Standardized tests are shifting at SAISD schools. Here's how. (2024)

Students at some San Antonio schools could be taking one less standardized test next year after district leaders say a widely popular test provided by a national nonprofit failed to predict the subpar outcomes students scored on the most recent state standardized test.

Jaime Aquino, superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District, announced during a lengthy board workshop in June that the district would be swapping the national normed test, known as MAP Growth, for a State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) interim assessment, which he said is more aligned with the standards.

“For the first time this year, the middle of the year MAP did not predict the [STAAR] result that we got,” he said. “I am not blaming it on MAP but I kept saying during every board monitoring [session] that you needed to understand that they had not yet [realigned.]”

NWEA, the nonprofit that created MAP, provides linking studies to help districts interpret test data to accurately predict how students will perform on the end-of-year state assessments. Its assessment ranks students on a “bell curve” to determine the highest and lowest performing students.

An updated linking study for the most recent STAAR test is expected to be released in the next week, according to Simona Beattie, a spokesperson for NWEA.

But SAISD didn’t answer questions about whether that would change their plans.

The move comes as more and more Texas districts and charter networks are adopting the MAP test as a tool, with around 600 “education partners” last year growing to more than 725 this year, covering 2.8 million students, according to Beattie.

The lack of a linking study is not the only concern of SAISD officials, however.

The format of questions, which expanded to include “drag and drop” questions and graphing questions appear to have tripped students up, leading district leaders to lean into the state’s interim tests — which they say more closely mirror the high-stakes standardized test.

Adam Wolfgang, the director of product management for NWEA, told the San Antonio Report that those types of questions have long been featured in MAP tests as well.

“Students who have taken the MAP would be prepared for those types of questions [on the STAAR],” he said.

In a statement, the Texas Education Agency said the free STAAR interim tests include both multiple choice and non-multiple-choice questions, which are field-tested on STAAR tests.

Results are reported using the same platform as actual STAAR results, with teachers and administrators able to access student answers, expected answers based on state standards, test questions and more.

The agency also provides district’s with files showing the statistical probability of a student achieving approaches, meets or masters grade-level expectations on the STAAR based on their interim assessments.

Aquino said individual campuses can choose whether to administer the STAAR interim and MAP test or just the STAAR interim, with the exception of elementary schools, which must provide the test for students in kindergarten through second grade.

Those scores fulfill a requirement for the state’s teacher incentive allotment program, which provides extra funding to raise the salary of highly effective and skilled teachers.

Because of that, the district will maintain a contract with NWEA.

Other campuses and grades could stop using the test altogether.

Other districts keep MAP

SAISD is not the only district to see discrepancies in MAP and STAAR scores, which jolted leaders across the state when they showed serious declines in math and science last month.

District leaders at Alamo Heights ISD, which has about 4,800 students, saw “anomalies” between the district’s universal screeners, MAP scores and STAAR scores.

“We’re not quite sure why,” assistant superintendent of curriculum, Jimmie Walker, said.

The most significant gap, Walker said, was in Language Arts, where STAAR tests were graded using computer systems for the first time this year,

“I don’t have full faith and trust in artificial intelligence, scoring … writing scores,” she said. “That may be part of why … the scores weren’t as tightly correlated as we had expected, because there were some surprises for us.”

Despite those gaps, the district plans to continue using the test to look at growth.

“It does give us growth over multiple points in time, beginning of year to middle of year, middle of year to end of year,” she said. “And all of that we feel is valid and reliable, as opposed to one point at the end, compared to who the child was a full calendar year prior.”

Unlike the state exam, MAP testing is adaptive, meaning questions change depending on how a student answers. A pool of questions at the estimated achievement level is used to start the test, and more challenging questions are given as the student gets questions right, and easier questions are given as a student gets questions wrong.

By using adaptive testing like MAP, districts can also zero in on exactly at what level a student is performing, according to school officials, like Jeffrey Flores, the deputy superintendent of New Frontiers Public Schools, a college-readiness-focused charter network in San Antonio.

Avoiding test fatigue

New Frontiers uses both MAP and the STAAR interim assessment to help gauge student readiness and target teaching.

Despite SAISD’s predictions, Flores said MAP has actually been more accurate at predicting STAAR scores than the STAAR interim, while also providing more opportunities for targeted intervention.

“It helps us identify those gaps and helps the teacher get a plan in place with the students to see where they’re at,” he said.

Comparisons are difficult however, with the network having around 300 students, compared to SAISD’s 44,000.

The MAP also shows growth to students, even if they are years behind – helping with self-esteem and confidence as they catch up, Flores said.

“It’s powerful, I see kids who have struggled with STAAR for years, and they start to see why they struggle,” he said. “So, they get that confidence to continue with it, because, they see ‘I am working on this, I am showing improvement,’ it motivates them.”

The only outliers in the data for that school system, Flores said, comes at the end of the year when students endure a barrage of testing.

“They’re exhausted from testing. They’re tested out,” he said. “These kids are going to start college finals, high school finals, they’ve been taking the MAP test, so by that point, they’re pretty much spent.”

As San Antonio ISD looks to tweak its testing next year, Trustee Sarah Sorensen worried aloud during the June meeting about testing fatigue impacting students at campuses where both MAP and STAAR interim are used.

“It is a lot of testing,” she said. “Is that the most effective way to get the results they need?”

Aquino said the district would be looking at how to be strategic moving forward, especially when looking at the dual-language population, which already has to take twice as many tests. As the school year gets underway, district leaders will be looking to campuses as they implement the changes.

“We’re working on what that would look like and we’ll be bringing something to the teachers and the principal advisors,” he said.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to correctly state the enrollment for New Frontiers Public Schools.