I’m so glad my kids have graduated.
The Texas House on Tuesday greenlit plans to scrap the STAAR test, clearing a path to replace the state exams with three smaller ones given throughout the year.
The plan passed, 78-58, over opposition from most Democrats, some of whom warned that, while they also dislike STAAR, the plan to replace it came with too many last-minute changes. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said the bill would actually increase state-mandated testing time and put too much power in the hands of the Texas Education Agency.
“There is no trust in the TEA and certainly not in the TEA-created STAAR, and rather than eliminating STAAR, we’re going to have the government create these new state-mandated tests,” said Hinojosa.
The House bill aligns closely with a previous Senate-approved plan and will now face a vote in the upper chamber. Gov. Greg Abbott named replacing STAAR one of his top priorities for the special session.
House Republicans, led by state Rep. Brad Buckley of Salado, said the plan will decrease high-stakes testing and reduce overall testing time. The new tests will be split into three exams, with the first two given in October and January as diagnostic tests that can help teachers and parents adjust their lesson plans over time.
School districts will also be restricted from giving their own benchmark tests, such as the widely-used iReady or MAP tests, to measure student growth. That function will be replaced with the new state-mandated beginning- and middle-of-year tests. Some districts, Buckley noted, currently give students more than a dozen benchmark tests throughout the year.
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Talks to scrap the tests failed earlier this year over divisions on who should administer the replacement, the TEA or a third party. The House on Tuesday defeated an amendment by Hinojosa that would have removed the TEA’s role in writing the tests.
I guess if it really does reduce the number of benchmark tests then that’s an improvement. Not really what a lot of parents wanted, though. And I agree with the concern about how much power this gives the TEA, as articulated in this Trib story.
During the regular session, the House pushed for changing how test results were reported. They wanted results to be presented as percentile ranks, which show how a student’s performance compares to their peers. They also wanted schools to be able to meet state testing requirements with national assessments that many students already take, with the hopes of limiting the amount of time testing takes up in the classroom.
HB 8 would only apply those changes to two out of the three new tests. And to many Democrats’ dismay, the end-of-the-year test would keep features of the current STAAR test.
Under the legislation, the TEA would not only still create the end-of-the-year test, but also continue to report whether students approached, met or mastered grade-level skills, comparing student performance to benchmarks the state sets. That’s in contrast to the percentile ranks that Democrats preferred to measure academic performance.
“We’re going to have TEA both create the test that determines whether or not the school and district are taken over by them. That’s a conflict. They should not be in charge of creating the test,” Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said.
Buckley pushed back against the idea that TEA would have too much power in creating the test, pointing to a committee of classroom teachers that the bill would create to evaluate the fairness of the test questions.
Some Democrats worked with Buckley to add an amendment that allowed students with severe disabilities to be exempt from the first two tests. Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, on Thursday also managed to tack on his own amendment to provide districts with financial relief when they ask for tests to be rescored, a rising concern as the state has leaned more on AI to grade tests.
The Texas Education Agency introduced AI-like technology for grading in 2023 to save dollars. But the inaccuracy with AI grading was central to a recent lawsuit between school districts and the TEA. After the Dallas school district had Texas regrade a chunk of their STAAR tests, five campuses saw their accountability ratings improve.
See here for more on the AI grading issue. It’s not so much that this is a ridiculous idea as that it was rushed, there wasn’t any beta period where you could opt in for AI grading, the appeal process involved a fee that would be refunded if your grade went up after, which might have prevented some kids from asking for a re-do, and so on. It’s relatively low on the list of things to be worried about, but it’s typical of the casual approach that is too often taken. Again I say, I’m so glad my kids have completed their time with HISD.