San Antonio Independent School District Board of Trustees held a long, frank discussion with administrators about the circumstances that led to “widespread underperformance” on the state’s standardized tests this year, ending with promises to increase rigor and use data to inform classroom teaching.
Only 33% of SAISD’s students in grades three through eight met grade-level standards for reading, and only 10% of fifth graders met or exceeded science standards. Meanwhile, 19% of eighth graders met or exceeded Texas standards for science.
A similar meeting last December foreshadowed the “very concerning” STAAR test results, with test data already showing students off track in multiple areas.
At the time, trustees mulled the idea of adopting a standardized math and reading curriculum to control the quality and content being taught in classrooms across dozens of schools. District leaders said during that meeting they were already starting the process of reviewing options.
The urgency was more apparent in the meeting held this week.
“Although we are disappointed to see a decline in student performance, this is why accountability is so important,” SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino said. “It gives us the data we need to confidently implement strong plans to support our teachers and students in achieving the best academic outcomes.”
But the curriculum standardization highlighted as a need last year will not be ready in time for the 2024-25 school year, Aquino said during the most recent meeting.
“It is impossible for us right now,” he said. “It will be disruptive, [and] the logistics of this are not fair to teachers.”
Instead, the district will aim to finalize that plan for the following year and require campus leaders in the meantime to adopt a “guaranteed viable curriculum” as determined by the district and require them to implement it with fidelity. Aquino said that isn’t currently occurring at all campuses.
That didn’t sit well with Board President Christina Martinez, who pushed back on his caution against disruption, later promising to follow student achievement data even more closely as a board in the next year to ensure results.
“We should be looking at ways to disrupt this, right?” she said. “Let’s be a little disruptive, we need to be.”
In the meantime, the district is focusing on preparing students for different types of test questions in order to boost STAAR scores, integrating technology into the classroom to reflect the test and providing targeted professional development.
SAISD is also moving away from the Measurement of Academic Progress assessment, a nationally norm-referenced test that failed to fully capture the deficits in student achievement reflected on the state test. Moving forward, the district will use the STAAR Interim, a closer predictor of how students will perform on the test.
Following the data
Officials discussed ways to use data like those interim results to guide teaching.
Campus leaders have already found success with that approach, including Rawan Hammoudeh, the principal of Cotton Academy, who is moving into a leadership role with the district next year.
“At the end of each nine-week period, we take a common assessment, we analyze the data, develop our action plan, and then monitor to see if they’re being effective or not,” she said. “On a yearly basis we know within a couple of points where we’re gonna perform.”
Data will also inform the district about topic areas where students show the greatest need and determine specific question types that caused students to struggle.
For example, students struggled with graphing questions and “drag and drop” questions on the most recent test.
But while some of the declines could be related to confusion over questions or computer grading of essay questions, which is new this year, Aquino said that doesn’t change the significance of the score declines.
“Whether that played a factor or not … it should not mask the reality that our students and our instruction is not delivering,” he said during the meeting.
Still, the district plans to shift younger students from iPads to laptops earlier to get them used to the technology on which the tests will occur and possibly use AI to grade some classroom assignments.
Luis De La Garza, the principal of Woodlawn Academy, made that suggestion after calling this year’s low scores “a serious punch in the mouth.”
“Kids are going to do writing samples, and we’re going to put together a program, or some kind of overlay, or GPT, that allows AI to grade within the rubric, not by another human, but by a machine, which is what’s going to happen,” he said. “And they will get responses and feedback through artificial intelligence to help them.”
AI could also be used to analyze data and target professional development for staff and teachers. Aquino said, as an example: “We can put a query into AI and say, based on this data around math, what are the patterns that you see?”
Looking forward, the district previewed a new way to gauge the quality and success of its schools beyond the state accountability scores which come in the form of letter grades. (Full accountability scores haven’t been given in years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then a lawsuit by school districts over changes to the grading system.)
The so-called School Performance Framework will provide a more holistic picture of the quality of a school community, factoring accountability metrics along with community values in academics, culture, climate and student support effort.
Other districts, including the Alamo Heights Independent School District, have adopted similar metrics.
“The School Performance Framework is a statement of values that SAISD believes is necessary to create quality schools,” Aquino said in a statement. “This framework will drive district decision-making, empower schools, and equitably distribute resources to help us increase the number of our schools that are thriving.”
Some bright spots highlighted during the meeting included increases in students passing Algebra 1, Biology, English 2 and U.S. History.
