Students in the Lone Star state's class of 2005 - today's 10th graders - will have to pass the new Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in order to graduate from high school. A report released by the Texas Education Agency earlier this month indicates that more than 53 percent of students will have trouble passing the test and risk being denied a diploma. Failure rates are expected to be 20 to 30 points higher than they were on the TAAS, the state test being replaced by the TAKS. A coalition of Texas' largest school districts is lobbying state officials to lower the passing score for the new test, which the state board of education set in November. For now, state officials are standing tough, noting that the field-test results that are leading to despair about high failure rates might be a poor predictor of how students will score when the tests actually count.
"School districts team up to oppose test," by Tawnell D. Hobbs, The Dallas Morning News, December 22, 2002
"Report: '04 grad test still daunting," by Terrence Stutz, The Dallas Morning News, December 19, 2002