Publish Date: September 10, 2025 4:22 pm Author: Texas AFT
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Friday, September 5, 2025
The No STAAR State
On Wednesday, the Texas Legislature closed out its second special session by passing a bill that will replace STAAR with a through-year testing regimen that will mean more but (allegedly) shorter tests for students. Lawmakers have begun their celebratory pronouncements. Rep. Brad Buckley, author of House Bill 8, declared the bill “ends the high-stakes and high-stress nature of one test, one day.”
But is it accurate to say the bill ends high-stakes testing in Texas? Not when a student’s scores control their school’s A-F rating, and not when those scores may decide their teacher’s salary.
Some of HB 8’s testing changes may improve conditions for students. We hope they’ll free up instructional time. But, once again, the Legislature has failed to address the root causes of parents’ and educators’ distrust of standardized testing: the punitive nature of the results, the broad misapplication of testing data, and the consolidation of power in an appointed education commissioner and the Texas Education Agency.
Is HB 8 a win? The jury will be out until we see it implemented in 2027.
On Friday, June 20, 2025, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 12 into law. The law took effect on Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, and aims to reshape public school practices related to parental rights, educator responsibilities, and the role of diversity and identity in pre-K-12 schools.
The State Board of Education (SBOE) will convene in Austin on Monday, Sept. 8, at 1 p.m. CT. The board is set to meet throughout the week, ending on Friday, Sept. 10, and will take up several important items, most notably, a framework for the anticipated social studies content area revision.
Texas’s new Ten Commandments law, Senate Bill 10, officially went into effect on September 1, but implementation is unfolding unevenly across the state. The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, requires public schools to post a specific Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom on a 16-by-20-inch display.
House Bill 2, the Legislature’s school finance bill, went into full effect on Monday, Sept. 1. Even before enactment day, though, Texas AFT members and organizers have been hard at work in districts across the state to make sure the funding increases from the Teacher Retention Allotment and the new Support Staff Allotment went towards significant, equitable raises.
Education news from around the state and nation that’s worth your time.
📖State Funding for Schools Is a Mess This Year, Too. Here’s Why.Many school districts’ biggest budget concerns this year have centered on the federal government. But in a number of states, political debates and administrative turmoil are piling distinct and varied challenges on school districts at the start of a new school year.(Education Week, Aug. 29)
📖Texas AG Ken Paxton encourages students to recite Lord’s Prayer in latest test of church-state separation.With a new Texas law in effect allowing time for prayer and reading religious texts in public schools, Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday encouraged students to practice the Lord’s Prayer as relayed in the King James Version of the Bible, marking the latest instance of a Texas public official endorsing Christianity over other faiths. (The Texas Tribune, Sept. 2)
📖 The Lege’s ‘Big Government Intrusion’ into University Academics. Expanding on last session’s anti-DEI campus crackdown, some Republicans in the Legislature are now going after gender and ethnic studies programs and faculty independence. (Texas Observer, April 24)
🎧 The Shocking Billionaire Plot to Dismantle Public Education. Texas is on the verge of passing a law that could defund public education. Vouchers send public taxpayer dollars to private schools. It could cost taxpayers $10 billion by 2030. And it could destroy Friday Night Lights. (More Perfect Union, April 22)
This Education Department Official Lost His Job. Here’s What He Says Is at Risk. Fewer teachers. Incomplete data. Delays in addressing problems and getting financial aid information. Those are just some of the impacts Jason Cottrell, who worked as a data collector at the Department of Education for nine and a half years before being laid off along with more than a thousand other agency employees, warns the Trump Administration’s massive cuts to the department’s funding and workforce could have on the country’s education system. (Time, July 18)
This Education Department Official Lost His Job. Here’s What He Says Is at Risk. Fewer teachers. Incomplete data. Delays in addressing problems and getting financial aid information. Those are just some of the impacts Jason Cottrell, who worked as a data collector at the Department of Education for nine and a half years before being laid off along with more than a thousand other agency employees, warns the Trump Administration’s massive cuts to the department’s funding and workforce could have on the country’s education system. (Time, July 18)
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