(The Center Square) – Student excitement about the legislature abolishing the annual statewide standardized test may be short lived. Instead of one test, students will soon have to take three.
HB 8, filed by state Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, which eliminates the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) Test, has passed both chambers of the legislature after Gov. Greg Abbott added it to the special session agenda.
The bill replaces the STAAR test with three new tests: one each held at the beginning, middle and end of the school year. Once signed into law, it goes into effect in the 2027–2028 school year.
HB 8 replaces the STAAR Test with “an instructionally supportive statewide assessment program,” revises public school performance ratings based on a new test structure under the public school accountability system, creates a grant program for public school district local accountability plans, and requires actions challenging Texas Education Agency decisions related to public school accountability to be settled in a timely manner, according to the bill analysis.
It requires applicable tests to assess state curriculum standards in mathematics, social studies and science and requires that all students be assessed “annually in mathematics in grades three through eight; in social studies in grade eight; in science in grades five and eight; and in any other subject and grade required by federal law.”
It also revises the requirement for “end-of-course tests for secondary-level courses in Algebra I, biology, English I, English II, and U.S. history,” among many other provisions. It transfers many authorities from the State Board of Education to the TEA. The SBOE is comprised of elected members. The TEA is comprised of unelected bureaucrats whose leaders receive several hundred-thousand-dollar, taxpayer-funded salaries.
House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the bill. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, has argued by increasing the number of state-mandated tests the bill adds testing hours. State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, has raised concerns that artificial intelligence will be used to grade the tests.
The Texas Education Agency says that it uses a hybrid scoring model to grade the STAAR Test. This includes using an automated scoring engine with “at least 25 percent of student responses” routed to human scorers. The new tests would use the same model.
Education Policy Advisor with Voices Empower Alice Linahan, a Republican, argues the bill gives “bureaucrats constant access through DEI-driven, vendor-controlled tests,” raising other concerns. She points to testimony given by Nicholas Munyan-Penny with The Education Trust about how the new testing system “maintains equity backstop standards” and “criterion-based assessments,” which are “an essential civil rights tool… to track and progress against closing achievement gaps.”
State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, voted against SB 8 despite his support for eliminating the STAAR Test. Instead of replacing the STAAR Test with three tests, he said, “it must be replaced with something that is better than STAAR, not with something that may be worse and that increases burdens on taxpayers, teachers and students.
“Instead of saving money by eliminating the current test, HB 8 saddles taxpayers with nearly $60M in new government spending, transfers an inordinate amount of authority from elected officials at the State Board of Education to unelected bureaucrats at the Texas Education Agency, and increases the frequency of state mandated testing. I voted NO.”
HB 8 passed in the House along party lines by a vote of 82 to 56.
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The Senate passed the bill with an amendment; the final vote was 21 to 5. The bill was sent to the House to approve the amendment. If it concurs, bill differences will be reconciled, and it will head to the governor to be signed into law.
After the bill passed the Senate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said, “For far too long, Texas students and teachers have been burdened by the STAAR test, a cumbersome one-size-fits-all assessment that fails to actually measure student educational achievement.” Replacing it “with a system to assess student growth and improve educational outcomes … is a victory for Texas parents, educators, and most importantly, students.”