HB 3906 establishes a cap so that no more than 75 percent of any State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) test can be multiple choice. This takes effect for all STAAR tests by the 2022–2023 school year to align with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) 's legislative requirement to develop a plan to move to a full electronic administration by 2022–2023. Electronic assessments will potentially allow for a greater variety of test questions. The new cap on multiple-choice questions will require changes to the design of the state assessments. Educators began providing input during summer 2019 to help inform the new design.

TEA is developing new types of questions and will continue to seek feedback from educators through various focus groups before field testing the new question types.

Welcome back, teachers! We hope everyone at your school is healthy and learning. Thank you for your diligence in working with the students in Texas. You are very appreciated!

Recently, we added resources for each grade level/course titled Instructional Considerations to Activate Purposeful Planning (ICAPP): Addressing the Gaps from Unfinished Learning to Maximize Current Grade Level Learning. Hopefully, you have had the time to examine and implement these resources in planning and everyday instruction. They are designed to address potential gaps from unfinished learning to maximize current grade-level learning and enhance the planning process. Analyzing prior knowledge expectations allows teachers to target instruction that moves students forward in learning while addressing possible unfinished learning and/or clarifying misconceptions to improve and reinforce student learning. So, strategic spiraling before, during, and after instruction is critical. Remember, these resources are to be used in conjunction with the Instructional Focus Documents (IFD). Don't hesitate to contact your local ESC if you are not familiar with these resources.

Currently, we are analyzing the STAAR released items for Spring 2021. Our team is looking at content, rigor, standard alignment, etc. As soon as our analysis is complete, we will update the STAAR resources in TEKS Resource System to include these released items. Additionally, we use this analysis to determine if enhancements should be made to TEKS Resource System components, such as specificity, assessment banks (Unit Assessment Bank and Formative Item Assessment Bank), misconceptions, etc.

The summer of 2021 culminated in the completion of the rollout of several additional tools for social studies teachers. All secondary courses now have available additional formative assessment items around unit vocabulary. These items are written so that students use vocabulary in context and appropriately as opposed to just providing a memorized definition. Items are found in the formative assessment bank of the assessment center. An associated resource is available titled “Vocabulary Idea Completions Guide” and provides a deeper explanation of their use.

Social Studies TEKS Revisions

The Texas State Board of Education accelerated the review and revision of social studies TEKS by moving the work to this year. TEA has released an application to join revision committees. You can find an application to join the committees at https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/2021-2022-social-studies-teks-review.

New TEKS will come into force for the 2025-26 school year.