TEMPLE, Texas — In just a few weeks, Texas students will be getting ready to take the STAAR test in their schools. But this year for the first time, the assessment will be fully offered online.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) explained that the goal of reverting to an online administration is to align more closely with effective classroom instruction.
But local parents highly disagree with this assessment going fully online and believe this idea is solely for state profit.
"This is a circular payday for politicians in a testing company on the backs of minor children, some of them with learning disabilities. That's with the star test is being used for," Temple parent and education advocate Clarissa Rabon explained.
This new change comes as a result of Texas House Bill 3906.
Here are some of the additional changes that will come:
- Adding new item types and capping the percentage of multiple-choice items
- Eliminating stand-alone writing assessments for grades 4 and 7 and incorporating cross-curricular passages to assess new reading language arts Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
The state curriculum standards including reading, writing, math, science and social studies.
Students are expected to complete STAAR tests in about three hours. Any students who are still testing after four hours should be consolidated into a general testing area to continue testing. Students may continue testing until the end of the school day.
Temple Deputy Superintendent Lisa Adams says online testing is nothing new for students or staff and they are well prepared for what's to come.
"We've been certainly working on this for multiple years and remote learning certainly got us off to the right start when we have students at home taking assessments and having to get those things in place," Adams said
She went on to say these assessments will be properly secured on a specific software to ensure there is integrity when students take the test.
A student may be eligible for a special administration of an online assessment if the student requires a testing accommodation that is not possible to provide in an online setting.
Still, Rabon doesn't trust the idea of standardized testing and believes Texas should do away with them completely.
"It's well known these students do not learn well online, they don't test well online. You're looking at students who have multiple learning disabilities who are now being forced to do this test online. Children with basic reading issues who aren't reading at grade level and now they are being forced to do that online too. It is not right and it needs to end before it's too late," Rabon said.
For more information about the updates, visit the TEA website.
