Computers will score most STAAR essays this year, raising concerns at local school districts

Computers will now score essays and other open-ended questions on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness , at least in part. The change concerns district leaders and teachers, who worry about the accuracy of the new format.

With seven times more constructed response questions than in past years, the agency anticipated that maintaining full human scoring would cost $15 million-$20 million. Constructed response questions allow students to write out answers in short or essay format, as opposed to the long-used standard of multiple choice questions.

“There’s no way for the engine to generalize or do other prompts,” she added. “So in many ways, you might be able to see the difference between those two concepts.”doubt on that characterization during a meeting this week.Kelly Kovacs, the chief academic officer, also questioned the characterization.

“If the score changes because of an error, then the fee would be waived,” she said. “I think the idea here is that they don’t want a district sending all of them back to be rescored by a human, which is why they have the fee.” “AI scoring could result in basic writing being scored at higher rates, as we have seen from the AI-scored ,” district spokesperson Laura Short said Wednesday. “We worry that nuanced, complex writing will not receive a valid score because the AI engines may be looking for specific words, phrases, and formulaic construction.”

Tony Perez, the high school English instructional specialist for Northside Independent School District, said he was concerned when he first heard of the updated system. However, he remains confident that teachers’ skilled instruction will prepare students for the tests.

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