Gov. Greg Abbott is absolutely right to propose eliminating STAAR, the Texas standardized public school exam that excels in creating anxiety among students and teachers while quashing joy in learning. But he is absolutely wrong in wrapping this idea in his push for vouchers, which would undercut public education and school finance.
As readers may recall, in the final days of the regular session, Abbott offered ending STAAR as a bargaining chip to gain support for vouchers in the Texas House. That went nowhere, but a special session on education looms.
STAAR, which stands for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, was implemented in the 2011-2012 school year. This measure of Texas students’ mastery of state-mandated curriculum begins in third grade, and it is a punishing test.
While assessments are federally required and necessary to inform learning, Texas can find a new assessment. The STAAR exam has been used to keep students from being promoted to the next grade or from graduating, which exacerbates social pressures and challenges while not necessarily boosting learning. It has been used as an unfair metric to assess the work of teachers, schools and districts.
So, yes, replace STAAR with an assessment that measures learning but removes the high stakes and crippling anxiety. Make learning fun again.
For years, Abbott and the Texas Education Agency have touted the STAAR as necessary for accountability, despite its cost and impact on students and teachers.
Recently, at a legislative recap with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, Abbott spent significant time discussing school vouchers. He promised to resurrect education savings accounts in a special session after the Legislature agrees on property tax reform. Again, he proposed eliminating the STAAR.
He described how educators approached him at his school voucher events, which he held at private schools, and implored him to end the exam.
Abbott said he listened, learned, processed and implemented their request, saying the legislation he is working on for a special session would not only provide for school vouchers, but “for the public schools that kids are leaving behind, it eliminates the dreaded STAAR test and requires teachers to focus on what’s best for educating their kids in the classroom.”
To which we say: Why is that contingent on vouchers — or anything else? If eliminating the STAAR exam allows teachers “to focus on what’s best for educating their kids in the classroom,” then make like Nike and just do it, governor.
Beyond the educational pressure, the STAAR costs too much. According to the Texas Tribune, Washington, D.C.-based Cambium Assessment will receive $262 million from 2021 through 2024 to manage the online platform. And Pearson, an education publishing and assessment service, will receive an additional $126 million from 2021 through 2024 to develop and construct the assessments.
Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina has said the “STAAR testing regime” is “a waste of classroom time and taxpayer dollars.” The Texas American Federation of Teachers has said STAAR exams have numerous design flaws and a history of being misused. The Intercultural Development Research Association has cited research showing that large-scale standardized tests cannot provide student-level information and should not be used for high-stakes decision-making.
In January 2022, when state Sen. José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, advocated canceling the STAAR due to the pandemic, he noted he had filed multiple bills in the previous two sessions on this front, but those efforts went nowhere.
Menéndez told our Editorial Board he has lost count of how many bills he’s filed over the years to eliminate the STAAR, “but I can tell you that I have been fighting high-stakes standardized testing since 2009, when I saw firsthand how our 9-year-old son got sick to his stomach with testing anxiety.”
That’s why Abbott and lawmakers should get rid of the STAAR. Instead, he’s dangling the possibility of ending an awful policy as leverage to implement something even more deleterious for public education: vouchers.
It should never be so hard to do the right thing.
So, yes, end STAAR because it’s the right thing to do. Not because it’s a bargaining chip for something even more harmful.
San Antonio Express-News
