Texas Braces for Another STAAR Testing Season Hoping to Avoid Last Year's Mess

No way to sugarcoat last year’s STAAR testing: it was chaos.Computer glitches erased student answers. Delivery problems meant secure testing materials were sent to the wrong locations -- including a church. Thousands of tests had to be rescored. A lawsuit was filed. And results came back so late that the education commissioner ended up throwing out the tests for fifth and eighth graders.Now many are worried about how it will go next week when students begin taking the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, tests. The standardized tests have high stakes riding on them such as determining whether some students get promoted or graduate, measuring how well schools are educating kids and even impacting property values in a neighborhood.  Continue reading...