Stethoscopes don’t write prescriptions. Neither should standardized tests alone determine the prognosis of our students, teachers and schools. 

Stethoscopes serve as an instrument to help doctors make a diagnosis. Likewise, tests like the STAAR should serve as just one tool among many to offer feedback to educators.

Instead, Texas has handed STAAR the prescription pad, and the testing behemoth is scribbling furiously. STAAR has been vested with the authority to determine whether students pass the fifth and eighth grades through the Student Success Initiative. STAAR’s approval on end-of-course exams is required to graduate high school. STAAR claims to assess teachers’ abilities through data like the STAAR Progress Measure that track students’ scores from year to year. STAAR looms even among elementary schools, where learning to bubble in answers is leaching the love of learning to find answers.  

The accountability movement sweeping education convinced governing bodies like TEA that test scores reliably assess all facets of educational health. But STAAR is really only a stethoscope, albeit a $280 million one. Physicians examine the bigger picture of their patients’ condition when deciding a course of action, and hardworking educators do the same for the students they teach and nurture every day.

Despite what companies like ETS may attest, even the most sophisticated standardized assessment cannot measure infallibly a year’s worth of learning in a few hours of multiple-choice questions.

Higher stakes don’t equal better results.

Relegate STAAR’s role to merely one instrument to measure progress, not the far-reaching authoritarian juggernaut it has become. Eliminate powers like the Student Success Initiative and the STAAR Progress Measure. Spare our elementary school students the unnecessary stress of assessment – the early years of school should foster a love of learning and creativity, not a myopic focus on test scores. Put the power to prescribe academic remedies back in the hands of dedicated teachers and school administrators.

STAAR would have us believe it’s the medicine for what ails education. In truth, it’s become a growing epidemic. Take action now to stop the spread of chronic testing.