Texas’ standardized test, STAAR, has no shortage of opponents. Teachers say prep for it eats up learning time, parents say it stresses kids out, and public school advocates worry about how the state uses test scores to force school closures – often on campuses where students still learning English struggle with the exams.
These complaints were the basis for lawmakers attempting to scrap the test during the regular session. That legislation didn’t make it across the finish line, but a STAAR elimination bill is back on the table during the special session that started Monday.
Lawmakers will consider House Bill 92, which would get rid of STAAR exams and set guidelines for what a new testing system would look like, starting this upcoming 2025-2026 school year.
Gov. Greg Abbott added the STAAR question to the agenda on July 9, writing that the legislation proposes “effective tools” to assess students and schools. HB 92 is the only education bill to be considered this special session, while the regular session saw wide outrage over the voucher program, which will have tax dollars pay for private education.
“We were so close to scrapping STAAR earlier this year.” – State Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa
HB 4’s failure to pass before the end of the regular session in early June was yet another of multiple failed attempts over the years to scrap the STAAR. The tests have been widely criticized by Texas educators who argue the system places undue pressure on students, consumes too much class time, and simplistically evaluates students’ learning through a single metric.
HB 92, the latest attempt, is authored by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, who touched on all three complaints in a Facebook post. “We were so close to scrapping STAAR earlier this year,” Landgraf wrote. “So HB 92 gives Texas another chance to get this right.”
STAAR results are the only metric by which elementary and middle schools are evaluated annually, graded from A to F. Schools that receive five F’s in a row are taken over by state management or closed. This put Austin ISD’s Dobie, Webb, and Burnet middle schools at risk of being dissolved when they received their fourth F in a row this school year. The STAAR is only offered in English after fifth grade, disproportionately risking the closures of schools with a high percentage of English-learning students.
The three Austin middle schools on the chopping block will now undergo an overhaul of staff and curricula in an effort to raise their STAAR results, with only 16% of teachers returning to Dobie this year. Depending on how test scores improve this year, trustees will vote in December on whether or not charter school management needs to be brought in for the three campuses.
HB 92 does not immediately replace the STAAR with another test, like STAAR replaced the TAKS exam in 2012. Rather, it says that “criterion-referenced” testing methods will be developed to assess reading and math skills annually from grades 3-8, and science in grades 5 and 8 (identical to the STAAR schedule). The requirement for a social studies test in grade 8 was notably crossed out in the most recent revision of the bill, which would differ from STAAR.
Texas high schoolers currently have to pass five STAAR exams to graduate: Algebra I, English I, English II, U.S. History, and Biology. The bill proposes that the State Board of Education administer end-of-course testing in reading, math, and science only to the minimum requirement set by the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal law requiring testing every year from grades 3-8 and once per subject in high school.
This article appears in July 25 • 2025.