Business leaders call for criteria-based testing to measure student performance

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As we near graduation season for hundreds of thousands of Texas high schoolers and the legislature nears the final weeks of its 2025 session, business leaders are asking how well-prepared students are.

Taylor Landin is a policy advisor at the Greater Houston Partnership, which is one of more than 50 organizations, businesses, and educational consortiums who signed a letter to state government demanding accountability in public schools.

"The kids that are in classrooms today in our public schools are the workforce of tomorrow," Landin told ABC13. "We have to ensure that they are receiving an education that prepares them to enter the workforce career, college, military ready, and that we're able to meet the needs of future business leaders in this state."

The letter asks those in the Capitol to "safeguard integrity, fairness, and rigor in school accountability."

On Monday, the Texas House is debating school accountability. There are discussions of eliminating or replacing the standardized STAAR test that measures student, teacher, and school success.

Those signing the letter want criteria-based testing, which measures students for their knowledge and not how they compare to students in other states. They ask for a school rating system that uses an A-F scale for academics only and not one that includes other factors. And that they want those ratings and data easily available to the public.

"We do not want our education system to be simply a series of lessons leading up to the test," Landin said. "We want the test just to be another day at school for these kids."

It's likely the legislature will provide new measures this session along with record spending on education. But whether it's enough to maintain the so-called economic Texas miracle may be a question without an answer just yet.

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