AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The rollout of more rigorous standards in Texas schools has been postponed.
The Dallas Morning News reports (http://bit.ly/1oxZ52y ) that Texas education officials have pushed back the 2016 deadline to meet standards of “postsecondary readiness.”
Now, the deadline is 2021, meaning today’s first-graders won’t be subject to State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, standards until reaching the eighth grade.
Texas Senate education committee members questioned the Texas Education Agency’s lack of progress.
Commissioner Michael Williams said they are “charging districts and their staff” to meet the bar of the revised STAAR exams.
If 2014 students needed to meet the top standards, more than half would have failed every test.