TX-KEA: Why do some TX-KEA assessments appear overly challenging for kindergartners & some areas do not align to the TEKS?

 Answer

The Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment is a standardized, criterion-referenced assessment and is sensitive to growth in students' skills over time.  It compares a student’s knowledge and skills against a predetermined cut score. The main goal is to drive instruction to build a strong foundation to prepare students for the next grade level.

The Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment encompasses a variety of skills. It includes measures with items that extend beyond the Kindergarten TEKS to gauge what students know. Validated sensitive items offer insights into students' diverse abilities, enabling informed instructional decisions that cater to the broad spectrum of developmental levels. This data supports differentiated instruction for both remediation and enrichment.

It’s important for all educators to keep in mind that assessment tools, such as TX-KEA do not explicitly test each of the Kindergarten TEKS. Valid and reliable assessment tools like TX-KEA are aligned to state and national standards, however, will not explicitly measure every single standard; instead, we measure the skills demonstrated in relation to the standard. The reason for this is that standards change, therefore assessment tool vendors and their researchers and statisticians work hard to create bell curve models to help us understand where students may typically land within the scope of skills that are measured in the tool, which align to the standards. This reduces the desire to “teach to the test”, and instead gain an accurate, reliable snapshot of where a student is in their academic development based on data gathered through research. 

In other words, Kindergarteners walk into classrooms with a variety of skills - some more advanced than others. As assessment tool designers, we have the responsibility to design tools that capture a wide range of skills so that teachers have the information to drive instruction for each child.

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