Testing is becoming less of a measure of knowledge and more of a barrier to learning. Texas students in grades 3-8 are required to take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) reported on the 2023 STAAR that 21% of Texas public school students are Emergent Bilingual (EB). That is around 1.2 million students who, from grades 3-5, are offered a version of the STAAR in their native language. Yet, after fifth grade, they are no longer given a non-English alternative.
This creates a large decline in testing scores, and lowering schools overall ratings. Campuses with primarily Spanish speaking populations are targeted by these ratings and risk closure, putting them at a high disadvantage and disrupting learning. We think that continuing to offer the Spanish version through middle school will allow for more instructional time and fair opportunity.
Requiring students to take the STAAR only in English does not equally represent their learning. Because these students are still learning English they can’t accurately measure the students’ skills in subjects like math or science. While we understand that it is important to encourage English fluency because the majority of Americans only speak English, it will not benefit the students’ learning to push this through testing.
Texas A&M did a study that stated students in a developmental bilingual education did well on English reading comprehension and literacy exams, while still succeeding in subjects in Spanish, in comparison to students in traditional Spanish-English programs. This shows that bilingual learning that promotes both languages will benefit students in the long-run.
Scoring on the STAAR doesn’t just affect individuals, but entire schools. For example, one of Austin’s middle schools that feeds to McCallum, Webb, received its second “F” rating. This is partially due to student achievement. According to TEA, 86.5% of Webb’s population is Hispanic and 74% are EB. The 2023 STAAR reports show that only 17% of Webb students met or exceeded grade level requirements in all subjects. However, at Reilly Elementary, one of Webb’s feeder schools with a similar Hispanic population, 45% of students met or exceeded. This illustrates a change from elementary to middle school testing. These ratings reflect poorly on the school, causing lower student enrollment and less attraction for teachers and resources, worsening student outcomes.
The long-term effects of low test scores reducing school funding and enrollment entrench the divide between schools and their demographics. Many campuses with a high Spanish speaking population are also in low income areas. Their ratings cause an invisible gap between wealthier English-dominant campuses, creating a sense of segregation.
This testing policy is separating students based on their native language, instead of increasing learning and life-skills. Language is something that should be uniting our communities and creating culture, not dividing our students and their futures.
The STAAR test should be testing knowledge in all subjects, not just the ability to speak English. We think the State of Texas should make further efforts to promote bilingual education, including extending the option to take the STAAR in Spanish in order to evaluate students in science, math and history equally, instead of offering it and then taking it away.
