Arnold & Placek, P.C. has filed suit against Texas Education Agency commissioner Mike Morath for declaratory judgment relating to the failure of the TEA to comply with the requirements of HB 743 in the design of STAAR assessments administered to over 2,000,000 Texas students in grades 3-8. Four parents of Texas students subject to penalties resulting from these illegal assessments are asking a Travis County district court to declare that these assessments do not comply with section 39.023 of the Education Code. They are seeking both declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent the TEA from penalizing, or requiring that districts penalize, students based on these illegally obtained results. They are seeking to prevent the results from being used for district or campus level accountability as well.
In 2015, the Texas legislature passed legislation requiring that the STAAR assessments be designed in such a way that (a) 85% of students in grades 3-5 could finish the assessments in less than two hours, and (b) 85% of students in grades 6-8 could finish the assessments in less than three hours. Governor Abbot signed the bill into law on June 19, 2015. Because the law was passed on an emergency basis, it took effect immediately.
However, when Texas students took the assessments over nine months later, the TEA had failed to change the design of the assessments, relying on the previous design with a four hour completion time. Existing time studies demonstrate that the TEA knew these assessments would not be in compliance with HB 743. Despite this, the TEA is insisting that school districts use the results to promote and retain students, assign them to summer school or other extra instruction, and that the districts themselves be rated for accountability purposes using the results from these illegally designed assessments.
Additional information regarding this suit is available below.
Press Conference:
Monday, May 23, 2016
10:30 a.m.
Outside the TEA Offices at 1701 N. Congress Ave., Austin, Texas
The press conference will be held on the sidewalk on the northeast corner of the intersection of 17th and Congress (the southwest corner of the block containing the TEA offices)
Availability: Scott Placek, lead counsel for Plaintiffs; Ben Becker, Chairman, Committee to Stop STAAR
Media inquiries should be referred to Ben Becker at 254-744-5174.
Media Resources
The Committee to Stop STAAR has established a website at www.stopstaar.org to track the progress of the litigation. The committee website is not affiliated with Arnold & Placek, P.C.
Committee to Stop STAAR Press Release (5/22/16)
Plaintiff’s Original Petition in Lewis et al. v. Morath
Prepared Remarks of Scott Placek on Filing of HB 743 Litigation
