As the new STARR standardized test comes to Texas and the TAKS test concludes its final year, eleventh and some twelfth grade students prepare for their final dates of testing.

Since 2002 the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and skills has been the standardized test that has determined where a student is academically in their educational career and whether or not a student has to take a TAKS prep class the following year and if they are able to graduate.

Students, who have taken the TAKS test their entire academic career like senior Arthur Lung, think differently about how the standardized test has affected their learning.

“I think it took away from learning the curriculum because we spent so much time preparing for questions on the test versus just learning actual subjects,” Lung said.

Now, eleven years later the TAKS is becoming a thing of the past.

Instead of taking the TAKS standardized test, current sophomores and freshmen will take the Student Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in the spring semester while current juniors will finish their standardized testing by taking their (hopefully) last TAKS test ever. Though there will still be TAKS testing for several more years because of older students not passing previous tests.

“Although it is necessary for measuring accurately what students know, I think we have too many tests such as the MOY and BOY going on that we just need to pare it down and find out what a student knows accurately,” testing coordinator Jharon Ward said.

Some school administrators like Principal Daniel Girard think that the STARR test is a better-standardized test that is more aligned in determining student’s content knowledge than the TAKS.

“The STARR test is more aligned to the courses, rather than the TAKS test at determining student’s content knowledge,” Girard said.

Although the TAKS test will be given to juniors for the final official time starting April 22, there will still continue to be retesting for all of the students in all grade levels that have not met the required academic standards of the test.