You think STAAR testing is bad? Just wait. The legislative majority is about to enact a bill to make it worse
All the students, parents, teachers and school administrators who hate the STAAR test – and that would be most of you – are about to get an unwanted surprise from the Legislature, a replacement test that promises to be even worse.
Yes, the Republican majority that controls our state’s lawmaking body goes through the motions of listening to a ton of complaints about the unhealthy student stress from high stakes testing, the costly waste of classroom time teaching to the test and the discriminatory impact on disadvantaged kids and English language learners and then ignores all those concerns.
The result is House Bill 8, which is expected to receive final legislative approval before this second special session ends. It provides for a new school testing/accountability system that will increase – not decrease — the number of standardized tests students will have to take each year. One test will be added at the beginning of the school year and another during the middle of the year in addition to testing at the end of the year.
The new accountability system will be largely designed and created under the control of an unelected, test-happy education commissioner. Teachers, whose future careers can depend on their students’ test scores, will have little input into designing the new system. Only one classroom teacher will be included on a new accountability advisory committee.
The new testing will debut in the 2027-28 school year. Republicans in the Texas House and Senate have voted for it, and most Democrats voted against it.
Here are some other problems with the new testing/accountability system:
- A-F accountability ratings of K-8 schools will continue to be based solely on high stakes tests. The measure fails to provide other quality indicators – such as enrichment programs, career and technical education or the provision of full-day pre-kindergarten programs – as alternatives to testing. Federal law allows these alternatives.
- The new law could result in the addition of another quality indicator based on test scores to be considered as a factor in a school’s or district’s accountability rating. It would be student progress during a school year measured between the first and third testing periods.
- The law will permit the education commissioner to change the standards for accountability indicators every year, creating a constantly moving target for school districts.
- It will limit an independent school district’s ability to challenge a state accountability rating it considers inaccurate or unfair, but charter schools would not be subject to that restriction.
- The measure will allow the education commissioner to order a school district to enter an 1882 partnership with a charter school to seek educational improvements for a struggling campus as an alternative to sanctions. Such charter partnerships already are an option, but it is unacceptable for the state to order a district into a charter partnership, robbing district voters of local control. Besides, many of those charter partnerships have failed, despite costing taxpayers and school districts hundreds of millions of dollars.
Under the STAAR testing system, some school districts already administer progress monitoring exams earlier in the school year, but they are not required to. HB 8 will make the tests at the beginning and middle of the school year mandatory. The state will pay for these extra tests but only if they are developed by the education commissioner, who may choose to align them with the Bible-infused Bluebonnet curriculum that districts are already receiving financial incentives to adopt.
I am sure they will find another name for it, but we may as well call the new testing regime STAAR II or Mega-Migraine.
