The second special session call was a rinse and repeat of Gov. Greg Abbott’s priorities for Texas, including entertaining a bill to “eliminate the STAAR test.” While that phrase might earn lots of hearts on social media, the reality of what transpired in the Legislature over the last week paints a more troubling picture of the future of assessment and accountability in Texas.
Senate Bill (SB) 8 was the vehicle for the testing and accountability overhaul in the first special session. Filed by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the bill attempted to begin where House and Senate negotiations broke down over House Bill (HB) 4, the stakeholder-supported testing bill from the regular session. The 60-page bill was filed on Monday, Aug. 4, and, by the following Tuesday, was reported engrossed by the Senate. By then, Texas House Democrats had broken quorum and that version never received a hearing in the House. In the second special session, the bill (now SB 9) was filed, referred, heard, and voted out of committee all on the same day, Aug. 15, giving advocates zero time to consider and take action on the bill.
Also in the second special session, HB 8 was filed in the House by Chairman Brad Buckley and experienced a similar meteoric trajectory. The House Public Education Committee took up the bill last Thursday, Aug. 21, the same week that the majority of Texas school districts were heading back to campus to begin their cellphone-free school year. Texas teachers, kids, and parents are struggling with the weight and logistics of all the Legislature passed in the regular session, so it was little surprise that the hearing was sparsely attended, and the typically hot-button topic of student testing had only a handful of testifiers. As an aside, the state estimates that it will cost about $56 million to “eliminate” the STAAR including the addition of nine full-time employees to an already bloated Texas Education Agency.
The bill passed swiftly out of committee on the day of the hearing with an 8-1 vote (six members were absent) and was heard on the House floor this past Tuesday, Aug. 26, where the author offered a “perfecting” amendment that was nine pages long and made several major changes in the bill.
We note all this to demonstrate the speed that accompanies these special sessions; often, many bills are nearly through the process before the public can be informed of and respond appropriately to these bills. This is not good, transparent governance especially considering what is at stake.
HB 8 does not “eliminate STAAR.” As Zeph Capo, president of Texas AFT said, “They’ve just rebranded it.” Some notable aspects of the legislation that will impact student assessment beginning with the 2027-2028 school year:
- The single summative STAAR will be replaced by TEA-developed beginning-of-year (BOY), middle-of-year (MOY), and end-of-year (EOY) assessments for grades 3-8. Approved national norm-referenced tests will be optional for the BOY and MOY at the district’s expense. The BOY and MOY will also be adaptive, which is a form of assessment that Texas has never piloted, let alone used for high-stakes testing.
- A standalone writing assessment will still be machine-scored, though some amendments have been added to improve rescoring options.
Reduces assessments to only those federally required.(This House amendment was added thanks to Rep. Gina Hinojosa who has been a tireless advocate for assessment reform in the House. Unfortunately, this amendment was stripped by the Senate.)
The bill does include some palatable guardrails around TEA’s responsibility to set a testing calendar, testing windows, length of the assessment and required reporting to districts, and we also appreciate the further reduction of allowable benchmark testing. However, these changes are insufficient to overcome the changes to the accountability system in the latter half of the bill.
HB 8 preserves high-stakes testing
Historically, the state has “paused” changes to accountability during and after a major testing overhaul. Another major flaw in the legislation is that the bill does the opposite and seeks to amend and even add to accountability during the transition.
For students, the bill requires the commissioner to develop a through-year instructional growth and improvement measure and requires that measure to be introduced in the accountability system. This means that even though kids still won’t be retained a grade level if they don’t meet the agencies expected “growth” on these new assessments each year, their school districts will get penalized in A-F ratings nonetheless. This will invariably place more pressure on students and will be yet another way the state leverages assessment to “measure” teachers and schools.
HB 8 cedes more power to TEA & the commissioner
The bill gives the governor-appointed commissioner of education unilateral authority to remove an indicator from the accountability system if the commissioner deems it not “valid or reliable.” The bill allows the commissioner to annually modify the standards for each indicator, without notice to districts, and requires the commissioner to increase the rigor of the performance ratings. These provisions have the effect of continually moving the goal post for districts, creating an unsustainable system in which failure seems inevitable. Other indicators, such as parent engagement and extracurricular participation, that stakeholders have spent years advocating for are relegated to “optional” measures that districts may report but have no bearing on the state’s rating of the campus or district.
HB 8 sidelines parents & teachers in decision-making
The bill provides for only a thin veneer of stakeholder engagement. The proposed accountability advisory committee would be made up mostly of legislative staff and only one representative from each of these constituencies: “educators, parents, and business and industry.” This representation is wholly insufficient to the task of advising the agency and commissioner on accountability matters. Further, this and any committee on assessment and accountability should meet regularly and publicly according to the Open Meetings Act and include more varied stakeholders that won’t simply be a rubber stamp for the commissioner’s priorities.
While a few modest guardrails have been added to prevent commissioner overreach in making changes to the system, districts will still be limited in their ability to take action against the state for punitive actions as a result of ratings issued under A-F. Essentially, HB 8 fails to address the many problems that teachers, students, and parents continue to point out about the state accountability system: over-testing of students and the punitive measures based primarily on high-stakes tests rather than meaningful locally driven indicators.
Where This Leaves Us
Without these basic concerns addressed and without robust input from educators, parents, and other stakeholders, HB 8 falls short of being the testing reform bill that Texans demand and that we know has bipartisan support.
HB 8 passed the House 82-56 on Tuesday and was immediately reported to the Senate. On Wednesday, the bill was referred to the Senate committee, received a placeholder hearing and vote, and was on the Senate floor — all in about four hours — where it passed 21-5 after striking a House amendment that would have reduced testing to the minimum required by the federal government. Next, the House will vote on whether to concur with the Senate version or request a conference committee to settle the differences.
So, to sum it all up: The most consequential testing and accountability bill in over a decade was filed and forced through the Legislative process in under two weeks when the majority of the affected stakeholders were not available to engage. Unfortunately, this is par for the course for the Legislature that Abbott bought in his voucher-driven campaigning last year.