With only two exceptions, a higher percentage of Houston ISD students in the 3rd through 8th grades met or exceeded grade level on the state of Texas standardized test known as the STAAR, in preliminary data released by Superintendent Mike Miles Tuesday.
In addition, Black and Hispanic students narrowed the achievement gap in several areas of the testing with their white and Asian counterparts, Miles said. While the Texas Education Agency will not release its preliminary statewide results until Friday, Miles forecast that in terms of growth HISD would outperform the state and several other large urban districts. Final statewide results will not be released for months.
“Students and teachers across the district did great. We achieved one of the best years in academic growth the district has ever experienced,” Miles said. “One year does not a trend make but having said that, you can often tell that you’re heading in the right direction with one data set if that data set is clearly tied to clear strategies that have been outlined.”
Calling for a celebration, a buoyant Miles singled out the gains made in his New Education System schools whose scores, while still not up the the level of the non-NES schools, showed some more impressive growth numbers, for example 14 percentage points in 8th grade math, a 10 point increases in 6th grade reading and 11 points in 5th grade math.
“The NES schools were ever greater than expected and we did begin to narrow the achievement gap,” he said. “While it’s not a trend I think you can say pretty clearly that NES has been working well.”
NES schools include the 28 selected by Miles and his administration as those in most need of remediation in this first year of the state takeover of the district as well as 57 others who volunteered to be part of the program. Miles, who was appointed by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, installed a regimen of frequent testing throughout the day with an emphasis on reading and math in particular at these schools. For 2024-25, a total of 130 HISD schools will become NES campuses.
There have been an increasing number of protests of Miles’ policies and whether these test results will quiet that down is yet to be seen. Some HISD parents have withheld their children from STAAR testing saying they oppose the time devoted to standardized testing. Others say the tests are unfair because they include questions on material that isn’t included in that grade’s coursework.
But if the success of a school district is measured in the ability of its children to read, do math, and understand science and social studies all on grade level as assessed by standardized test scores, Tuesday was a big step forward for HISD at least as far as percentage points go.
It should still be noted that when it’s reported that 40 percent of HISD students are on grade level in third grade reading, that means that 60 percent are not. Actually, the state considers “approaches grade level” as passing, so only the very bottom tier is designated “did not meet grade level.”
Digging into the weeds a little farther, a review of raw scores shows that in the 2024 Grade 5 reading STAAR, answering just 28 questions right out of 52 would qualify as “meets” the expected performance level. Going down the scale to “approaches” — again which the TEA considers passing — a raw score of 19 questions right out of 52 satisfies that section.
Miles, while saying HISD will make the “approaches” data available, has focused his releases on the meets or masters grade level categories, saying the district should set a higher bar. “Approaches disguises movements in meets and exceeds.”
‘We want to move our proficiency level up to the state average because we are behind the state and have been for a long time but our first goal is to get to the state average and then the national average and beyond that. Anytime we narrow that gap with the state we think that’s some progress,” he said. .
He also said Tuesday that if the testing results continue on an upward trend that HISD may begin transitioning back to an elected board sooner than expected. The nine members of the Board of Managers were also appointed by Morath as part of the takeover, although school board elections have continued, but without those elected taking part in governance of the district.
In response to a question about the worth of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests that the state began using in 2011, Miles went all in to declare that STAAR is not only valid but that its results correlate to the national NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) diagnostic testing.
“The STAAR exams are valid and reliable indicators, not the only metric we’re looking at, we’re looking at NWEA and all that but they give you a good point in time snapshot of where you are.
“For the most part it’s a good indicator of whether kids can read on grade level. But we don’t have to just rely on STAAR. We can look at NWEA data which is also nationally normed.
Miles got a little prickly when asked a series of questions about how many students took the STAAR test and last week’s announced results in Biology at the high school level where there was a gain of 18 percentage points.
Fewer students took the Biology STAAR than the English ! STAAR test. Miles confirmed that many of the emergent bilingual students are directed into other science courses in 9th grade and don’t take Biology till 10th or the STAAR test till then — a practice that was in place before he was superintendent and happens in other districts as well. Even critics calling this “cooking the books” concede that this makes sense for students who don’t speak English well.
The district had more than 95 percent test participation when make-up test takers are included, Miles said. Differences in the number of kids tested were due to the continued loss of enrollment in the district, he said.
“Don’t miss the story please . Eighteen out of 20 exams went up. In the district as a whole reading went up considerably. Our kids deserve some celebration, he said.” That’s the passion behind these numbers.
“When some schools do well across the country and they don’t have kids that are challenged by poverty or a language barrier, we don’t go to the point where we try to find out why only 96 percent took the test. or 95 percent. We don’t ask questions like did some of those kids get asked not to show up?
“But when kids are challenged by poverty, language barriers and other things we start to find out why they did so well and it had to be some reason for that. Unless there is some clear accusation, let’s investigate that clear accusation. Let’s not try to find it if it’s not there. I don’t think that’s right. Behind these numbers are real kids and real teachers and real effort. “
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
