House passes STAAR redesign bill

The House passed HB 8 by Rep. Brad Buckley (R-Salado) in a 78-58 vote on Tuesday, August 26. 

A similar bill, HB 4, did not make it over the finish line during the regular session, but Gov. Greg Abbott included "Eliminating STAAR" in the call for both special sessions, allowing legislators to continue working on the issue. After House Democrats returned to Texas for the second special session, both chambers picked up more or less where they left off at the end of the first.

In debating HB 8, Chair Buckley faced questions from members of both parties. House Public Education Committee Vice Chair Rep. Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio) and committee member Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) repeated many of their concerns from the committee hearing, noting in particular that replacing STAAR with three smaller tests throughout the year could end up tripling the testing burden on students instead of making it more manageable as originally intended in HB 4. 

When asked if the new, shorter exams would not require campus shutdowns for secure testing protocols, Buckley declined to give a firm answer. Notably, HB 4 explicitly limited such shutdowns, but HB 8 does not. 

While new issues have emerged with the STAAR redesign, HB 8 attempts to reduce the testing burden on students by strictly limiting benchmark testing within school districts. Specifically, districts may not administer benchmarks in grades 3-8 (with some exceptions), and may only administer up to two benchmarks per year for PreK-2 and 9-12.

The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration.