Republican lawmakers have marketed the new testing system as reducing the pressure on student performance in a heavily weighted test, a common criticism of STAAR testing. This is mostly because it does little to improve the flaws created by the STAAR test and instead slaps a new name on the same system. They’ve just rebranded it,” the president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers (Texas AFT), Zeph Capo, said in a press release. A lot rides on the STAAR test. Morath is one of the few proponents of standardized testing, says Robison.