Teachers told state Rep. Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, that they spent 46 days each year preparing students for 22 state-required standardized tests. Isaac decided this was too much and decided to propose a change.
On Tuesday afternoon, Isaac presented his solution to Texas' high-stakes testing problem to the House Public Education Committee.
"We must spend less time focusing on standardized testing in our public schools," Isaac said.
The bill's proposed solution breaks down into four components:
1. School districts would be allowed to choose their own test providers. Isaac says introducing competition into the process would ensure only the best test providers get chosen to administer evaluations to students. This comes after Texas' testing vendor, Educational Testing Services, a New Jersey-based company, was fined more than $20 million for glitches it experienced during the 2016 STAAR tests.
2. Students would only be required to test to federal requirements. This would reduce the number of required tests from 22 to 17. Isaac said teachers take weeks to prepare students for specific tests, taking valuable time out of the classroom that could be used for other purposes. This would align Texas testing standards with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
3. Schools could not use standardized testing performance to evaluate a teacher. Isaac specified that schools can still use their own benchmarks to assess a teacher related to student performance.
4. The STAAR test performance portion of the A-F rating system would decrease from 55 to 25 percent in the first, second and third domains. Isaac said this would mitigate the high-stakes nature of state testing.
At the Tuesday afternoon hearing, several teachers challenged Isaac, saying the STAAR test and its result show valid conclusions about a student's progress.
"This test if just a measurement, but our responses to it really make it work," North Texas teacher Stephanie Garcia said. "They were not ready to graduate [that day], and that is why they failed STAAR. Before, no one noticed that [students] could not really read and write."
Garcia said most teachers have 160 students to teach per day and often don't catch reading or writing deficiencies in individual students.
Molly Weiner, the director of policy for Texas Aspires, an education policy organization, said a strong accountability and assessment system is necessary to discover where weak points in the education system exist.
Regardless, Isaac said teaching to a test is not what STAAR testing should be about.
"I do want to place an emphasis on teaching our children over preparing them to take a test," Isaac said.
The bill was left pending in committee.
