House Committee Passes STAAR Overhaul in Late-Night Hearing

The House Public Education Committee early on Wednesday morning unanimously passed a bill to replace the state’s standardized testing system with smaller tests throughout the school year to give students more immediate feedback and relieve testing pressures.

Though the committee met at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, it went into recess after less than an hour and a half of deliberations on its first bill, which would change the unusual process by which communities can decide to split a school district, in order to convene on the House floor.

But the 10 a.m. floor session ran for more than 11 hours, in large part because a group of insurgent hardline Republicans have vowed to prevent lawmakers from quickly passing uncontroversial bills, forcing them to be approved one by one.

The House Education Committee did not reconvene until about 9 p.m. and considered bills until about 6:30 a.m. today, according to a staffer for the committee’s chair, Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado.

The committee presented its substitute version of the bill early on Wednesday morning with its own modifications, spending more than two and a half hours discussing and hearing testimony from the public on the proposal.

Buckley tabled the bill at the end of the committee’s considerations, promising to support its passage.

“I am committed to making sure we move this bill forward,” said Buckley. “It is time for a new day in testing and accountability in the State of Texas, and I intend to do that with House Bill 4.”

The committee moved to adopt the substitute version of the bill and recommend that the full House pass it in a unanimous bipartisan vote, 13-0.

House Bill 4 would overhaul the state’s current testing system, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. School administrators and superintendents have criticized the system for the length of tests and the pressure it puts students under.

Under HB 4, the testing schedule would be similar to an online assessment that the state has been piloting since 2019. Students would take smaller tests throughout the year to give teachers and parents a clearer idea of their weaknesses, which could allow for targeted support.

“​​We’re not just teaching to the test anymore, we’re allowing teachers to shift and give individualized calibration and attention to students,” Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, said of the bill, as quoted by the Houston Chronicle. “You see the starting point, what kind of progress they’ve made, and how they are doing at the end.”

Bernal, who is the vice chair of the House Public Education Committee, co-authored the bill with Buckley.

The proposal also would mandate that test scores be available within 24 hours of administration, compared to the six weeks that it can take under STAAR. That’s possible because the new system would be conducted entirely online, which the state has been doing since the pandemic.