The Texas House and Senate gaveled out at the close of session June 2 without reaching a deal on House Bill 4. The bill sought to replace the STAAR test with three shorter exams amid concerns that the current test causes undue stress for students.
“One test on one day leads to anxiety at your kitchen table with your kids, it leads to anxiety in our classroom with our teachers and it leads to absolutely no information that a parent can understand,” bill author Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, said on the House floor in May.
Leaders from both legislative chambers agreed to eliminate the STAAR test, which is administered to third through 12th grade students each spring to measure student progress and teacher performance. However, they disagreed over whether the new exams should be owned by a third party or the state, and did not settle on a final bill before a key June 1 deadline.
Buckley and Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who carried HB 4 in the Senate, did not respond to requests for comment before press time.
What you need to know
HB 4 would have replaced the STAAR test with three shorter exams administered throughout the school year and tweaked the state’s A-F accountability system.
House lawmakers voted to direct the Texas Education Agency to adopt an existing norm-referenced test owned by a third party, rather than developing its own exam, such as the STAAR. Norm-referenced assessments compare students’ performance to that of their peers, rather than grading them solely on the mastery of certain skills or information. The SAT, ACT and MAP tests are norm-referenced.
State senators proposed giving TEA Commissioner Mike Morath broad authority to create a new set of state-owned exams, determining how the tests would be scored and when students would take them.
“We’re gonna get rid of the STAAR test, and we’re gonna replace it with something even better to get rid of this incredible anxiety that we’re seeing,” Bettencourt said before senators approved their version of HB 4 on May 27.
House members expressed concerns May 29 that the Senate’s version of HB 4 would not do enough to improve the state testing system, and the bill was sent to a conference committee for closed-door negotiations. It did not make it back out.
In a May 29 statement, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said the Senate’s changes would “essentially kill” the bipartisan legislation “by simply replacing the unpopular STAAR test with a virtually identical state-created test... instead of allowing school districts to use the nationally norm-referenced test most Texas students already take.”
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The accountability ratings assigned to Texas school districts and campuses are largely based on how students perform on the STAAR test. HB 4 would have retained that status quo while creating some new performance indicators to consider things like schools’ workforce development programs and student participation in extracurriculars.
Parents, school leaders and some lawmakers have criticized the A-F system in recent years. Over 100 school districts sued Morath in August 2023, after he adjusted certain performance indicators that districts said would cause disproportionately lower ratings. The 2023 scores were released in April, and 2024 ratings are pending in a state appeals court.
The House proposal would have required legislative approval for major changes to the A-F system, directed the TEA to finalize all rule changes by July 15 of each year and established an “expedited legal process” for future lawsuits.
Under the Senate’s plan, the TEA would have had the authority to appoint a conservator to review lawsuits filed against the state and potentially oversee school districts’ operations.
“We have millions of students in public education, and we have a handful of schools that just continue to keep suing,” Bettencourt said May 27. “It’s obvious that maybe they don’t want these accountability ratings out in public. ... There’s so much collateral damage that occurs. Communities don’t know how their schools are doing.”
