Across Texas, third- through eighth-graders are still struggling to perform at pre-pandemic levels in math on the annual STAAR exam.

Statewide results released Tuesday show that while most of those grade levels have recovered in reading and are now passing at rates higher than in 2019, in math no grades have fully bounced back from pandemic-era declines. On average, passing rates in math are more than 10 percentage points below their 2019 levels.

The gap is especially pronounced in seventh grade, where 48% of students attained passing scores this year, compared to 73% in 2019.

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Houston ISD saw a similar setback. This spring, 49% of the district's seventh-graders passed the math portion of the STAAR exam, while 69% were passing back in 2019 (more on HISD's scores below).

The Texas Education Agency (TEA), which conducts the standardized testing, says this major decline in seventh-grade math assessments is partly because far more seventh-grade students are now taking the eighth-grade math assessment.

"The 2026 results demonstrate both the progress Texas students are making and the work that remains ahead of us," Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in a news release. "We are encouraged by continued gains in mathematics, especially with the growing number of students participating and succeeding in advanced mathematics courses."

Last week the TEA released STAAR scores for high school students.

For students to be considered passing, they must only be "approaching" grade-level skills. The next benchmark for "meets grade level" is on average down 5% from pre-pandemic performances.

Mary Lynn Pruneda, the director of education and workforce policy at the public policy research and advocacy organization Texas 2036, also said the state has more work to do. She noted that 45% of students in grades 3-8 are meeting grade-level standards for math and 55% for reading.

"We don’t believe that we should be satisfied with 50% of students on grade level," Pruneda said. "I think every parent that I’ve ever talked to, as long as I’ve done this work, has absolutely agreed with that sentiment. That 50% of students are on grade level is un-Texan."

Though third- through eighth-grade students are still struggling to recover in math, the passing rates for every grade level either stayed stable or rose when compared to last year, indicating some progress.

"While the progress is something to celebrate and certainly something to give credit to, particularly our public school teachers, it’s one of the things that we just can’t stop getting better because our kids deserve a lot more," Pruneda said.

Pruneda says parents can use the STAAR scores as an indicator to see if their child may need more help preparing and being successful at the next grade level. STAAR scores alone do not determine whether a student advances to the next grade level.

Students passing the social studies exam were also behind pre-pandemic levels, but scores were on the rise when compared to last year's.

The TEA says an update to science curriculum required new content on the exam, and the agency is now recalibrating the benchmarks to ensure the new content does not increase or decrease the difficulty of the test. The scores for those exams will be available at the end of July.

The agency says that will not cause a delay in the release of its annual A-F accountability ratings for schools and districts across the state, the next edition of which will be published in August. Performance on standardized tests is a significant factor in the accountability ratings, which can trigger state intervention if a school or district consistently receives failing grades.

How Houston ISD fared

In Houston ISD, the state's largest school district, eighth graders saw some of the biggest gains in both reading and math. Those students raised their pass rate by 4 percentage points in math and 7 points in reading.

Morath said the gains in reading may be associated with the state's recently passed cellphone ban in classrooms.

Seventh graders in HISD also boosted their pass rate in reading by 6 percentage points, but mirrored state trends in math. The number of HISD seventh-graders passing the math STAAR exam fell by 9 percentage points compared to last year.

In a video on HISD's YouTube page, state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said, as Morath noted, many of the district's seventh graders – 42% – took the eighth-grade STAAR math exam this year.

Fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders in HISD all saw a rise in the percentage of students passing the math exam compared to last spring, but the percentage is still lagging behind pre-pandemic performances.

In reading, fifth- and sixth-graders saw modest gains, while fourth-graders dropped a percentage point behind last year's pass rate.

There are fewer third-graders passing both reading and math in HISD when compared to last year's scores. Third-graders in the district have also surpassed pre-pandemic levels only in reading. Their passing rate in math remains 8 percentage points lower than it was in 2019.

Changes to STAAR

STAAR, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, is an annual assessment of students in Texas public schools administered by the TEA. For elementary and middle schools, the tests measure a student's knowledge and skills in math, science, social studies and reading and language arts.

The exams are administered near the end of the school year and score students in four different achievement buckets: did not meet, approaches and above, meets and above, and masters. A STAAR exam score, even in the lowest category — “did not meet” — cannot hold a student back. All other achievement levels are considered passing.

Last summer, state legislators approved House Bill 8, which will replace the unpopular annual assessment with three tests – two of which are said to be shorter – and disperse the tests throughout the school year. Those changes are scheduled to take place for the 2027-2028 school year.

The assessments will also now be “adaptive,” which means test questions are adjusted based on the students' responses to previous questions. Each student may experience a different set of test questions.

Republicans in the Texas House celebrated the changes, while many Democrats said they equated to little more than a redistribution of the same amount of testing.

Bob Popinski, the dean of policy for the education nonprofit Raise Your Hand Texas, said there is good intention behind the changes. However, the law has not reformed how the tests are used to determine accountability ratings for schools. Though there will now be three tests, only the end-of-year exam will be considered when the TEA assesses schools for their accountability ratings.

STAAR scores play a central role in determining a school’s accountability rating. Each year, the TEA assigns A-F ratings to every public school and district in the state, with student performance on STAAR accounting for a significant share of those ratings. Low ratings can trigger serious consequences, including school closures and state intervention.

Eight Texas school districts, including Houston ISD, are set to operate under state control during the upcoming school year, while several others remain at risk of a state takeover due to their accountability performance. Six of the eight districts are under state control were taken over due to consecutive failing accountability ratings.

"Nothing has changed when it comes to a high stakes test that feeds into campus ratings and then district rating," Popinski said.