On May 7, House Bill 5 was passed in the Senate unanimously that will make significant changes to the standardized testing Texas students must take.

With the law regarding testing that is in place now, students are required to pass 15 End Of Course (EOC) exams in order to graduate. House Bill 5 aims to lower that number to five. Algebra II and English III would be optional exams for schools to assess college readiness.

The other aspects of graduation that the bill will affect are the requirements to graduate. Previously, four years of credit were required in every core class (English, math, science and social studies). House Bill 5 will require four years of English credit and only three years of credit in the other subjects. This is setup to be beneficial to students who plan to go into a vocational program instead of college.

There was also a plan that the bill would change the campus ratings of “Exemplary,” “Recognized,” “Acceptable,” and “Unacceptable,” to letter grades. Exemplary would be an A, Recognized would be a B and so on. However, the new plan keeps the old ratings for schools but districts will be given the letter grades.

The bill still has to be approved by the governor, so there is a committee made up of senators and house members working with the governor’s office to make sure that everyone will be satisfied with the bill.