AUSTIN — Passing rates for elementary and middle school students on most state achievement tests exceeded 70 percent last year, while the number of high school students passing the new end-of-course exams inched up last fall, the Texas Education Agency reported Tuesday.
An analysis from the agency showed that students in grades 3 through 8 who took the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness for the first time in 2012 performed better than expected. But they benefited from low passing standards in the initial year of the STAAR.
Preliminary results on the exam were released in June after testing in the spring of 2012, but no passing standards were applied until Tuesday. State Education Commissioner Michael Williams announced the passing rates to nearly 2,500 school administrators at a conference in Austin.
“I recognize there has been a lot of anxiety surrounding STAAR tests, but these are encouraging passing rates for the first year of a new, more rigorous test,” the commissioner said. He predicted that passing rates would rise in the test’s second year.
Passing rates ranged from a high of 80 percent in eighth-grade reading to a low of 59 percent in eighth-grade social studies. The only other subjects in which passing rates dipped below 70 percent were third- and fourth-grade math at 68 percent.
All students in grades 3 to 8 were tested in reading and math, with science and writing tests given in two grades each and social studies in eighth grade.
Meanwhile, the STAAR end-of-course exams were administered for the third time in December and the cumulative passing rates on those exams continued to move up. Only ninth-graders took the end-of-course tests last spring, and there have been two retesting dates since then, in the summer and December.
Students must get an average passing rate in each subject area to graduate from high school, and students who fail can retake the tests as many times as they want before graduation.
Last spring, just 54.4 percent of ninth-graders passed the English I writing test. After two retest dates, the passing percentage is now up to 72.6 percent. That is the lowest on the five end-of-course exams for which results were reported Tuesday.
Other cumulative passing rates are: algebra I (84.7 percent), English I reading (81.2 percent), biology (91 percent), and world geography (84.8 percent).
As on the exams for younger students, the end-of-course tests have fairly low passing standards that require students to correctly answer fewer than half of the questions. For example, students had to correctly answer only 37 percent of the questions on the Algebra I and biology tests to pass.
High school students must get a passing average on 15 end-of-course tests to graduate. There are three exams each in math, science, social studies, reading and writing, although the Legislature will consider reducing that number.
Follow Terrence Stutz on Twitter at @t_stutz.