TAAS Test

The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills - TAAS Test is a norm and criterion-referenced achievement assessment for students exiting high school or in 3rd–8th grade. Legislative action in the fall of 1990 required that the existing Texas Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) be replaced with a criterion-referenced testing program. Moreover, legislation additionally required the development of end-of-course tests to be administered after the completion of specific high school courses. The Student Assessment Division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) was given the responsibility of creating the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills which was created and is maintained with the help of several subcontractors, including Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement.

Two forms of each battery exist, with a third Spanish form currently in development. Since the spring of 1994, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills reading and mathematics assessments have been administered to students exiting high school or in 3rd–8th grade. Writing assessment began at the same time for students exiting high school or in 4th and 8th grade. In the spring of 1995, science and social studies assessments were added for grade 8 only. End-of-course assessments were implemented in Biology I and Algebra I in the spring of 1994 (although 196 Implementation and Performance in New American Schools Algebra I was subsequently revised and reintroduced in the spring of 1995). End-of-course exams are currently in development for American History and English II.

The content development began with the Texas Essential Elements, defined by the State Board of Education. Test objectives were formulated by TEA staff members with the aid of advisory committees. These objectives were broad subject-specific educational themes that transcended the primary and secondary educational systems. These subject-specific objectives were then broken down into grade specific instructional targets. In addition to mandating that the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills be criterion-referenced, legislation also required that the TAAS Test be norm-referenced. The TEA contracted Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement to conduct the norming process. The norming was conducted by administering the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Seventh Edition (MAT/7) to a stratified random sample of Texas classrooms in the spring of 1996 and equating the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills to the MAT/7. The stratified sample targeted about 12,500 students per grade with a response rate of about 57 percent across all subject area components.