Our allies at Pastors for Texas Chuldren fought courageously against the passage of voucher legislation but were ultimately defeated by Governor Abbott’s plan to oust moderate Republicans from the legislature.
Funded by Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass and Texas billionaires Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn, both of whom are Christian pastors and nationalists, Abbott managed to defeat the moderate Republicans who worked with Democrats to beat vouchers.
Now the Pastors have set their sights on minimizing the damage done to children by standardized testing. For many years, Texas legislators have been obsessed with test scores. They never consider the harms done by the tests to students, teachers, and the love of learning.
The Pastors did, and they issued this statement:
At Pastors for Texas Children, we believe every child is a precious gift of God, created with unique abilities and potential. Yet for decades, our public schools have been forced to rely on standardized testing as the primary measure of learning and progress. These tests were designed with good intentions, but in practice, they have done real harm to our children, our teachers, and our schools.
Standardized testing narrows the curriculum, reducing education to what can be measured on a multiple-choice exam. It discourages creativity, critical thinking, and the joy of learning. Instead of nurturing a child’s individual talents, testing forces them into a one-size-fits-all mold. For many students, especially those from vulnerable communities, these tests add unnecessary stress and stigma, often labeling children by a single score rather than recognizing their God-given worth.
Teachers, too, are burdened. Their ability to teach with passion and flexibility is restricted when their professional value is tied to test results. Entire classrooms are transformed into test-prep factories, rather than places of discovery, curiosity, and growth. Public schools—the foundation of our democracy—are weakened when accountability is reduced to a number on a page.
HB 8 purports to mitigate the damages of standardized testing and fails. The version advancing out of the Senate is even worse. There is still time to fix this bill, but the clock is ticking. Call your State Representative now and tell them to remove high stakes from these assessments and strip TEA of its authority to administer them.
Our faith calls us to see children as whole beings, not data points. We must move toward assessments that encourage true learning, affirm student progress, and honor the dedicated work of educators. Texas children deserve classrooms that inspire and equip them, not testing regimes that drain and demean them.
We urge you to join us in advocating for an end to the overreliance on standardized testing in Texas public schools. Let us stand together for education that celebrates the fullness of every child’s potential.
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