Spring STAAR testing begins March 28

The spring administration window for STAAR Alternate 2 begins March 28, and the STAAR End-of-Course administration window opens April 5. Click here to see the STAAR 2021-22 Student Assessment Testing Calendar.

New STAAR question types

In response to House Bill 3906, 86th Texas Legislature in 2019, TEA has been in the process of developing new (non-multiple choice) question types for the STAAR test over the last several years (see STAAR Redesign: Preliminary New Question Types). TEA expects to finalize the question types now that it has conducted extensive field testing of the new question types in stand-alone field tests administered in February 2022.

Scoring and reporting guides for the new question types are available on TEA’s STAAR redesign webpage, and students can practice using the new question types in the online testing platform.

Texas Through-Year Assessment Program Pilot

HB 3906 also required TEA to develop and pilot a through-year assessment model as a possible replacement of the STAAR summative tests. A through-year assessment model is a progress monitoring system that provides students multiple opportunities throughout the school year to demonstrate their mastery of standards and to contribute to their summative performance level reported at the end of the year.

TEA is currently soliciting applications from districts that wish to participate in the pilot, which is a multi-year, fully online pilot that launches in school year 2022-23. The pilot provides three short testing opportunities – one in the fall, winter and spring. Each opportunity will use a multi-stage adaptive design, allowing for shorter tests with greater accuracy to minimize the disruption to instructional time.

TEA will pilot the following grade levels and subjects during school year 2022-23:

• Grade 5 science
• Grade 6 math
• Grade 7 math
• Grade 8 social studies

Additional grade levels and subjects will be added to the pilot in following years.

Participation in the pilot is not an exemption from participating in the required STAAR tests.

School districts and charter schools must apply before April 29 to participate in the Texas Through-Year Assessment Program. TEA has created a TTAP webpage to provide more information about the pilot.