What grade do you need to pass the STAAR test in 2026-27? The raw scores for Approaches, Meets and Masters by grade, what happens if a child fails, and what changes in 2027-28

"What grade do you need to pass the STAAR test" has a short answer and a long one. The short answer is that there is no grade: STAAR reports four performance levels, and passing means reaching the second one, Approaches Grade Level. The long answer is the raw score that takes on each test, which the Texas Education Agency publishes every summer as a table, and which is much lower than most parents expect. This post gives the numbers from the latest published tables, explains the three levels above Did Not Meet, what actually happens to a child who does not pass in elementary, middle and high school, and what changes when STAAR is replaced in 2027-28.

The four STAAR performance levels

The levels are set as scale scores, which do not change from year to year. The raw score (number of points) that reaches each scale score is worked out after each spring's test and published in a raw score conversion table, so the passing raw score moves a little each year as the test's difficulty is equated.

The raw scores for Approaches, Meets and Masters (spring 2025 tables)

These are from the TEA conversion tables for spring 2025, the latest published as of September 2026; the 2026 tables are published on the TEA raw score conversion page each summer and move by a point or two. Points, not questions: since the 2023 redesign some items are worth two points.

Mathematics

Reading language arts

Science and social studies

Read across the math row for grade 4: a child passes with 17 of 40 points, about 43 per cent, is on track at 24, and masters at 31. The passing bar is low by design; the level that matters for a child's future is Meets, and the distance between Approaches and Meets is where a year of the right teaching shows.

What happens if a child does not pass

Grades 3 to 8. The child is not held back on the STAAR result. The old rule that a grade 5 or grade 8 student had to pass reading and math to be promoted was removed in 2021 (HB 4545), and the current rule (HB 1416, 2023) replaces it with accelerated instruction: the school must give the child extra teaching in that subject in the next school year, in a small group or under a plan, and tell the parent. Promotion is decided by the school on grades and attendance, as for any other child. A child who fails grade 8 math is promoted to grade 9 and gets accelerated instruction there; the STAAR result follows the child in the school's data, not on the report card.

High school. To graduate a student must pass five end-of-course exams: Algebra I, Biology, English I, English II and US History. A student who does not pass one retakes it (there are administrations in December, spring and June). A student who has failed no more than two after retakes can graduate through an individual graduation committee, which looks at the whole record. Failing an EOC does not fail the course; the course grade is the school's.

What is on the test in 2026-27

STAAR was redesigned in 2023: it is online, most questions are multiple choice but a share are new item types (drag and drop, inline choice, text entry, hot spot), reading passages are cross-curricular, and reading language arts includes an extended constructed response (an essay) marked by a rubric. Grades 3 to 8 sit math and RLA every year, science in grades 5 and 8, social studies in grade 8. The 2027 administration is in April and May 2027. Practice tests in the online format are on the Texas Assessment site; the released tests from 2023, 2024 and 2025 are the best preparation because they show the new item types.

What changes in 2027-28

House Bill 8, signed on 17 September 2025, replaces STAAR in grades 3 to 8 from the 2027-28 school year with three shorter tests during the year (beginning, middle and end), with results returned within days rather than in June. The spring 2027 STAAR is therefore the last one for a child now in grades 3 to 7. What does not change: the state standards (the TEKS) that both tests measure, the accelerated instruction rule, and the end-of-course exams for graduation. A child who is at Approaches now needs the same thing under either test: the missing grade-level skills taught, not test practice.

From Approaches to Meets: what it takes

The gap between Approaches and Meets on grade 4 math is 7 points of 40; on grade 5 RLA it is 8 of 52. In our experience that gap is two or three missing topics, not a general weakness: in math it is usually fractions and multi-step word problems in grades 3 to 5, and ratios, proportional reasoning and equations in grades 6 to 8; in RLA it is inference questions and the essay. A child who works on those two or three topics, one tutor and one child, twice a week from October, sits the spring test at Meets. The STAAR tutoring page has the grade-by-grade detail. The first 30-minute class is free; bring the last STAAR report card (the level and the scale score are on it) and we will tell you which topics cost the level.

Questions parents ask

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