Texas Education Agency

Students in Texas are finishing up the 2025-2026 school year with STAAR testing.
The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests third through eleventh grade students enrolled in Texas public schools at the end of every year.
Teachers spend all year preparing students for tests that determine the next chapter of their education. Students work day by day learning new information for the big test at the end of the year.
Tests are spread out between days which can really mess with schedules and surrounding classes. Students are required to stay in classrooms until students are done testing before moving on with their school day.
Students and teachers alike dread STAAR weeks due to the stress of taking and monitoring tests that have such consequences.
With summer approaching, some students rush through testing to get it finished, causing lower results.
With tests being at the end of the year, students don’t always remember much from the start of the year, causing unfairness. It is also difficult to grade how well things are taught when students could learn differently from others. Cramming a year’s worth of education into multiple tests can also create a short circuit in thinking.
Some students could be incredibly smart yet might not be good at testing. Students also tend to have uneasy days, causing a bad testing environment. Some students express feeling nervous to the point of sickness before testing. Some are even sent home due to these incidents.
To make testing even more stressful, sometimes students’ computers do not allow them to log in, causing tests to be started late. Students also talk about how the quiet of testing rooms is a distraction because they can hear every small noise.
Educators are also juggling finding assignments to give at the end of the year since students have already taken the end-of-course assessments. Teachers are forced to teach certain subjects to get ready for STAAR but complain that the subjects are mostly not on the actual test.
Wrapping up STAAR is a difficult time of the school year for students. Passing STAAR is something they look forward to seeing. Students and teachers alike hope to end off the year on a good note.