Passing standards on new high school tests called 'inadequate'

Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Passing standards on new high school tests called 'inadequate' 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Texas high school students can pass most of the state's new end-of-course exams this year by answering fewer than half the questions correctly, prompting concerns that the initial standards are not tough enough.

On the easiest end, freshmen can pass the algebra I and biology exams by getting 20 of 54 questions - 37 percent - correct.

The passing standards, posted on the Texas Education Agency's website late last month, typically draw little public attention, but they are key to students' success or failure on the high-stakes exams. State law now requires students to pass 15 of the tests throughout high school in order to graduate.

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott has said the agency decided to phase in the standards, starting lower this year and increasing them through 2016, because students need time to adjust to the much more difficult questions on the new exams.

But a prominent business leader and the head of the state's largest school district suggested the lower bar at the outset will give students, teachers and the public a skewed picture of schools' performance.

'False sense of security'

"It gives all of us an inadequate report of where we are," said Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier. "It gives you a false sense of security."

Grier said he would prefer to start with the higher standards, even if it means more schools earn the state's lowest academic rating.

"If they're unacceptable, they're unacceptable," Grier said. "We need to accept the fact that they are what they are and get very busy trying to improve them."

The standards also drew criticism from Bill Hammond, the president of the Texas Association of Business.

Hammond said the scores should accurately reflect whether students are being prepared for college and careers.

The TEA plans to release statewide scores from the new tests, called the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, this week or next. Scattered reports suggest that students struggled, even with the lower passing standards.

Phasing in goals

Ninth-graders who took the exams in spring 2012 must answer between 37 percent and 65 percent of the questions correctly to pass, depending on the subject. By 2016, freshmen will need to correctly answer 60 percent to 70 percent to pass most of the exams.

TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said districts should have reports this year that show how students would have done had the higher standards been in place, so the information can be shared with the public.

Phasing in standards is not new in Texas, but the TEA is doubling the two-year timeline it followed when rolling out the prior standardized test, called the TAKS, in 2003. At that time the passing standards for the ninth-grade tests were 60 percent in reading and 48 percent in math.

Ratcliffe said more time is needed because the STAAR exams are considerably harder. Consider, she said, how a track coach would prepare an athlete for a pole vault competition, moving the bar gradually higher, not several feet at once.

"You're trying to train the students to get a little stronger each cycle, perform a little better," Ratcliffe said. "You want to set the bar where it's challenging but not impossible for them."

Scott set the final standards based on recommendations from committees that included educators, higher education faculty, legislative staff and business leaders, according to a TEA handout.

The group looked at how students performed on trial tests, trying to ensure that those who scored at the passing, or satisfactory, level are sufficiently prepared for the next course and eventually for college.

Writing test highest

The ninth-grade writing test has the highest passing standard this year, requiring students to get 65 percent (or 40 of 62) of the questions correct.

The standard, also called the cut score, is 54 percent on the freshmen reading test and 46 percent on the world geography exam.

The standards will rise for the ninth-grade class in 2014 and again two years later.

The TEA advises against comparing the passing standards on the different exams because the difficulty of the questions may vary.

ericka.mellon@chron.com twitter.com/e_mellon