A big part of my confusion comes from the use of norm-referenced tests. For my middle school student, the NRTs used were the Terra Nova test in mathematics and the Stanford 10 reading test.

In addition, norm-referenced tests are designed so that a certain share of students always fail, because success is gauged by one’s position on the “bell curve” in relation to other students.

They are designed to be taken by everyone and aimed at measuring acceptable skill levels. In contrast, the SAT and ACT are “norm-referenced” tests, forcing students’ scores into a bell curve-shaped ...

“The goal was to move away from the STAAR test, and in the house’s version, it was to go to a norm-referenced test instead of a criterion-referenced test,” Rambo said.

opinion | Editorials Replace STAAR? Not so fast, Texas Legislature Texas schools and kids need a criterion-referenced test.

A deep dive into the test’s framework suggests it was designed to fail about the same share of students every year, even if they’d made actual progress from previous years.

Texas children's performance on an annual reading test was basically flat from 2012 to 2021, even as the state spent billions of additional dollars on K-12 education.