Tex. Education Code § 39.02301 — TX Code / Code ed / Chapter 39 / Section 39.02301
§ 39.02301. ADOPTION OR DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTRATION REQUIREMENTS FOR ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS.
Status: in_force

(a) An assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023 must:

(1) measure student performance in relation to the essential knowledge and skills adopted by the State Board of Education under Section 28.002 for the subject area and grade level being assessed;

(2) include items that have been evaluated for readability using research-based readability metrics approved by the agency in consultation with the advisory committees established under Section 39.02302;

(3) meet industry standards of validity and reliability;

(4) comply with applicable requirements under federal law, including peer review requirements; and

(5) be designed to report student academic growth, including by:

(A) reporting a student's norm-referenced growth based on a comparison of the student's performance on the assessment instrument to the student's performance on a previously administered assessment instrument, as applicable, to measure through-year growth;

(B) for an end-of-year or end-of-course assessment instrument, reporting year-over-year growth in student achievement; and

(C) for a beginning-of-year or middle-of-year assessment instrument, being adaptive to each student to measure and report individual student growth.

(b) Before an assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023(a) may be administered under that subsection, the assessment instrument must, on the basis of empirical evidence, be determined to be valid and reliable by the advisory committees established under Section 39.02302 or an entity that is, as determined by the commissioner, independent of the agency and of any other entity that developed the assessment instrument.

(c) Before an item may be included on an assessment instrument administered under Section 39.023 that was developed by the agency, the item must be reviewed and approved by a committee composed of teachers in this state. The agency shall form each committee by inviting a total of approximately 40 teachers representing each region of this state who teach the grade level and subject area assessed by the items under review to participate in the committee. In selecting teachers to invite, the agency shall accept and prioritize nominations of qualifying teachers by regional education service centers. For each proposed item, at least three-quarters of participating committee members must agree that:

(1) the item is aligned with the essential knowledge and skills adopted by the State Board of Education under Section 28.002 for the applicable grade level and subject area;

(2) the item is appropriate for the grade level and subject area being assessed and is written at an appropriate reading level for the grade level being assessed;

(3) the item is free from bias and factual error; and

(4) students in the member's classroom would have an opportunity to learn the content included in the item before the administration of the applicable end-of-year or end-of-course assessment instrument.

(d) The writing portion of a reading language arts assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023 must be designed to assess writing using open-ended questions that are:

(1) grade-level appropriate;

(2) administered separately; and

(3) scored using a process that:

(A) involves classroom teachers in setting grading standards; and

(B) allows for a school district or open-enrollment charter school to submit student responses for rescoring.

(d-1) The agency shall automatically rescore, at no cost to a school district or open-enrollment charter school, the writing portion of a reading language arts assessment instrument administered to a student under Section 39.023 if the agency determines the student would attain the next highest overall performance level on the assessment instrument if the student's score on the writing portion improved by one point.

(d-2) For a student response submitted for rescoring under Subsection (d)(3)(B), the agency shall pay the costs associated with rescoring if the rescoring results in an increase in the student's score.

(e) For an end-of-year or end-of-course assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023, the agency shall adopt or develop criterion-referenced assessment instruments designed to assess and report student performance for, at minimum, each performance standard under Section 39.0241.

(f) In setting performance levels for a criterion-referenced assessment instrument adopted or developed under Subsection (e), the commissioner shall implement procedures to maintain the validity and reliability of the assessment instrument, including procedures for field testing items approved by the teacher committees described by Subsection (c). Except as necessary to comply with college readiness recommendations made by the commissioner of higher education under Section 39.0241(a-1), the commissioner shall ensure the performance levels are set at levels consistent with performance levels set for previous school years, including by implementing procedures that equate the performance levels or by conducting standards-setting processes.

(g) On or before September 1 of each year, the commissioner shall make the following information available on the agency's Internet website for each criterion-referenced assessment instrument administered under Section 39.023(a), (c), or (l):

(1) the number of questions on the assessment instrument;

(2) the number of questions that must be answered correctly to achieve satisfactory performance as determined by the commissioner under Section 39.0241(a);

(3) the number of questions that must be answered correctly to achieve satisfactory performance under the college readiness performance standard as provided by Section 39.0241; and

(4) the corresponding scale scores.

(h) An assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023 must be designed to support accommodations for students in a special education program under Subchapter A, Chapter 29. If a student is in a special education program under Subchapter A, Chapter 29, the student's admission, review, and dismissal committee shall determine whether any allowable accommodation is necessary in administering to the student an assessment instrument required under Section 39.023.

(i) The agency shall adopt a schedule for the administration of assessment instruments under Section 39.023 for each school year and provide the schedule to each school district and open-enrollment charter school two years before the school year to which the schedule applies. The schedule must provide for the administration of an assessment instrument within an assessment administration schedule window that includes at least the following applicable range:

(1) for a beginning-of-year assessment instrument, between the fourth Monday in August and September 30;

(2) for a middle-of-year assessment instrument, between January 2 and February 21; and

(3) for an end-of-year assessment instrument, between May 1 and May 30, except that the writing portion of an end-of-year reading language arts assessment instrument must be administered between April 1 and April 15.

(j) An assessment instrument administered under Section 39.023 may be administered in multiple parts over more than one day. The agency shall adopt procedures to reduce total administration time.

(k) An assessment instrument adopted or developed under Section 39.023 must be designed to minimize the impact on student instructional time so that:

(1) for each beginning-of-year or middle-of-year assessment instrument separately administered to students in grades three and four, 85 percent of students who do not require accommodations are expected to complete the assessment instrument within 60 minutes;

(2) for each beginning-of-year or middle-of-year assessment instrument separately administered to students in grades five through eight, 85 percent of students who do not require accommodations are expected to complete the assessment instrument within 75 minutes;

(3) for each end-of-year assessment instrument separately administered to students in grades three and four, 85 percent of students who do not require accommodations are expected to complete the assessment instrument within 90 minutes; and

(4) for each end-of-year assessment instrument separately administered to students in grades five through eight, 85 percent of students who do not require accommodations are expected to complete the assessment instrument within 105 minutes.

(l) Subject to Subsection (d-1), the agency shall notify school districts and campuses of the results of assessment instruments administered under Section 39.023 not later than two business days after the date the applicable administration schedule window under Subsection (i) closes. The results should include a diagnostic report for each student and recommendations for use by teachers and parents for practical and useful instructional strategies to better meet the individual needs of the student based on the student's performance on the assessment instrument.

(l-1) For assessment instruments administered under Section 39.023 that do not require adjudication or post-equating, the agency shall notify school districts and campuses of an enrolled student's raw scores on the assessment instrument not later than two business days after the date on which the student completes the assessment instrument.

(m) At least every third year, the agency shall release the questions and answer keys to each end-of-year and end-of-course assessment instrument administered under Section 39.023, excluding any assessment instrument administered to a student for the purpose of retaking the assessment instrument or a question on an assessment instrument that will be reused for other assessment instruments, after the last time the instrument is administered for that school year. To ensure a valid bank of questions for use each year, the agency is not required to release a question that is being field-tested and was not used to compute the student's score on the instrument. The agency may defer releasing questions and answer keys as required by this subsection to the extent necessary to develop additional assessment instruments.