TEA Assessment & Evaluation Methods 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Texas principal must ensure that English Learners receive appropriate testing accommodations on STAAR. Which accommodation is specifically authorized for recently arrived EL students under TEA policy?
- Exemption from all STAAR testing for three years
- Use of a bilingual dictionary and extra testing time (Correct answer)
- Substitution of a portfolio for all STAAR subjects
- Oral administration of all test sections by a bilingual aide
Correct answer: Use of a bilingual dictionary and extra testing time
TEA authorizes recently arrived ELs to use bilingual dictionaries (word-to-word) and extended time as standard linguistic accommodations on STAAR.
Question 2: A campus improvement team wants to use leading indicators rather than lagging indicators to monitor student progress throughout the year. Which measure is a leading indicator?
- End-of-year STAAR scores
- Annual dropout rate
- Six-week benchmark assessment results (Correct answer)
- Graduation rates from the prior cohort
Correct answer: Six-week benchmark assessment results
Benchmark assessments administered during the school year are leading indicators because they provide actionable data before high-stakes outcomes are determined.
Question 3: When disaggregating STAAR data to fulfill the requirements of the Closing the Gaps domain, which student group must campuses report separately under Texas accountability?
- Students who scored at Masters Grade Level only
- Special education students, economically disadvantaged students, and ELs among others (Correct answer)
- Only students who received Tier 2 interventions
- Only students enrolled for fewer than 140 days
Correct answer: Special education students, economically disadvantaged students, and ELs among others
The Closing the Gaps domain requires disaggregated reporting for student groups including special education, economically disadvantaged, ELs, and racial/ethnic subgroups.
Question 4: A principal is evaluating the technical quality of a new district benchmark assessment. Content validity is best established by:
- Calculating the correlation between benchmark and STAAR scores
- Having curriculum experts verify that items align to assessed TEKS (Correct answer)
- Administering the test twice and comparing scores
- Comparing passing rates to the previous year's benchmark
Correct answer: Having curriculum experts verify that items align to assessed TEKS
Content validity requires expert review to confirm that test items adequately and accurately represent the intended content standards (TEKS).
Question 5: A special education student's IEP specifies assessment accommodations. Under IDEA and TEA guidelines, who is responsible for ensuring those accommodations are implemented during campus testing?
- The district assessment coordinator exclusively
- The campus principal, who ensures ARD decisions are implemented (Correct answer)
- The student's special education teacher only
- TEA's student assessment division
Correct answer: The campus principal, who ensures ARD decisions are implemented
The campus principal bears administrative responsibility for ensuring that all IEP accommodations, including those for assessment, are properly implemented on campus.
Question 6: During a data team meeting, teachers express that formative assessment data is overwhelming because there is too much information to act on. A principal's best response is to:
- Reduce the number of assessments administered per grading period
- Help teachers identify the two or three highest-priority data points to drive next steps (Correct answer)
- Replace formative assessments with more frequent summative tests
- Assign data analysis to instructional coaches instead of teachers
Correct answer: Help teachers identify the two or three highest-priority data points to drive next steps
Effective data leadership means helping teachers focus on the most actionable data points rather than eliminating assessment or shifting responsibility away from teachers.
Question 7: A campus performance objective states that 75% of students will score at Approaches Grade Level or above on STAAR Reading. After results are released, 68% of students met this level. What is the most appropriate first step?
- Submit a corrective action plan to TEA immediately
- Disaggregate data to identify which subgroups or instructional areas drove the gap (Correct answer)
- Lower the target for the following year to a more achievable level
- Reassign the reading department head to a different role
Correct answer: Disaggregate data to identify which subgroups or instructional areas drove the gap
Disaggregating data to pinpoint where the gap occurred—by subgroup, grade level, or skill strand—is essential before designing any targeted response.
TEA Assessment & Evaluation Methods 3
A Texas principal must ensure that English Learners receive appropriate testing accommodations on STAAR.
Which accommodation is specifically authorized for recently arrived EL students under TEA policy?