

Figure 2 STAAR Advanced Performance Grade Level Chart

Figure 3 shows the STAAR Advanced Performance Historical Chart Drill Down the campus dashboard.

Figure 3 STAAR Advanced Performance Historical Chart

Business Rules

Grade Level Chart:

  • The Grade Level Chart will compare current data for all grade levels on the campus.
  • The chart will be a bar graph.
  • The chart will display
  • Green bar = if that grade level met the goal
  • Red bar = if that grade level did not met the goal
  • Above the bar, the percent of students who met the standard in that subject area will display.
  • The hover-over on the bar on the graph will display number of students who met the standard out of the number of students who took the assessment for that subject area.
  • The campus goal is displayed in the top right corner of the chart and indicated on the chart by a blue line.

Historical Chart:

  • The Historical Chart will compare current and prior year data for that subject area.
  • This drill down will not show until there is prior year data loaded.
  • The chart will be a bar graph.
  • The chart will display
  • Green bar = if that grade level met the goal
  • Red bar = if that grade level did not met the goal
  • Above the bar, the percent of students who met the standard in that subject area will display.
  • The hover-over on the bar on the graph will display number of students who met the standard out of the number of students who took the assessment for that subject area.
  • The campus goal is displayed in the top right corner of the chart and indicated on the chart by a blue line.

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