Abbott: STAAR won’t affect promotion
Those in grades 5 and 8 who fail it won’t be held back; calls grow to suspend test for all
Students in grades 5 and 8 who fail the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test, in the 2020-21 school year will not be held back, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday.
Typically, students in those grades who do not pass the test are sent before a promotion committee, which determines whether they can move on to the next grade level the following school year.
In a statement, Abbott said while the testing data will be important for parents and educators to gauge how much students learned, there is “no benefit” in holding students back because of a test administered during such a tumultuous time as the coronavirus pandemic.
“This will be a uniquely challenging school year; therefore, this year is about providing students every opportunity to overcome the disruptions caused by COVID-19,” Abbott said. “By waiving these promotion requirements, we are providing greater flexibility for students and teachers, while at the same time ensuring that Texas students continue to receive a great education — which we will continue to measure with high-quality assessments.”
The announcement comes as a growing chorus of school leaders and politicians call on the governor and the Texas Education Agency to cancel the standardized test all together, citing ongoing learning deficits caused by pandemic-related school closures. The tests were canceled this past spring after campuses across the state were shut down in a bid to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, making it impossible to compare student performance on any potential tests this school year with the previous year.
Only students in grades 5 and 8 can be held back due to poor marks on the STAAR exams. TEA officials said Abbott’s decision
will not affect high school students, who still must pass a certain number of standardized endof-course exams to graduate.
The STAAR tests also are used by the TEA to assign A-through-F accountability ratings to campuses and school districts. Campuses and districts that do not meet the state’s academic standards can be sanctioned. Houston ISD, for example, is fighting a state takeover of its school board triggered by one campus that received seven
consecutive failing grades.
Shortly after Abbott’s announcement, Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina released a statement saying that waiving the promotion requirements “didn’t go far enough.” She called on Abbott and state education leaders to suspend the A-through-F accountability system and teacher appraisal system, which is also heavily tied to STAAR scores.
“And while he is at it, he should just suspend STAAR testing for 2020-21, period,” Molina wrote. “It is a distraction that students and teachers don’t need while
they learn a new education delivery system, and it is an expense that taxpayers can ill afford.”
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Superintendent Mark Henry at a board meeting last week said judging campuses and districts by students’ test scores during a global pandemic would be unfair.
“I just can’t believe our state leaders are that blind to think that, in a year like this, to do the STAAR test,” Henry said. “I think cooler heads will prevail and we won’t take those, or at least they won’t have an effect.”
Conroe ISD trustees voted unanimously last week on a resolution
asking the state to cancel the STAAR test. In an interview before the vote, Trustee Scott Moore, who wrote the resolution, said that any accountability rating based on the test will be unreliable because the calculation formula relies heavily on comparing students’ academic progress from one year to the next. Along with that, he said, students likely will spend much of the year catching up and will have less time to learn new material than in previous years.
However, Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, State Rep. Dan Huberty and Sen. Larry Taylor issued statements saying students should be shown some grace, but schools must remain accountable for student performance.
“Not only will this approach do a great deal to reduce the ‘highstakes’ burden of testing in a school year already complicated by this pandemic, it will hold schools accountable for providing a high-quality education while equipping teachers and parents with the information they need to make certain students are learning and remain on the path to educational success,” Bonnen said.