Texas judge blocks school ratings release amid ongoing lawsuit over STAAR test

AUSTIN, Texas — For the second year in a row, a judge blocked the Texas Education Agency from releasing school accountability ratings.

It came hours after a coalition of school districts filed a second lawsuit against the state over how standardized tests impact these ratings.

With COVID-19 delaying the complete release of school accountability ratings for three years before these lawsuits, we’re now going on five years without parents having a full picture of how schools are doing across the state. But opponents of these ratings say new rules for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STARR test are unfairly impacting these ratings and believe the standardized tests and these ratings may need to be scrapped altogether.

Clay Robinson with the Texas State Teachers Association says scores from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STARR test have dropped across the board since going online last year.

“We have been trying to get the legislature to abolish the STAAR test for years. We feel it’s a waste of millions of dollars, millions of tax dollars every year,” Robinson said. “We know it’s not gotten any better, and we also have doubts about the accuracy of the computerized testing of these writing samples.”

His organization isn’t named in a lawsuit filed against the state calling for the tests to be re-standardized, but he says the T.S.T.A. does support the move.

In response to the lawsuit, a Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the Texas Education Agency from releasing this year’s school A-F accountability ratings, of which the STAAR tests heavily impact.

“It’s sort of a heartbreaking story because so many students took this, in our opinion, invalid and unstandardized test and performed so poorly on it,” Nick Maddoz, an attorney representing the school districts, said. “which not only impacted their own self-esteem and their own academic abilities but also impacted their community school district as well.”

Though initially five districts, the support is growing, and he expects to have 50 districts from across the state join the lawsuit by the end of the month.

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“We’re asking for school districts to not be graded on an A through F scale until the STAAR test has been accurized and reformed, and we have a valid basis of comparison,” Maddox said.

Texas State Representative Brian Harrison sits on the House Public Education Committee. He says after a similar injunction last year, this move only hurts parents and students across the state.

“They may have reasons to want to put them in one school or another, and depriving them of data deprives them of some of the most important information they have when making those considerations,” Harrison said.

He says the matter is worse when you consider COVID-19 blocked the complete release of accountability scores during the previous three years.

“I don’t think what makes sense right now is just to say that, okay, well, as a result of these potential concerns, let’s just withhold all of the data and at this point, for multiple years,” Harrison said.

He says if there’s an issue, the legislature should handle it.

“There’s nothing more important that we grapple with as a state and how we educate the next generation of Texans, and we have a system that, while it’s working well for a few, it is unfortunately failing far too many,” Harrison said. “Watering down accountability is the last thing we need to be doing.”

But Maddox claims they’re only suing because the T.E.A. isn’t following the law to begin with.

“Those laws are in place in the state of Texas, and it’s our opinion that the Texas Education Agency and Commissioner Morath are not following those laws,” Maddox said.

We reached out to the T.E.A. for comment, but have not heard back.

A hearing to make the injunction permanent is set for August 26th.