According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), HB 8 is projected to have a net negative fiscal impact of approximately $55.9 million to the General Revenue Fund over the 2026–2027 biennium, with ongoing costs in subsequent years. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will incur significant expenses related to the development, administration, and transition to the new instructionally supportive assessment program, which is set to replace STAAR by the 2027-2028 school year. These costs are partially offset by projected savings from discontinuing STAAR after the transition is complete.

Specifically, TEA estimates the development of the new assessment program will cost $13.2 million in fiscal year 2026 and $34.0 million in fiscal year 2027. Administration of the program is estimated to cost an additional $0.6 million and $1.3 million, respectively, in those two years. While the eventual transition is expected to result in annual savings, $5 million in 2026 and 2027, increasing to $21.1 million in 2028, these savings will not be sufficient to offset the upfront development and implementation costs in the early years.

Other notable fiscal implications include $2.2 million annually for teacher item-review committees, $0.3 million for a higher education-led study on assessment design, and $5 million per year for a newly established grant program to assist districts in developing local accountability systems. TEA anticipates hiring nine additional full-time staff members at an annual cost of $1.1 million. Modest technology infrastructure upgrades are estimated at $200,000.

While the state-level costs are detailed, the local government impact is less predictable. School districts and charter schools will be required to adapt testing practices, collect and report new forms of data, and make assessment results accessible to parents, potentially resulting in significant changes with undetermined costs. Additionally, districts subject to TEA interventions may incur monthly conservator costs ranging from $2,500 to $8,000.

HB 8 aims to replace the STAAR testing system with an "instructionally supportive assessment program" and modernize Texas’s public school accountability framework. While the bill reflects a growing recognition of the need to shift away from high-stakes, summative testing toward more formative and responsive models, the mechanisms and structural choices made in HB 8 substantially conflict with core principles of limited government, individual liberty, and local control. These concerns are serious enough that Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB 8 unless amended as described below.

The bill represents a fundamental reordering of power in Texas education policy by transferring significant rulemaking and oversight authority from the elected State Board of Education (SBOE) to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the unelected Commissioner of Education. This shift away from public accountability undermines the constitutional structure of education governance and risks concentrating too much discretion in a centralized bureaucracy. TEA is not only tasked with designing the new assessment model but is also granted expansive powers to enforce interventions, approve local assessment tools, and manage funding, functions traditionally overseen or balanced by local districts and the SBOE.

Furthermore, while HB 8 claims to make testing more "instructionally supportive," it effectively replaces one high-stakes model with another that is more frequent, less flexible, and arguably more intrusive. Students would now be required to take assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year, significantly increasing the volume of mandatory state testing. There is no opt-out provision for parents, no clear local discretion over test administration windows, and limited accommodation for campus-level flexibility. This rigidity curtails both individual liberty and local responsibility, putting classroom-level instruction at the service of state-level testing requirements rather than vice versa.

From a fiscal standpoint, the bill imposes a substantial cost to the state, estimated at nearly $56 million over the initial biennium, with ongoing operational expenses in the tens of millions annually. These include devthe elopment and administration of new assessments, a teacher review process, a grant program, and additional state staff. Though proponents argue that future savings will come from phasing out STAAR, the bill provides no guarantees or spending caps to ensure fiscal restraint. It also fails to demonstrate how these costs will lead to measurable academic improvements or reduced burdens on teachers and schools.

In addition, the bill restricts the ability of local education agencies (LEAs) to challenge TEA decisions, while also limiting how school districts can use funds in legal proceedings involving the agency. These constraints on procedural fairness raise further concerns about due process, government accountability, and the weakening of meaningful checks on executive power.

HB 8 does take some positive steps, such as requiring teacher input on test item development, improving parent access to results, and allowing the use of alternative assessments. However, those improvements do not outweigh the structural overreach and increased regulatory complexity embedded in the bill. The problems are not cosmetic; they go to the heart of educational governance, family rights, and the role of the state in defining instructional practice.

HB 8 would need to be amended to:

• Restore primary rulemaking authority to the SBOE,
• Reduce or make optional the frequency of required assessments,
• Include a clear opt-out mechanism for families,
• Add statutory guardrails limiting TEA’s enforcement and intervention authority, and
• Set clear limits on fiscal appropriations and long-term administrative expansion.

Until such reforms are adopted, HB 8 should not be supported. It replaces one inflexible and centralized model with another, undercuts constitutional checks and balances, and imposes new costs and mandates without sufficient accountability.

• Individual Liberty: The bill increases the frequency and scope of state-mandated student assessments by requiring three standardized tests per year (beginning, middle, and end-of-year) for all public school students in tested grades and subjects. While the assessments are described as "instructionally supportive," they remain compulsory, with no opt-out mechanism for parents or students who may object to the testing schedule or format. This restriction limits parental control over a child's education, which is a key expression of individual liberty. Additionally, the bill broadens the state’s authority to collect and analyze individual student performance data without strong, explicit protections for student privacy or parental consent. This raises further concerns about the state’s role in educational decisions that traditionally rest with families.
• Personal Responsibility: The bill is designed to give educators and parents more timely access to student progress data, which theoretically empowers them to take more active and informed roles in supporting student achievement. Teachers are included in the test item review process, and parents will receive easier access to their children’s test results through a secure online portal. However, the state-directed, top-down design limits the degree to which families and local educators can meaningfully decide how and when to use that data. Without discretion over assessment structure, format, or scheduling, the ability of individuals to take personal responsibility is diminished. The data becomes a state-imposed accountability tool rather than a resource shaped and used by those closest to the student.
• Free Enterprise: The bill requires TEA to contract with a nationally recognized assessment provider to develop the new testing system. This creates a narrow procurement channel that favors large, entrenched vendors, often multi-state corporations with limited ties to Texas. There are no strong provisions encouraging competitive bidding, innovation, or opportunities for Texas-based education service providers to participate in this space. By institutionalizing a vendor monopoly over assessment development, the bill may limit market competition and reduce the opportunity for smaller firms or open-source alternatives to innovate in the assessment sector.
• Private Property Rights: The bill does not directly affect land use, ownership, or traditional private property. However, the growing volume of personal student data being collected, stored, and disseminated by the state without robust privacy safeguards raises broader concerns related to informational property rights. The bill lacks provisions on who owns the student data, how long it is retained, who can access it, and whether third parties can use it for research or commercial purposes. As educational data becomes a commodity, this area of liberty may become increasingly relevant, and the bill misses the opportunity to proactively protect it.
• Limited Government: The bill represents a significant expansion of state government authority, particularly through the centralization of rulemaking and operational control within the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Specifically it transfers authority from the elected State Board of Education (SBOE) to the unelected Commissioner of Education, grants TEA wide discretion over test design, administration, and enforcement, imposes new mandates on local districts with limited avenues for challenge, restricts the use of public funds by school districts to legally contest TEA decisions, and empowers TEA to maintain sanctions and interventions indefinitely, even when accountability ratings are suspended or legally challenged. This concentration of executive power diminishes democratic oversight and local control. Instead of decentralizing decision-making in a way that reflects Texas’s tradition of self-governance, the bill entrenches a technocratic model that puts significant trust in bureaucracy over voters and locally elected school boards.