HOUSTON — As school districts unveil their plans for the upcoming school year, many students and parents are also thinking about the future of standardized testing.
The Texas Education Agency announced last month STAAR testing would resume this upcoming school year. The tests weren’t required at the end of the last school year because of COVID-19.
The TEA plans to continue with standardized testing regardless if a student attends school in person or remotely..
Ibrahim Firat, chief educational consultant for Firat Education, said the results from standardized tests rank students, teachers and schools. He said the STAAR test will be available online.
Firat said many students will have problems getting their hands on the necessary resources to do their schoolwork remotely.
“The inaccess to technology is going to prevent them from doing well in these tests online or in person so I’m really concerned about that,” Firat said.
Firat said having students take the STAAR test is not a good idea.
He said there’s other things school districts need to worry about like public health.
“This is an opportunity for all of us in the education system to decide whether STAAR or any sort of standardized testing that measures academic readiness as we call it. It needs to be looked at again,” Firat said.
He said students experienced a learning gap last year before heading into the summer which will affect them come testing time.
“The COVID slide is now longer than six months for many students, so instead of testing these kids out, we just need to fill the gaps that have happened since March. That should be the priority," he said.
Firat hopes the TEA will reverse their decision.