STAAR Alternate Standard Setting Information

  Student Assessment Home | Assessment A–Z Directory | Contact Student Assessment | Printing PDFs

TEA archived the files listed below because they are obsolete or are a later version of the file exists. To view current materials, please visit the Information on STAAR Alternate 2 Resources page.

TEA convenes standard-setting panels to recommend cut scores for all assessments in Texas. For the STAAR Alternate, standard setting meetings convened in September 2012. The standard-setting panels, comprised of educators from both the fields of general and special education, considered the increased rigor and need for high expectations to determine recommended cut scores for approval by the Commissioner of Education.

Based on the approved cut scores, a student assessed with STAAR Alternate will receive an academic performance standard of “Accomplished Academic Performance,” “Satisfactory Academic Performance,” or “Developing Academic Performance” based on the total number of points earned per subject. The academic performance standards are the cut scores on a test that assigns a student to one of these three levels based on the student’s performance on an assessed subject.  TEA considers a student to have passed a given STAAR Alternate assessment if he or she obtains “Satisfactory Academic Performance” or “Accomplished Academic Performance.”

STAAR Alternate Standard Setting

The links below provide information on the standard setting process:

• STAAR Alternate Standard Setting Questions and Answers (PDF posted 02/01/13)
• STAAR Alternate Standard Setting Process Overview (PDF posted 01/29/13)
• STAAR Alternate Standard Setting Technical Report (PDF posted 04/08/13)
• STAAR Alternate Performance Labels and Policy Definitions (PDF posted 10/19/12)
• Increased Rigor for STAAR Alternate (PDF posted 01/29/13)
• STAAR Alternate Raw Score Conversion Table  

STAAR Alternate Performance Level Descriptors

Use the links below to access Performance Level Descriptors: