Summary: STAAR will continue for 2025–2026
Texas House Bill 4 (HB4), which proposed replacing STAAR with three shorter assessments throughout the school year, failed to pass in June 2025. As a result, STAAR will continue for the 2025–2026 school year, and no new assessments will be introduced yet. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) plans to spend the upcoming school year reviewing data from recent pilot programs before making future recommendations.
Current Timeline
Introduced to the Texas House of Representatives on February 25th, 2025, Texas HB4 proposed ending the use of STAAR tests in the curriculum. In its place, the bill suggests that schools give students three shorter tests at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. These proposed tests aim to act as “learning checkpoints” to examine student progress throughout the year. If passed, the bill proposed administering the tests as early as the start of the 2026 spring semester.
Although HB4 passed through both legislative chambers, it ultimately failed due to disagreements about implementation, such as when tests would be given, whether they would be norm- or criterion-referenced, and how performance would be rated. The Texas House and Senate were unable to reach a final compromise before the end of the 89th Legislative Session on June 2, 2025
What Does This Mean For The Future of Texas’s Standardized Testing?
The Texas Education Agency confirmed that STAAR will continue to be administered during the 2025–2026 school year.
Despite HB4 being unsuccessful, the TEA is working to develop a potential replacement for STAAR tests, the Texas Through-Year Assessment Pilot (TTAP). The TTAP tests are not planned to be administered during the 2025-2026 school year. Instead, as per the Texas Education Agency, the organization will be using the duration of the school year to analyze test data collected over the past three years. After this, TEA plans to gather feedback and create new, replacement testing materials accordingly.
Outside of TEA, discussions regarding what should be done about the STAAR testing format continue. In the meantime, STAAR continues to act as Texas’s forefront testing initiative for measuring student progress and readiness. The development of future adjustments will also proceed as planned, with TEA’s research also going towards STAAR test refinement.
As this situation unfolds, EdGate will continue to monitor all developments to keep your curriculum tools and alignments up-to-date.