The Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would eliminate STAAR, the highstakes standardized test that the state and school districts use to monitor student learning and teacher performance.
The STAAR test “leads to anxiety in our classroom with our teachers, and it leads to absolutely no information that a parent can understand,” said Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado. “Assessment should be instructionally relevant and actionable.”
House Bill 4 got a near unanimous vote in the House on Monday, but faces a tough road in the Senate. The upper chamber has its own idea for what an overhaul of the state standardized test and the accountability system should look like. The gulf between the proposals is wide — one lawmakers will need to close in the final weeks of this year’s legislative session.
