Almost half of Texas fourth graders scored a zero on the STAAR writing composition last year

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Erika De La Rosa was excited when she heard about the sweeping changes to the STAAR exam . “When they initially announced it, as an English teacher, it sounded like a fantastic idea because writing should be incorporated everywhere,” De La Rosa said. She teaches seventh grade in Houston ISD. Before last year, writing was only tested on a separate exam in fourth and seventh grade, as well as in high school. “What I saw for years was that because it was only tested in fourth and seventh grade, students would only get explicit writing instruction in fourth and seventh grade,” she said. “And so as a seventh-grade teacher, I would be scrambling to try to figure out how can I cover all of these grammar mechanics? How do I cover all of these writing techniques? What can I drop? What do we need to focus on?” For the first time last year, every public school teacher in Texas from third through eighth grade had to grapple with those questions. The STAAR 2.0 redesign was complete, including a complete shift to an online testing platform, instead of the traditional paper exam. It also marked the end of the separate writing exams in fourth and seventh grade; instead, writing was included at every grade level. The results were eye-popping. Before the changes, about 5% of students across the state scored a zero out of 8 on “constructed response” writing questions, which are similar to essay prompts. After the changes, 46% of fourth graders scored a zero out of 10 — 20% in seventh grade, and 25% in high school. “I’m not fully surprised because the test is so new and so different from how things have […]

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