Lawmakers vote to exempt thousands of high school seniors from graduation exams

High school seniors would be able to fail two of the state’s five high school graduation tests and still receive a diploma under a bill approved by the Senate and sent to the governor on Wednesday. The measure would make it possible for thousands of seniors to be exempted from graduation requirements this year.

Under the bill by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, those students would have to pass at least three of the exams and get a passing average in all their core classes. In addition, they would have to get the testing waiver approved by a special graduation committee appointed for each affected student.

Sponsors said the measure is aimed at the 28,000 seniors from the Class of 2015 who are in danger of not graduating because they have not passed one or more of the STAAR end-of-course tests. That figure represents about 10 percent of the class.

Three of the five EOC exams – Algebra I, English I and biology – are typically given in the first year of high school and another test – English II during sophomore year. The fifth exam, in U.S. history, is mostly taken in junior year. For Algebra I and biology, students only have to get 37 percent of the test items correct to pass.

Read more: http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/lawmakers-vote-to-exempt-thousands-of-high-school-seniors-from-graduation-exams.html/

[font color=green]Considering that these are multiple choice tests which normally have five choices theoretically students should get 20% correct by random selection so 37% is a very low bar to pass the exams.[/font]