The Texas House voted to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 8, sending the STAAR-testing overhaul to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
The bill replaces the current State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) year-to-year growth model, which relies on predictions from one end-of-year test to the next, with a new “three-year growth measure” that uses beginning-, middle-, and end-of-year assessments to track student progress more directly.
A Senate addition adds a “fail-safe clause” requiring the Texas Education Agency to brief lawmakers in 2029 on its impact to A–F accountability ratings, allowing lawmakers to revert to the old model if the new one proves harmful.
“This allows an opportunity for the Legislature to course correct if the new indicator negatively impacts ratings compared to the current methodology,” said House Public Education Chairman Brad Buckley (R–Killeen) as he laid out the changes.“Instead of making a prediction from one end-of-year test to the next, this bill will provide three points to check in—beginning, middle, and end—so we know our students are growing throughout the year.”
Under HB 8, the Texas Education Agency is responsible for the transition, but the law requires TEA to contract with a national assessment provider to actually develop and administer the new system.
The assessments themselves can include items written by TEA, but before those are used, they must go through a review committee of around 40 Texas teachers representing the state. At least three-fourths of that committee has to sign off that the items align with state standards, are grade-appropriate, and are unbiased.
Buckley noted that senators also “restored the automatic rescore provision for writing samples, lessening the burden on schools,” and agreed with the House to scrap the English II end-of-course exam, marking “the first reduction in the number of required EOCs since 2015.”
At the same time, the Senate reinstated U.S. history and social studies exams and clarified that local indicator studies will be carried out by a higher education institution. Beyond the amendments, Buckley defended the bill as transformational.
“House Bill 8 ends the high-stakes and high-stress nature of one test, one day,” he said. “It bans excessive benchmarking and over-testing. It prohibits TEA from changing the rules of the game at any time for the A–F system. And it statutorily requires unprecedented oversight of TEA by legislators, teachers, school leaders, and the public.”
But some Democrats pushed back. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D–Austin) argued the measure explodes the number of state-mandated tests.
“What we do is in this bill is require 51 state tests when today there are 16 state-required tests,” she said. “That is absolutely factual. You may disagree with the impact on our districts, but this is factual.”
Hinojosa dismissed Buckley’s focus on benchmark testing, saying in her experience as a school board member and parent, “the complaint to me was always about the STAAR test … not about benchmarks.”
Buckley brushed off a critical flyer circulating among members as “yellow journalism” and insisted the legislation has broad support from school groups across Texas.
“Our districts—whether they have eight kids or more than 100,000—understand that House Bill 8 is an important step in restoring trust in our system,” he said.
Members voted to concur with the Senate changes 79-54.
With the House concurring, Abbott is expected to sign the bill, which would begin the multi-year transition away from STAAR and implement the new “Student Success Tool” statewide in the 2027–28 school year.
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