Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills

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The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is a primary and secondary education standardized test used in Texas to assess student attainment of math, English, science, reading, and social studies skills required under Texas education standards. It is developed and graded by Pearson Education. Though created before the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, it complies with the law. It replaced the previous test, called the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills or TAAS, in 2003.

Those attending private schools or home schools are exempted from taking the TAKS test.

Test Development

The Texas Education Agency, Pearson, and Texas educators work diligently to make TAKS a meaningful assessment of the state curriculum objectives. First, teachers reviewed the Texas Essential Knowlege and Skills (state-mandated curriculum) to determine the objectives to assess on each grade level. Then educators determined how the objectives could be best assessed and developed guidelines outlining eligible test content and test-item formats. TEA created a test blueprint. Each year Pearson develops test items based on the objectives and guidelines, and the TEA reviews those items. Teacher committees are brought to Austin to review the proposed test items, and finally the items are field-tested on Texas students. Using the input of the teacher committee and the results of field-testing, TEA and Pearson build the TAKS. A more detailed explanation is available from the Student Assessment Division of TEA.

Test Structure

The tested subjects vary depending on grade level; however, math and reading are always part of the exam.

	Reading	Writing	Math	Science	Social Studies
Grade 3	✔		✔
Grade 4	✔	✔	✔
Grade 5	✔		✔	✔
Grade 6	✔		✔
Grade 7	✔	✔	✔
Grade 8	✔		✔	✔	✔
Grade 9	✔		✔
Grade 10	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Exit Level	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

Every portion of the exam includes multiple choice questions. The high school reading and ELA tests also require students to answer three open-ended (short answer) questions: one on the literary selection, one on the expository piece, and one "crossover" synthesizing the two. The writing and ELA tests include a written composition as well. The reading test permits the use of a dictionary and/or thesaurus, and the math and science tests allow the use of calculators along with formula charts. Currently, the TAKS test is not timed.TEA's TAKS Information Bookletscontain details and sample tests so teachers and students know what to expect.

Scoring

Science, social studies, math, and reading (before grade 9) consist solely of multiple-choice questions, which are scored by computer. On each test, a scaled score of 2100 meets the standard and 2400 is a commended performance. For details on the point to scale score conversion for a particular year, consult TEA's Performance Standards.

The essay and short answer portions found in grade 4, 7, 9, 10, and 11 are scored by graders in Dallas, Austin, and Albuquerque. The graders are not all teachers, but Pearson requires its graders to have a bachelor's degree and prefers experience in education. A scoring guide and sample responses are available with the released tests online.

The written composition is graded on a scale of 0-4. Students must earn a score of 2 or better on their written composition in order to meet the standard in writing or ELA.

0	1	2	3	4
off topic	ineffective	somewhat effective	effective	highly effective

The open-ended items (short answer) are graded on a scale of 0-3.

0	1	2	3
insufficient	partially sufficient	sufficient	exemplary

The ELA (10th-11th grade)raw score is calculated as shown in this chart.

	Item value	No. of items	Points per section	Total
Multiple Choice	1	48	48
Open Ended	3	3	9
Written Composition	16	1	16
				73

The 9th grade reading test raw score is calculated as shown in this chart.

	Item value	No. of items	Points per section	Total
Multiple Choice	1	33	33
Open Ended	3	3	9
				42

The raw score for the 7th grade writing test is calculated as shown.

	Item value	No. of items	Points per section	Total
Multiple Choice	1	40	40
Written Composition	4	1	4
				44

The raw score for the 4th grade writing test is calculated as shown.

	Item value	No. of items	Points per section	Total
Multiple Choice	1	28	28
Written Composition	4	1	4
				32

Then, the raw score is converted to a scaled score. As with the other tests, a scaled score of 2100 meets the standard and 2400 is a commended performance. In 2007, the 11th grade "met standard" level was a raw score of 42, 10th was 44, and 9th was 28. 7th "met standard" with 26 points and 4th with 20. However, the points needed to meet the standard may change slightly from year to year depending on the test's level of difficulty, so all students should do their best and not aim for a particular numeric score.

Graduation Requirements

Texas high school seniors cannot graduate unless they pass exit-level TAKS tests in English language arts, social studies, math, and science. During their junior and senior years of high school, students are given five chances to pass the test. At the end of the 2006-07 school year, a record-high 40,182 Texas seniors (16% of all high school seniors in the state) will not graduate at May ceremonies because they failed at least one TAKS exam. Some districts allow affected students to take part in graduation ceremonies, receiving a certificate of completion in place of a diploma; sometimes students must agree to attend special tutoring or other requirements in order to participate.

Controversies and Changes

State Board of Education candidate Mark Loewe (Ph. D. Physics, B. S. Physics, B. S. Chemistry) identified scoring mistakes made on questions of the Spring 2003 TAKS Mathematics and Science tests; two of the science questions were discussed in The New York Times.  Incorrect scores were issued to more than 400,000 students.  The Texas Education Agency issued false statements about several of the mistakes and failed to correct any of the mistakes.

Also controversial is the Mathematics section of the test. This section of the test covers Algebra I, Geometry, and minimal use of basic skills, such as graphs, charts, and grids. The controversy lies in the fact that many students who take higher levels of mathematics seem to fail this test, because it does not test their higher-level skills, instead testing skills that they are not prepared to study. However, many in the educational community praise the test not for testing higher-level skills but for its assessment of critical thinking based on lower-level skills. Arguably this normalizes the testing field, allowing all students of all mathematical backgrounds to be scored on their knowledge and skills.

The TAKS test's grading standards have come under fire, as some deem them to be too easy. In addition, hundreds of schools throughout Texas have been investigated and audited by the Texas Education Association due to suspicious scoring discrepancies.

Miscellaneous

Texas' State Board of Education has not released to the public those questions used to determine student scores on the Spring 2005 or Spring 2007 TAKS tests.  This prevents public review of the questions and answers (for appropriateness and correctness) and denies opportunities for students, teachers, and others to learn from the tests.

Recently, there has been some discussion of allowing those 10th graders who achieve "commended" status on the TAKS exam to be exempt from the test during their 11th grade year.

According to a Nov. 27, 2006 article in the Houston Chronicle, lawmakers are considering doing away with TAKS during the January 2007 legislative session (probably for 2009-2010, according to some news reports) and substituting state-wide End Of Course tests in the upper grades instead.