Texas bill to overhaul STAAR test clears the House but faces a skeptical Senate

By Sneha Dey | The Texas Tribune

The Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would eliminate the STAAR test. (Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune)

The Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would eliminate STAAR, the high-stakes standardized test that the state and school districts use to monitor student learning and teacher performance.

The STAAR test “leads to anxiety in our classroom with our teachers, and it leads to absolutely no information that a parent can understand,” said Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado. “Assessment should be instructionally relevant and actionable.”

House Bill 4 got a near unanimous vote in the House on Monday, but faces a tough road in the Senate. The upper chamber has its own idea for what an overhaul of the state standardized test and the accountability system should look like. The gulf between the proposals is wide — one lawmakers will need to close in the final weeks of this year’s legislative session.

Both the House and Senate versions of the legislation would swap the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, with a shorter test to free up time for more instruction. Students would be tested at the beginning, middle and end of the school year so teachers could use test results to identify areas for improvement and shape their lesson plans. The proposals would also change the state accountability system that grades districts on an A-F scale.

The two chambers had nearly identical versions of legislation at the start of session. The Senate passed its proposal last month. The House, meanwhile, completely rewrote its proposal after public testimony and closed-door meetings where school leaders hammered on their lack of trust in the state’s accountability and testing systems.

“It is time to rebuild trust in our system, and HB 4 does just that. It is time for assessments to inform instruction in a real time manner,” Buckley said. “We need to make testing just another day at school.”

The House proposal, but not the Senate’s, would change how students are graded. Instead of using a rigid scale to track students’ academic performance, their outcomes would be compared to their peers around the country. Supporters of the House proposal say that approach would be a better measuring stick. Critics say the change would obscure whether Texas students have met expectations for grade-level skills.

The STAAR test has long been criticized for being too rigorous to accurately reflect grade-level standards. Many educators also say preparing students for the test takes up too much classroom time without improving instruction.

“How Texas handles school accountability currently does not work. Our kids are over-tested and our teachers are overworked,” Nikki Cowart, the president of the Cy-Fair school district’s chapter of American Federation of Teachers, testified in front of lawmakers last month. “Our school districts have been punished for failing to meet unreliable and arbitrary standards with misused and unreliable testing data.”

The two chambers have proposed different timelines for implementing the legislation. The House wants students to take the new test as early as this fall, while the Senate gives the Texas Education Agency till 2028 to build out a new assessment. The House also shifts some oversight of the statewide assessment to the State Board of Education, while the Senate keeps that oversight under the TEA.

Students’ STAAR performance is a key metric in the state’s ratings of school districts and school campuses, which are graded on an A-F scale each year. Poor ratings can lead to state sanctions, which in the most severe cases can mean a state takeover.

HB 4 would also limit when the TEA can make changes to the way districts’ A-F ratings are calculated. It comes after school performance ratings were held up in court for two consecutive years. Districts had sued the state because they said the TEA was too hasty in introducing changes that affected their rating, giving an inaccurate picture of their performance.

The House bill would require the TEA commissioner to get approval from the Legislature for all major changes to the ratings system. It would also set a deadline for the agency to finalize standards for A-F ratings so school leaders have enough time to prepare for any changes.

Districts could still sue to challenge changes to the accountability system — but the bill sets up a fast-track court process for those lawsuits to be settled so disputes do not affect the release of the ratings.

Meanwhile, the Senate bill would make it difficult for districts to use the courts. Senate Bill 1962 would impose restrictions on how school districts pay their attorneys’ fees for suits related to their performance ratings. Those that sue would open the door to increased TEA oversight.

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“Texas bill to overhaul STAAR test clears the House but faces a skeptical Senate” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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