Texas STAAR test rescoring requests nearly triple as schools question computer grading

Texas school districts submitted 64,489 requests to rescore STAAR reading exams in spring 2026, nearly tripling the 21,620 requests from 2025. The surge follows the Texas Education Agency's transition to automated computer grading for open-ended questions. While the state improved over 13,300 scores after reviews, educators express growing distrust in computer-assigned grades, especially as low scores can trigger state takeovers of underperforming school districts.

Surge in STAAR rescoring requests

• ▪More than 250 Texas public charter networks and school districts, including Cypress-Fairbanks, Dallas, Katy, and Northside, submitted STAAR rescoring requests in spring 2026.
• ▪Rachel White, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, stated that the tripling of STAAR rescoring requests indicates a trust problem among educators regarding how the exams are scored.
• ▪Texas school districts submitted 64,489 requests to regrade open-ended reading responses on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in spring 2026, up from 21,620 in 2025 and 2,758 in spring 2024.

Results of the rescoring process

• ▪Nearly 90% of the Texas school districts and charter networks that submitted STAAR rescoring requests in spring 2026 had at least one exam see a score increase.
• ▪The Texas Education Agency improved more than 13,300 STAAR reading scores in spring 2026 following reviews, with humans having initially graded 42% of those exams and computers grading 58%.

Policies and costs of rescoring

• ▪Texas school districts must pay $50 per test if they request a STAAR rescore and the student's score does not change, while the rescore is free if the score changes.
• ▪The Texas Education Agency automatically rescored extended constructed student responses at no cost if the exams were one point away from qualifying for the next performance level.

The state's automated scoring system

• ▪The Texas Education Agency began using an automated scoring engine in December 2023 to grade open-ended questions on STAAR reading and English exams, with humans manually reviewing 25% of exam scores.
• ▪The Texas Education Agency's automated scoring engine was programmed to assign scores based on characteristics learned from thousands of student responses previously scored by humans.
• ▪Texas Education Agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky stated that scoring STAAR essays entirely by hand would require four to five times more human scorers and cost an additional $15 million to $20 million annually.

Debate over zero scores

• ▪Texas Education Agency officials attributed the low writing scores in 2023 to other factors, including that many students were retaking the exam.
• ▪Texas school districts initially criticized the state's use of automated scoring after a spike in students earning zero scores on writing prompts during the first round of computer-graded exams.

Impact on School Accountability

• ▪Dallas Independent School District officials estimated that combined automatic and district-requested STAAR rescores helped five campuses improve their overall state accountability ratings before public release.
• ▪Under Texas state law, the education commissioner can take action, such as installing a conservator or replacing a locally elected school board, if a campus underperforms on the STAAR test for multiple years.

Debatable claims

• ▪Texas should abandon automated grading for open-ended STAAR exam questions
• ▪Texas's $50 fee for unsuccessful STAAR rescoring requests unfairly penalizes school districts