{"id":362576,"date":"2026-07-06T12:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362576\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:39:13","slug":"texas-pass-grants-offer-400-for-staar-reading-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362576\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas PASS grants offer $400 for STAAR reading help"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Parent Access to Supplemental Supports, or PASS, program offers $400 grants to third graders who didn\u2019t pass the\u00a0STAAR reading exam<\/a>. Texas lawmakers created the program last year as a part of House Bill 2. The program launches this fall.<\/p>\n

The program is open to students in Texas public schools, including charter schools, who scored \u201cDid not meet grade level\u201d on the 2026 STAAR third-grade reading test. Students who meet those criteria are eligible even if they\u2019ve moved on to fourth grade. Students who scored \u201cApproaches grade level\u201d don\u2019t qualify. Parents can check their child\u2019s STAAR scores at TexasAssessment.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About 27% of third graders across the state didn\u2019t meet grade level on this year\u2019s reading test, according to TEA records. That\u2019s a little more than 103,000 students across Texas.<\/p>\n

Education researchers and school leaders say third grade is a critical milestone for reading because students who are behind at that point are unlikely to catch up later on and are at greater risk of dropping out of high school. During a State Board of Education meeting in June, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath <\/a>repeated a truism that\u2019s often cited by education leaders: third grade is the point where students should stop learning to read and begin reading to learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting to third grade proficiency in reading is particularly important to unlock all the rest of education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

My third grader is behind in reading. How can I use the grant money?<\/p>\n

Parents will be able to use the money to pay for private literacy tutoring to help get their children up to grade level. TEA officials plan to launch a marketplace of tutoring providers later this year. During the meeting, Morath said parents will be able to use the grants to pay for tutoring through programs such as Kumon or Sylvan Learning, or use it to hire individual teachers who are listed in the marketplace to work with their child individually. Parents can also use it to hire instructors with specialized certifications, such as Licensed Dyslexia Therapists or Certified Academic Language Therapists.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard about the Texas Education Freedom Account program. Is this the same thing?<\/p>\n

No. The Texas Education Freedom Account program gives students money to help pay for private school tuition or home schooling expenses. Students in those educational settings aren\u2019t eligible for the PASS program.<\/p>\n

The application window opens this fall. Parents may create a PASS portal account by going to\u00a0pass.tea.texas.gov<\/a>, and use that account to apply once the window opens.<\/p>\n

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.<\/p>\n

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Parent Access to Supplemental Supports, or PASS, program offers $400 grants to third graders who didn\u2019t pass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[95012,27,29,28,89512,89205,92239,89204,117621,92242],"class_list":["post-362576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-news-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-dallas-isd","tag-tp-ed-lab-teach-learn","tag-tp-education-lab","tag-tp-staar","tag-tp-texas-education-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}