CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As students prepare for summer break, education professionals remain hard at work in determining the effectiveness of the STAAR test.
Steve VanMatre, Superintendent for the Tuloso-Midway Independent School District, spoke with 3News about recent test scores along with some changes that are being made to the STAAR test itself.
During the pandemic, students had to transition to online learning for many academic endeavors. That included standardized testing.
"It's certainly pleasing to educators to see data for the first time since the pandemic that our students are closing the gap," VanMatre said.
VanMatre said when it comes to testing, students have responded better to in-person instruction as opposed to virtual.
"It just goes to show that when you have face-to-face instruction instead of remote instruction that student performance increases dramatically," VanMatre said.
One major change coming to the STAAR test will be a transition away from multiple choice responses.
"What I see with the new assessment that our students will be taking next year is big changes in cross-curricular type of questioning," VanMatre said. "For example, a student taking a reading test will not just be answering a mastery of reading. There could be science content in the question or social studies. So the test is designed to give a true accuracy assessment of what's happening in the classroom."
While standardized testing can be naturally stressful, recent events, such as the mass shooting that took place in Uvalde, Texas, have put students and faculty on edge. VanMatre said that student safety plays a vital roll in ensuring students' academic success as well.
"Let me tell you this. I cannot look a mom in the eye and say 100-percent that we will not have an active shooter in Tuloso-Midway ISD," VanMatre said. "But let me tell you what I can do. I can tell a mom or a parent that we will 100-percent do everything we possibly can, safety wise, to prevent that from happening."
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