TYLER, Texas — With less than a week away from STAAR testing in Texas, students, parents and teachers are holding their breath to find out if the long hours they’ve put into prep will pay off.
“These kids work so hard. Just, they're in their mindset, it's, ‘I need a pass,'” said Elizabeth, a school teacher administrator.
She’s been working in education for seven years and sees firsthand how much pressure kids feel to perform well and how deflated they feel when they fall short.
“Just because they didn't pass their whole emotions, everything, they worked hard for everything that they did, it was almost like, you know, ‘you did good, but not good enough,’ because of this test,” Elizabeth said.
She also said the stress her third graders felt doesn’t just go away. It sticks with a lot of them through high school.
"You're waiting your last year, you haven't passed a certain test. And here you are thinking, ‘Am I going to get a high school diploma or not?’ That is so heartbreaking,” she said.
Seventh grader Bailey Darden feels anxious ahead of this year’s test. She excels in the classroom, but standardized testing hasn’t been the right fit for her.
“I feel confident while I'm doing it. But I guess there's this little voice inside my head saying 'No, that's wrong,'" Darden said.
Her mom Frankie Darden, who sat beside her daughter, added, “I think she did lose a little of her passion for excelling. And it was just like, you know, more of a checklist.”
Elizabeth is a mom as well. She’s spent about $4,000 on tutoring at Sylvan. The whole reason they started coming was the STAAR test.
As the pressure intensifies with each passing day, parents, students and staff feel learning isn’t a one size fits all and testing shouldn’t be either.