The Story Behind the Scores

Growth in 8th Grade American History

On this day a year ago, I was feeling pretty despondent. The 8th grade Social Studies STAAR test preliminary results had just been released, and I felt like I had done my students a disservice. While 75% of my students had reached Approaches (passed), only 37% had achieved Meets (on grade level), and even more demoralizing merely 16% accomplished Masters (above grade level). The state of Texas established this three tier system of grading for its yearly exam since the establishment of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test. Earlier in the spring of 2025, I had watched the Steplab Documentary, Great Teaching, Unpacked, and knew I wanted to employ certain aspects of the teaching within my own classroom. However, after receiving my results, it no longer felt like a choice, it was a necessity.

To give the reader a little background, the 8th Grade Social Studies test is one that Texas students historically have struggled to pass since its inception in 2013.

Texas Education Agency’s 2025 STAAR Social Studies Results

While my scores last year were better or equal to the state average, I knew I had to do a better job of planning, asking questions, creating lessons and activities that mirrored the learning goals for each unit and would mimic the type of thinking needed to digest a question and decipher the best answer. In other words, I needed to grow my students’ knowledge and make it more durable.

I didn’t know exactly how or where to start, so I created a document to help plan ways to check for understanding. I knew I needed to incorporate 2 key instructional protocols into my daily routine: turn & talk and mini-whiteboards. My planning is called Everybody Thinks¹ (I know I stole it from a teacher, but can’t for the life of me remember who), and I created this template for each of my units. I’m sharing my first Everybody Thinks unit Exploration & Colonization. Each day corresponds with the notes. In full transparency, this particular unit is full of basic, more check for listening than understanding. I did this on purpose. Because I was new to T & T and the whiteboards, I wanted to start in the shallow end before diving off into the deep. Also, I hadn’t built up a notebook of different retrieval practices in August as I now know. This planning alleviated much of my own cognitive bandwidth within each class. My first unit helped set the floor for my planning year and gave me a starting point to build. Nevertheless, it will look a little different after editing for next year.

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Now Get to the Good Stuff

Last Friday, I received my preliminary STAAR Results for the 25-26 school year:

Approaches (passing): 83% +8 from last year

Meets (on grade level): 55% +18 from last year

Masters (above grade level): 30% +14 from last year

At this point, I don’t know how my results compare to my region or to the state. However, I do have thoughts on these outcomes.

1. My students. I am SO proud of their effort. Not only on test day, but throughout the year, most of them gave me their best effort every minute of everyday in class. They were game for each and every new retrieval practice I inserted. They followed the parameters I set for each particular activity. Even if they didn’t excel on certain assignments, they hung tight and stuck with it. And if I made mistakes (there were plenty), they were very forgiving. Parents—job well done!

2. Technology. I’ve never used a lot of tech in my class, but I was energized to try to take it out almost entirely. Within a unit, there would be two days a computer was used: test review days and the test day itself. Even though there’s a district mandate for students to take and submit their test into a program called DMAC, I made my students always take their test on paper first and then put their answer into the computer. Each day students would bypass the computer cart, get their journals and folders, and start their DO NOW warm up. It was a breath of fresh air.

3. Cell phones. In the last legislative session, Texas made it a law that students cannot have their cell phones on during the school day. Overall, my students complied. I think I only took up a hand full of phones that went off all year. IT WAS AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE. My students were focused, ready to work, and not distracted by sights or sounds during a 52 minute class period.

4. Retrieval Practice. I’m a convert for life. At the beginning of the year, I only focused on daily retrieval practice, and didn’t do a good enough job making connections to previous learning. However, after opening up my wallet and spending money on books, Patrice Bain’s, Powerful Classrooms, changed everything. I started to truly focus on more spaced retrieval, interleaving, and metacognition. It was a game changer, one I wish I’d learned sooner than two weeks before Christmas break. That book has made me a better educator, and will impact so many children going forward.

5. Fellow Teachers. Everything I learned this year was from former or current educators. I cannot thank Patrice Bain, Amber Haven (I respected her so much even before I knew who her mother was!), Brett Benson, Elana Gordon, Laura Stam, Kate Jones, and Ms. Sam enough for their candor and accessibility. These mentors from all different grade levels and content areas were instrumental in my development as a teacher this year. Educational reporters and researchers are so important to our field, but the people day in and day out that spend time teaching our youth and willing to share their experience with others are vital to the health of our nation. THANK YOU.

While I’m so pleased with my current scores, I’m not satisfied. There’s more work to be done!

1. If I stole it from anyone, it was probably Brett Benson.