On Monday, House Public Education Chairman Brad Buckley (R–Salado) filed House Bill (HB) 8, his standardized testing and accountability bill. Soon after, Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R–Houston) filed Senate Bill (SB) 8, the identical Senate version.    

In recent days, state leaders have continued to use the rhetoric of “eliminating the STAAR test.” Based on conversations with educators and parents alike, it seems unlikely either group would consider the filed versions of HB 8/SB 8 a fulfillment of that promise, except in name only, but what would the bills do?  

As drafted, the bills would: 

• Go into effect in the 2027-28 school year, with the current STAAR test fully in place until then. 
• Make through-year testing mandatory in grades 3-8 and optional in high school as an add-on to end-of-course exams (EOCs). 
• Not eliminate any subjects currently being tested at any grade level. 
• Give the commissioner of education significantly more authority over statewide testing and accountability. However, it would place new time constraints on the commissioner regarding notification to districts regarding cut scores.  
• Substantially curtails districts’ ability to challenge the commissioner on matters of accountability, including rankings and sanctions. 
• Direct the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to create beginning- and middle-of-year tests (BOYs and MOYs), as well as establish a list of non-agency developed tests, such as MAP, that could be used to meet the BOY and MOY requirements. The non-agency BOY and MOY could be nationally norm-referenced tests. The end-of-year test (EOY) would be a more STAAR-like, agency-developed test. 

Although the bill does specify that 85% percent of students should be able to complete the tests in 60 to 90 minutes, depending on grade level and whether the test is a BOY/MOY test or an EOY test, it contains no new limit on the total amount of time available to take a test and no indication that multiple subjects could or should be tested on the same day. There is also no new limit on the number of instructional days that can be devoted to administration of state tests. Together, this means that while individual tests would likely be shorter, the number of days devoted to state testing could increase by as much as 300%. This would potentially be offset in part by an attempt to limit benchmark testing, especially in grades 3-8.  

With the Democrats currently breaking quorum out of state, the House is limited in what actions it can take on this or any other legislation. However, if Gov. Greg Abbott (R) continues to call more special sessions, as he is likely to do, Buckley and Bettencourt can refile these bills and seek to move them once a quorum is present to do so.  

ATPE members are the experts on Texas public education, which is why we strongly encourage you to use ATPE’s Advocacy Central to let your state leaders know what you think of HB 8/SB 8 and what you hope to see out of testing and accountability reform.