By: Matt Shaheen – dallasnews.com – January 15, 2020

With the huge gains for education made this past legislative session, I have been spending a lot of time visiting schools across my Plano and North Dallas district. I’ve been listening to teachers, principals and parents about how to build on our legislative success.

The overwhelming issue I’m hearing is frustration with State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness testing. The STAAR is intended to measure student learning and progress and provide important information about how to maximize student success, but what I’m hearing from educators and parents is that the test falls short.

Several decades ago, the Texas Legislature started mandating standardized testing for basic skills in mathematics, reading and writing for grades 3, 5 and 9. Over time, the original intent to ensure students were proficient in core subjects evolved to higher and higher stakes with more subjects, grades and end-of-course testing requirements culminating in the mess we have today.

A recent University of Texas at Austin study supported educators’ claims that the STAAR test is seriously flawed. The study by the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk determined that although the STAAR aligns with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, there are serious questions about the readability of the tests.

The study goes as far as to state, “Because we do not have confidence in these results, we were forced to conclude that analyzing item readability in a reliable manner for this report is not possible.” The STAAR is testing students as much as two years above their grade levels, explaining in part why many students fail the test. Reading passages are not readable for many students’ stage of learning development. The result of such a flawed and unfair accountability system is that children, teachers and parents are suffering very real and lasting negative consequences.

I am determined to correct the course of this floundering accountability system for the future of our children and the Lone Star State. I recently formed an advisory panel of constituents with varying education backgrounds. Together we examined whether the STAAR test should be replaced with a more effective tool.

The panel concluded that testing programs should ensure alignment between what is written, taught and tested. The group also agrees that instead of a one-test-fits-all approach, we should move to an adaptive form of testing that accurately shows whether students score above or below grade level.

We think student testing would yield more accurate assessments by adapting test content to each student’s knowledge level. By moving to an adaptive form of assessment, we can accurately measure grade level, college readiness, proficiency levels and growth. The STAAR fails miserably in these areas and clearly needs to be replaced.

By replacing the STAAR, teachers will no longer be incentivized to teach to the test but, instead, will be able to better help students succeed. That’s why teachers enter the education field in the first place. They love their students and desperately want to prepare them for successful lives.

As a state representative, I was elected to make decisions in the best interest of my constituents, and that includes our children. If changing the method by which we test our students will help maximize student academic potential and not decrease accountability, I’m willing to fight for an innovative substitute to STAAR.

It’s time to correct the errors in our flawed system and do right by students and teachers.

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Source: As a Texas legislator, I’m determined to get rid of the STAAR test