To support families this school year, we’ve created a three-part back to school video series on key education topics every parent should understand. Today’s segment focuses on the changes to Texas’s statewide assessment system brought about by Senate Bill 8, which was passed in September 2025.
For years, Texas has used STAAR, which is a single summative test, given at the end of the school year. Under Senate Bill 8, starting in the 2027-28 school year STAAR will be replaced with a new system that includes three shorter tests at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Before diving into those changes, let’s spend a quick minute on why testing exists in the first place.
Federal law requires states to annually test all public students in grades three through eight and once in high school using a single statewide assessment aligned to state standards. The results of these assessments play a central role in school accountability ratings. Because test data are broken apart by student subgroups, including race, socioeconomic status, and more, they provide clear, comparable insights across grades, schools, and districts about how every child is learning.
Policy makers use this information to identify where resources are most needed, determine when and where to intervene in underperforming schools, and to track the progress of improvement efforts over time. For parents, the results provide important information about how their child is progressing towards grade level expectations and how effectively their school and districts are educating students.
Since 2012, Texas has relied on the STAAR exam as its statewide assessment, but in June 2025, Governor Abbott called a special legislative session and urged lawmakers to eliminate STAAR, in favor of a new system that’s less high stakes and more instructionally supportive. In response, the legislature passed Senate Bill 8 and ushered in a major shift in how Texas will measure student learning. The new law tasks the Texas Education Agency or TEA for short, with designing all three assessments in the new system. The beginning and middle of year tests will be mandatory and focus on supporting instruction.
Districts will also have the option of administering nationally norm-referenced tests, if approved by the TEA. The end of year assessment, the only one used for accountability ratings, will be developed by TEA and reviewed by Texas educators. Test results will be made available within days, much faster than STAAR, and presented as percentile ratings showing how students are performing relative to their peers.
The final assessment will also indicate whether a student is at grade level, much like STAAR does today. The bill also includes some other notable changes. It prohibits practice exams to prepare students for state tests, addressing the concerns of many parents who saw their children spend weeks on kill and drill exercises prior to STAAR, sometimes at the expense of additional learning, electives and even recess.
Additionally, TEA’s authority to intervene in low performing schools is expanded. The new law allows the agency to take action, even if accountability ratings are under legal challenge by appointing conservatives or assuming management of campuses. Together, these changes are intended to reduce pressure on students, give teachers better tools to support learning, and ensure parents have better insight into their child’s progress throughout the school year, while still maintaining strong systems of school accountability.
As Texas transitions to the new assessment system, you can play a vital role by staying informed and asking some key questions. How will the beginning, middle, and end of year test help me understand my child’s progress? When will I receive their test results and will the information I receive be clear and actionable? Will teachers receive training on how to interpret assessment results and adjust instruction based on that data? And is my child’s school using the state design tests or opting for a national alternative? How are those national alternatives being chosen and are they aligned to state standards?
In the months ahead, we’ll gain a clearer picture of what Texas’s new assessment system will look like, and we’ll keep you updated as we learn more.
If you have questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to drop them in the chat. We’ll be back soon with more updates on educational policies that could impact your child’s learning and future. Thanks for watching.
