Hinojosa: Texas Kids Deserve Better Than the STAAR Test

With testing week underway, Hinojosa decries Abbott’s record of supersizing STAAR and vows to end the testing madness.

Austin, TX — As millions of Texas public school students take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam this week, Gina Hinojosa released the following statement:

“This week, classrooms across Texas will go quiet as our kids take flawed, high-stakes tests that fail to reliably measure student achievement while hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars flow to out-of-state testing corporations. That’s not accountability. That’s a corrupt system that serves corporate interests, not kids.

“Let me be clear: The STAAR test is rigged against our kids, our teachers, and our schools — and they know it. We all believe in accountability, but the Test has become so arbitrary and unreliable that no one trusts it will actually measure achievement. Instead, school communities are losing control and brace for severe consequences determined at the whim of Greg Abbott’s Texas Education Agency (TEA). The STAAR test is now just a tool for the TEA to justify vouchers, outsourcing public education to profiteers, and taking control of schools and school districts. As governor, I will end this testing madness that is hurting our kids and destroying our neighborhood schools and replace it with true accountability and a new TEA Commissioner.”

Since Governor Abbott took office in 2015, TEA has awarded more than $1.7 billion to STAAR test vendors, including awards in 2025 to Cambium Assessment Inc. ($468 million) and London-based NCS Pearson Inc. ($160 million).

TEA uses STAAR to determine A-F grades for campuses, which can trigger school closures and TEA takeovers of entire school districts — a threat now facing communities in San Antonio and that has already taken local voter control away from public schools in Fort Worth, Houston, and other districts.

While Greg Abbott promised to “eliminate” the STAAR test, instead during the last legislative session, he “supersized” the state-mandated number of standardized tests our children will have to take from 15 to 51 by the time a child finishes middle school. No parent asked for this. Texas kids deserve better.

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