TSTA asks TEA to cancel STAAR testing

The Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) is asking the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to cancel STAAR testing instead of using it to measure the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on education, which adds more stress to parents and students. 

"The Texas Education Agency has suspended the A‐F school accountability rating system for this school year, but TEA didn’t go far enough. The Texas State Teachers Association once again calls on the agency and Gov. Greg Abbott to also cancel STAAR testing for any purpose. They already have decided STAAR scores won’t count toward student promotions this year but still insist on using it to try to measure student growth or learning loss during the pandemic," Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said in a TSTA press release. 

Instead of taking the test to show how well students are doing during the pandemic, teachers are just as capable of telling parents how well a child is performing, she said. 

"All the STAAR test will do is what it always has done: Measure a student’s ability to take a test. And it will force teachers, who already are working long hours adapting lesson plans for virtual and in‐person instruction, to waste invaluable time on STAAR preparation and administration," Molina said in the press release. "It is not clear from TEA’s announcement whether students who for safety’s sake have been learning at home will have to return to their campuses or other central locations to take these STAAR exams. The governor and TEA should not put the health and safety of children over wasteful standardized testing."