Opinion
April 25, 2023
How Texas’s STAAR Test Took Over Public School Culture
Months-long preparations, complete with celebrity guests, pep rallies, and theme days, have turned a standardized test into an anxiety-ridden circus for kids.
STAAR
Politics & Policy
May 4, 2019
More STAAR? The Texas Senate Proposes Even Higher-Stakes Testing for Students.
On Monday, the Senate passed a proposal to add four more writing tests and tie school funding directly to third-grade test results.
Politics & Policy
April 1, 2019
State Senator José Menéndez: The STAAR Test Is Hurting Our Kids. We Need to Act Now.
An op-ed from the San Antonio senator and member of the Texas Senate Committee on Higher Education.
News & Politics
March 25, 2019
New Study Reaffirms That STAAR Reading Tests Are Not on Grade Level
Eight different readability formulas showed the test's reading portions are at a higher level of difficulty than appropriate for the grades they’re assessing.
Politics & Policy
March 13, 2019
Testing the Test: New Legislation Filed to Audit STAAR
More challenges emerge to Texas’s least favorite exam.
News & Politics
February 20, 2019
Are Texas Kids Failing? Or Are the Tests Rigged?
Leading educators and testing experts have studied the exams and find that they are asking kids to understand passages aimed two or more years above their grade level.
The Daily Post
April 7, 2016
Glitches During STAAR Testing Don’t Bode Well For Texas’s New Test Vendor
In ETS’s first year taking over most of Texas’s test administration, they aren’t providing enough improvement from the vendor they replaced.
The Daily Post
August 17, 2015
Why Are So Many Texas Students Struggling With STAAR?
Experts speculate that the test is measuring the wrong thing.
Politics & Policy
April 10, 2013
Crash Test
Over the past two decades a movement to increase the importance of standardized testing in public schools has swept across the country. It was born in Texas. Is Texas also where it might die?
January 21, 2013
Are You Smarter than a High School Student?
Test your smarts with 15 sample questions from the new STAAR subject matter tests.
February 15, 2012
Tweaks to STAAR Exam Rollout
State senator Florence Shapiro says that the Texas Education Agency can (and should) waive the requirement that tests count toward fifteen percent of final grades this year.