(whimsical music) - [Narrator] The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, the STAAR.

- [Teacher] Okay, that's gonna be- - [Narrator] Kids skip school to escape it, teachers have to teach to the test, and politicians even tried to replace it.

- This will be a win for our school districts.

With better assessments more real- - [Narrator] Texas State Representative Brad Buckley, who authored the bill to replace the STAAR, tried to create a solution.

- HB4 is not less accountability, it's smarter accountability, providing actionable information for teacher, student, and ultimately parents.

- Did it work?

No.

The Texas House and Senate couldn't agree on how much power to give the Texas Education Agency, and it died on the floor.

It was close though, and the STAAR could have been replaced with a test that would've assessed students more often with quicker results.

But this is much bigger than the STAAR.

This is about education in Texas, where it's been and where it's going.

(whimsical music continues) But first, what is the STAAR test?

The STAAR assesses students from third to 12th grade on math, science, history, English, and a written essay.

Many tests have come before the STAAR to measure student performance, but the grading system has never had so much weight in school closures and state control.

The STAAR is also what determines school's accountability ratings.

Introduced by a 2017 law, TEA's accountability ratings are the A through F scores each school gets every year.

70% of the rating accounts for students' achievement on the STAAR and improvement from the year before.

The other 30% is closing the gaps or accounting improvement from kids with special needs or English language learners.

High schools are also graded based on graduation rates and college career and military readiness outcomes.

Elementary and middle schools rely entirely on the STAAR.

These grades can determine whether or not schools stay open.

If one school gets five Fs in a row, the whole district is vulnerable to a TEA takeover.

The only other option is to close the school.

Cut off the arm to save the body.

Houston ISD didn't act fast enough.

In 2023, one school, Phillis Wheatley High School, prompted a TEA takeover for the entire HISD district, which is 274 schools.

Wheatley has not received a passing grade since then.

The clock started ticking for Texas schools before they even realized.

For Houston, their failing grades that they received before the law passed also counted against them.

But many schools started counting during the 2018 to 2019 school year.

Then things got weird.

(mysterious music) The pandemic hit and no one was tested that year.

For two years after that, schools that scored below a C were left unrated.

So back to normal in 2023?

No.

TEA changed the STAAR's grading metrics, then TEA redesigned the STAAR.

Students took the test online, faced new kinds of questions, and had to write a lot more.

More than 100 school districts sued the TEA to block the release of those scores.

2024's test scores also held up in court.

Schools sued over TEA's new hybrid scoring system where all written responses go through an auto-scoring engine, similar to ChatGPT, and a quarter of these answers then go to human scorers.

TEA saved $15 million on human graders.

The tests change greatly in a short amount of time and pressure on schools increased.

Dallas ISD was prepared to pay $232,000 to have their tests reevaluated by human scorers.

According to the Dallas Morning News, "More than 700 DISD scores improved."

- [Protesters] Save Texas schools!

Save Texas schools!

- These changing circumstances also coincided with a statewide conversation about school vouchers, which became law in 2025.

(students chattering) For the 2022 to 2023 school year, many more schools received Fs.

(whimsical music) Out of the 112 schools graded in AISD, 30 got Fs, more than any other letter grade.

Many think this is due to the STAAR redesign and TEA's changing standards without enough time to prepare students and teachers.

- If we're talking about an elementary school and a middle school, which is the conversation we're focused on in Austin, there's no truth to that.

The standards didn't change.

These campuses that we're talking about in Austin, I think the last time that they met minimum academic standards was something like 2017, 2016.

It's been a long time since there were kids that were at those schools that could reach any reasonable level of proficiency.

- [Narrator] In 2019, a little over 5% of elementary schools received Fs or Ds, but this number shot up to almost 44% in 2023.

Out of 77 elementary schools graded in 2023, 19 were given Fs.

This comes after a pandemic, which greatly affected kids' education around the world.

Many students are still catching up.

But one school improved more than any other.

Mendez Middle School was taken over by a charter in 2022 after years of struggle.

And since then, their scores have improved.

From 2019 to 2023, their score jumped 39 points, more than any other school.

- [Person] Performance, so we're gonna leave the cafeteria just for those families first.

- But many parents at Mendez don't like this change because they feel the administration excludes them from their kids' education.

(person speaking faintly) - [Narrator] But on average, AISD's school grades dropped five points since 2019, over 20 schools dropped 20 points, and many schools that received Fs in 2023 previously had a good track record.

Wooldridge Elementary went from a B in 2019 to an F in 2023.

In Austin ISD, schools that reported more than half of their students as economically disadvantaged received a median score of a 64, a D. Schools that reported less than half had a median score of a 90, an A.

At Dobie Middle School, the student body is over 96% economically disadvantaged, and almost three quarters of the kids are learning English as a second language.

(students chattering) Students who are still learning English can take the STAAR in Spanish until fifth grade.

After that though, AISD students only get a one-year grace period where their STAAR scores don't count.

The STAAR's only offered in English after fifth grade.

Many Dobie students feed into Navarro Early College High School.

The high school received a D in 2023, but almost 70% of its student body is learning English.

Students at Navarro speak Pashto, Polish, Arabic, Chinese, Mandarin, Kurdish, Q'eqchi', Dari, Portuguese, French, Nigerian, Vietnamese, Urdu, Burmese, Swahili, Yoruba, Spanish, and English.

- Like I said before, our kids are doing amazing things, but not on a STAAR test.

Like, our kids are super loving and caring people, but you can't measure that.

We got kids that don't speak the language and haven't been in school, and they went from getting one right to getting two right.

That's 100% growth.

But it don't matter 'cause it's not enough.

(students chattering) - [Narrator] When the 2023 scores were finally released, Dobie received its third F in a row.

They expect to get another.

- [Student] Eight hours on graphics.

That was, like, kick back.

(students chattering) - It's something the state enforces, but at the end of the day, it's slightly different than state accountability.

- [Narrator] District officials feared a TEA takeover.

In a letter to parents, they said it was a risk they couldn't take.

Discussions of school closure have gone back and forth, but AISD has landed on a district-managed restart with a charter school as a backup plan if scores don't improve by December.

Under the restart plan, all the administration and most of the core subject teachers are no longer at Dobie.

- I don't know.

Does it measure what it needs to measure?

I guess so.

I mean, what's the end game?

What's the goal?

If you wanna take over AISD, yeah, it measures exactly what it needs to measure.

If you wanna see disparities, yeah, it measures exactly what it needs to measure.

But it's not a good tool for teacher effectiveness.

It's not a good tool for how quality a school is.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Dobie could go in a few directions if their scores don't improve by December, they could turn into a charter like Mendez did.

Although Mendez's scores look good on paper, it's come at the cost of their community.

On the other hand, Wheatley has seen little to no improvement under TEA influence.

It's hard to tell what future Dobie faces.

- One.

- One, two, three.

Yay!

(group cheers) - [Person] Like that.

(person laughs) - [Narrator] But in Rundberg, community members say Dobie is so much more than just a school.

- Cheese.

- They provide adult learning programs like HVAC certifications, host community meetings, food and blood drives, volunteering events, and so much more.

But this community hub will be unrecognizable because of the amount of weight put on a test taken by 11 to 14 year olds.

(gentle music continues)