The STAAR test is a statewide standardized test taken in the spring. You take the test from the 3rd grade through the 12th grade and you take it on your four core classes. The STAAR test is useless because it focuses more on the teachers than the students and it causes stress.

The STAAR test is useless because it focuses more on the teachers than the students, because if the students do bad it falls on the teachers for bad teaching. Whenever a student doesn’t do great on the test and they fail, not only are they going fail the grade and re-do it the teacher gets in trouble because they taught that kid. If this continues for multiple years then the school board will come and evaluate the teacher to see how the teacher teaches and if they don’t like it the teacher could get fired.

The STAAR test also cause a great deal of stress on the students. According to NYSUT United  “A 2013 study showed that students reported significantly greater levels of test anxiety for the high-stakes exams than for regular classroom tests.” One high school teacher said that one of her freshman students vomited on the test because they was so stressed. Shannon Miller, school psychologist with the Germantown Teachers Association, says “Overall student anxiety is on the rise, especially in the wake of new Common Core standards and the high-stakes tests attached to them.”

Most students and even teachers dread the test. The test lasts for four hours long and you can’t talk until everybody has finished the test. And the level isn’t even fair.According to Texas Public Radio, “There are also concerns that the stakes are too high for both students and the schools themselves, that teachers are obligated to just teach the test, and that standardized test results don’t tell the full story of a child’s potential.”