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For fifth grade, 79 percent passed math and 76 percent passed reading. For eighth grade, 79 percent passed math and 82 percent passed reading. </p> <p>But fifth and eighth grades are notable for the stakes of STAAR: Students who don’t pass <em>both </em>tests are not eligible for automatic promotion to the next grade. So I asked TEA for how many students failed at least one of the tests. That glass is a bit emptier.</p> <p>For fifth graders, 31 percent failed at least one of the tests. (13 percent failed both, 7 percent failed math only and 10 percent failed reading only. Rounding the actual data gives the 31 percent.) About three percent of the kids didn’t take one of the tests at all — pretty much a normal absentee rate for a school day. So the bottom line is that 66 percent of students passed both tests. </p> <p>For eighth graders, the facts are a bit more complex: 25 percent failed both tests. (8 percent failed both, 7 percent only failed math, 8 percent only failed reading. Again, rounding the data reaches 25 percent.) </p> <p>But here’s an oddity: Only 50 percent of eighth graders have passed both tests. Call out the fire department?!?! Not so fast.</p> <p>Turns out that about 20 percent of eighth graders are taking Algebra I. And while federal law mandates a math test for all eighth graders, state law mandates an end of course exam for all Algebra I students. Education commissioner Michael Williams suggested that districts not double-test the kids and only give the state test.</p> <p>TEA doesn’t know how many districts followed that advice, but this data indicates it may have been a lot. Those kids are high achievers, exceedingly likely to have passed the regular eighth grade STAAR. So taking them out probably didn’t much affect the failure rate. </p> <p>But there’s another oddity: About 7 percent of eighth graders who took the math test didn’t take the reading test. That’s higher than one might expect. Why? Dunno. [<strong>UPDATE</strong>: TEA’s best guess is this has something to do with the percentage of students who speak <em>mostly </em>Spanish. In eighth grade, they have a math test but not a reading test.]</p> <p>In any case, TEA officials say these numbers are pretty much in line with the past couple of years. The percentage of kids at risk for not being promoted due to STAAR has stayed, like the passing rates themselves, pretty flat. </p> <p>Caveats: This is the first administration of the test. Re-tests will happen next month, so some of the students who failed the first round will surely pass the second. Even for those who fail the tests, there’s an appeals process at the campus level. And in recent years, the vast majority of students who failed the tests got promoted. </p> <p>So all of these glasses are likely to end up more full than this early data indicates. </p> </div><div class="OUTBRAIN ArticleOutbrainThumb" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500oe_/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/" data-widget-id="AR_6" data-ob-template="dallasnews"></div> <div class="OUTBRAIN ArticleOutbrainList" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500oe_/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/" data-widget-id="AR_7" data-ob-template="dallasnews"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500js_/http://widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js"></script><h3 class="tf1f3 r5 sbd groupHeadline simple-separator-top">Editor Picks</h3><div style="clear:both;"></div><script type="text/javascript" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500js_/http://www.dallasnews.com/?widgetName=topPicks&contentId=1079301&js"></script>  </article> <script type="text/javascript">jqLoad.push(function(){contextlyInit();});</script>  <div id="comments"> <h2 id="comments-title"> 5 thoughts on “<span>Almost a third of Texas fifth graders and a quarter of eighth graders off track for promotion</span>” </h2> <ol class="commentlist"> <li class="comment even thread-even depth-1" id="li-comment-13456"> <article id="comment-13456" class="comment"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/?d=http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/images/DMNlogoBLK.png&s=68" class="avatar avatar-68 photo avatar-default" height="68" width="68"/><span class="fn">Anonymous</span> on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/#comment-13456"><time pubdate datetime="2014-04-30T18:51:38+00:00">April 30, 2014 at 6:51 pm</time></a> <span class="says">said:</span> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"><p>We’ve heard this so many times before. Many pass the tests on first administration. Hands are wrung over the substantial minority that failed one or more on the first go around and are "at risk" of not promoting. Some of those do pass on subsequent tries and some never do. Virtually all are promoted. So much for "risk". It will be newsworthy if we ever hear later of any at all that are actually retained. It will never happen. </p> </div> <div class="reply"> </div> </article> </li> <li class="comment odd alt thread-odd thread-alt depth-1" id="li-comment-13457"> <article id="comment-13457" class="comment"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/?d=http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/images/DMNlogoBLK.png&s=68" class="avatar avatar-68 photo avatar-default" height="68" width="68"/><span class="fn">Anonymous</span> on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/#comment-13457"><time pubdate datetime="2014-04-30T19:32:34+00:00">April 30, 2014 at 7:32 pm</time></a> <span class="says">said:</span> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"><p>What Gary said. All this "sky is falling" stuff is BS. They will never, ever pass only 66%. The whiners who run the schools are just looking to suck more tax dollars out of the rest of us.</p> </div> <div class="reply"> </div> </article> </li> <li class="comment even thread-even depth-1" id="li-comment-13458"> <article id="comment-13458" class="comment"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/?d=http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/images/DMNlogoBLK.png&s=68" class="avatar avatar-68 photo avatar-default" height="68" width="68"/><span class="fn">Anonymous</span> on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/#comment-13458"><time pubdate datetime="2014-04-30T19:53:10+00:00">April 30, 2014 at 7:53 pm</time></a> <span class="says">said:</span> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"><p>@Jeffrey: Can you ask your source in the TEA how we can make accurate judgements about our students and these tests, if the tests continue to grow more difficult with each passing year?</p> </div> <div class="reply"> </div> </article> </li> <li class="comment odd alt thread-odd thread-alt depth-1" id="li-comment-13459"> <article id="comment-13459" class="comment"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/?d=http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/images/DMNlogoBLK.png&s=68" class="avatar avatar-68 photo avatar-default" height="68" width="68"/><span class="fn">Anonymous</span> on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/#comment-13459"><time pubdate datetime="2014-04-30T20:26:22+00:00">April 30, 2014 at 8:26 pm</time></a> <span class="says">said:</span> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"><p>disd would promote a parrot.</p> </div> <div class="reply"> </div> </article> </li> <li class="comment even thread-even depth-1" id="li-comment-13489"> <article id="comment-13489" class="comment"> <footer class="comment-meta"> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/?d=http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/images/DMNlogoBLK.png&s=68" class="avatar avatar-68 photo avatar-default" height="68" width="68"/><span class="fn">Anonymous</span> on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500/http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/almost-a-third-of-texas-fifth-graders-and-a-quarter-of-eighth-graders-off-track-for-promotion.html/#comment-13489"><time pubdate datetime="2014-05-03T22:03:15+00:00">May 3, 2014 at 10:03 pm</time></a> <span class="says">said:</span> </div> </footer> <div class="comment-content"><p>Talk to the students who don’t graduate, but have passed all their classes for graduation. These assessment are a joke. </p> </div> <div class="reply"> </div> </article> </li> </ol> </div>  </div> </div> <div id="right" class="right-column narrow-column blog-column col-sm-4" role="complementary"> <aside id="text-18" class="widget widget_text"><span class="hide">Ad:TopLeftBlog</span> <div class="textwidget"><div class="positiondfpTopLeftBlog adPosition" id="dfpTopLeftBlog"> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182500js_/http://res.dallasnews.com/resources/cobrand/js/blogs/position-topleftblog.js"></script> </div></div> </aside><aside id="text-19" class="widget widget_text"><span class="hide">Archive title</span> <div class="textwidget"><div class="tf1f3 r5 sbd groupHeadline simple-separator-top">Archives</div></div> </aside><aside id="archives-2" class="widget widget_archive"><span class="hide">Archives</span> <select name="archive-dropdown" onchange="document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;"> <option value="">Select 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