STAAR Alternate 2 Performance Standards
Performance Level Categories
Student performance on STAAR Alternate 2 is separated into three performance categories—Accomplished Academic Performance, Satisfactory Academic Performance, and Developing Academic Performance. Students who achieve Developing Academic Performance on STAAR Alternate 2 have not passed the test.
For STAAR Alternate 2, performance definitions for the three performance categories are as follows:
Level III: Accomplished Academic Performance
Performance in this category indicates that students are well prepared for the next grade or course with instructional supports for accessing the curriculum through prerequisite skills. Students demonstrate a strong understanding of the knowledge and skills that are linked to the content measured for the grade or course assessed. Students exhibit the ability to use higher-level thinking and more complex skills, which includes making inferences and comparisons and solving multistep problems. With support, students in this category have a high likelihood of showing progress in the next grade or course.
Level II: Satisfactory Academic Performance
Performance in this category indicates that students are sufficiently prepared for the next grade or course with instructional supports for accessing the curriculum through prerequisite skills. Students demonstrate sufficient understanding of the knowledge and skills that are linked to the content measured for the grade or course assessed. Students exhibit the ability to determine relationships, integrate multiple pieces of information, extend details, identify concepts, and match concepts that are similar. With continued support, students in this category have a reasonable likelihood of showing progress in the next grade or course.
Level I: Developing Academic Performance
Performance in this category indicates that students require additional instructional supports for accessing the curriculum through prerequisite skills. Students can recognize some concepts, but they demonstrate a minimal or inconsistent understanding of the knowledge and skills that are linked to the content measured in this grade or course. Even with continued support, students in this category need significant intervention to show progress in the next grade or course.
Performance Standards
STAAR Alternate 2 performance standards relate levels of test performance to the expectations defined in the essence statements that serve as the connection between the grade-level TEKS and the STAAR Alternate 2 assessments. Performance standards identify the minimum scale scores for each performance category and are based on recommendations from standard-setting committees. Refer to the Assessment Reports and Studies webpage for information on the STAAR Alternate 2 standard-setting process.
Performance Level Descriptors
Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs) provide a snapshot of students’ academic characteristics based on performance on a given STAAR Alternate 2 assessment. PLDs are statements that describe the specific knowledge and skills students typically demonstrate at each performance level. They translate the general policy definitions of the STAAR Alternate 2 performance categories into grade- or course-specific descriptions of student achievement.
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