Frequently Asked Questions About District Assessments

1.  What is the purpose of the district assessments?

The purpose of the district assessment is to evaluate the level of student understanding for those TEKS scheduled to be taught within the district scope and sequence and eligible to be assessed on the TAKS test.  (An exception to the TAKS eligibility guideline is the Geometry assessment.  The Geometry assessments may test some TEKS that are not TAKS-assessed.  Because Geometry TEKS make up only three of the ten high school math objectives, there are many of the course TEKS that are not included in the TAKS blueprint.  However, many of these TEKS that are not directly tested on TAKS are fundamental to the course, and may be indirectly tested on TAKS.) The data generated from scoring the assessments should be used to evaluate student progress within a 9-week’s period, as well as to compare similar data from the TAKS to predict and monitor student achievement.

2.  Do the district assessments test all of the curriculum?

Some assessments test all of the curriculum while others do not.  Although the curriculum should be taught in its entirety and classroom assessments should be used to monitor students’ mastery of the entire curriculum, the district assessments will be limited to assessment of those TEKS that are tested on TAKS either directly or indirectly.

3.  Are the district assessment items more difficult than the TAKS items?

The district assessment items are actually not more difficult.  The assessment items are matched to the verbs in the student expectations just as the TAKS items are written.  However, the district assessments are more comprehensive and detailed than TAKS.  Whereas TAKS is a survey test of the assessable TEKS, the district assessments are much more thorough in testing all assessable TEKS.  In most cases, the assessments are written to determine mastery of the student expectation rather than simply mastery of the objective.  (The writing assessment is an exception to this guideline.) This depth and focus on the TEKS actually allows the results of the assessments to be more informative for instructional decisions than the results on TAKS.

4.  What accounts for the differences in scores between district assessments and TAKS? 

Although the standards are the same for the district assessments and TAKS, there are several differences between the two assessments.  One of the differences is described in the previous answer.  This difference, along with a couple more, will also contribute to possible differences in scores between the assessments.

The comprehensiveness of the district assessment may result in scores that are lower than the TAKS.  Since some of the student expectations are more difficult and/or require more high-level thinking than other student expectations, lower results for the more challenging TEKS can be expected.  The district assessments test each student expectation, regardless of its level of difficulty/thinking level, with the same number of assessment items.  Because of its blueprint TAKS does not assess all student expectations and, as a result, is less likely to test the quantity of difficult/advanced thinking student expectations that the district assessments test.

The timing of the district assessments may also contribute to lower scores on the district assessments than on TAKS.  Since TAKS is administered toward the end of the school year, there will be more time to develop understanding and remediate misunderstanding prior to TAKS than prior to each district assessment.

Furthermore, the aggregated results on TAKS provide a different picture than the district assessment results.  Students in advanced classes often take a different assessment than students that are not in advanced classes even though they will take the same grade level TAKS.  When the scores are averaged together, the scores are increased by the addition of the scores from the students enrolled in advanced classes.

5.   Why are TEKS from different courses assessed on some high school district assessments?

TAKS requires that students’ knowledge of concepts be cumulative.  The exit level TAKS is not course-specific in many cases, but, instead, tests TEKS from multiple grade levels, including 8^th grade.  The MISD curriculum often integrates the TEKS from previous courses, so the review material should also be assessed.  We must hold students accountable for their learning and insure that they are adequately prepared for their exit level TAKS.

6.  Why are copies of the district assessment not provided to parents?

Although the creation of the assessment is modeled after TAKS, MISD does not have the resources to develop a test database as extensive as the TEA is able to develop.  Consequently, MISD must maintain the security of test items even after the assessment has been administered in order to avoid depletion of the assessment item bank.  A parent may view the assessment through a scheduled parent conference with the teacher.  At such time it is appropriate to discuss the student’s progress on the learning expectations and the student’s results on the assessment in terms of both the overall assessment and individual items.  The parent should not be permitted to leave with a copy of the assessment or with notes pertaining to specific assessment items.