The final STAAR test scores have been released and they show across-the-board improvements in all subjects for all grades, which is good news for the academic recovery of young students who fell behind during the pandemic.
The results released Friday morning were for grades 3 through 8 and show the students made up all ground lost in reading. Math had a significant bump back in the right direction but still has a way to go toward a full recovery.
"It is largely a story of recovery. It is a story of hope. It is that have extraordinary people working in public schools in Texas, our principals and teachers have done everything they can to help our students," said Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath.
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NBC 5 education reporter Wayne Carter met with Morath ahead of the scores being released to discuss the outcome. They looked a bit further at grades 3 through 9 and found math had dropped to 35% of students meeting standard in 2021 but climbed back to 40% in 2022.
A 10% increase shows significant work to do, but it's significantly better than what many school leaders expected.
"What you see is the largest single-year jump in math proficiency at the meets grade level," said Morath.
TEXAS STAAR TEST
Looking at race, economically disadvantaged, and students who speak English as a second language, there were still gaps but all of those groups saw improvement.
The numbers are elementary and middle only. High school scores were released last week and those numbers barely improved.
"It's generally somewhat easier to see faster jumps with younger children than older children," said Morath. "We are expanding our work in high school to try to strengthen the amount of academic support provided."
Texas put a lot of energy into reading this year, it appears to have worked. When asked Morath said perhaps it's time to do something similar in math, but he doesn't want to push too much and instead wants to tackle one subject at a time.
Morath credits tutoring and summer learning for the gains, and pledges to continue the work moving the needle, especially in high school.
Scores are not just district-wide, the scores for individual children can be retrieved by parents on the TEA's website here.
