Since she was a little girl in Cameroon, watching her mom care for a cancer patient, Paola Dembe has...

1. Seniors at risk of not graduating await new law
Since she was a little girl in Cameroon, watching her mom care for a cancer patient, Paola Dembe
has wanted to work in health care. Now a senior at Lee High School in southwest Houston, she has a
shot at a nursing internship this summer - but she needs her diploma first.
Thanks to a bill expected to become law this week in Austin, she may get it.
Dembe, 18, is among thousands of students across Texas hoping to benefit from the law that will
give her a chance to graduate, even though she has yet to pass all five of the state's required
standardized exams.
Riding the wave of anti-testing momentum, state lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the bill -
which will establish committees to review students who have failed one or two exams. Still, some
business and education groups maintainthat Texas, a forerunner in public school accountability, is
lowering standards and may turn out ill-prepared graduates.
In 2013, the Legislature made the first move to scale back testing, cutting the number of high school
exams from a nationwide high of 15 to five. Most of the tests cover freshman or sophomore courses.
Debate aside, with graduation ceremonies a few weeks away, school officials are hurrying to meet
the bill's requirements. They must schedule special committee meetings to decide whether each
student who has not passed all the state exams but has the necessary course credits should
graduate. Only those who fail one or two tests qualify.
Dembe, who has yet to pass the algebra and U.S. history exams after multiple attempts, said she
hopes the committee appreciates her grades, mostly A's and B's. And she hopes the members
consider that she passed her English I and II exams, even though she didn't start learning the
language until she moved here from Africa in eighth grade.
"I want them to give me the opportunity to go to college and live my dream," she said. "I want to
make my parents proud."
28,100 seniors affected
As of December, more than 28,100 seniors statewide - and more than 5,500 in the Houston area -
still had to pass at least one state end-of-course exam. The students had another chance to retake
the exams last week, so the number at risk of not graduating is expected to drop.
School districts, however, will not receive the latest test results for another week or two, adding to
the crunch time before commencement.
Lee High School's ceremony is May 31.
Dembe said she hasn't even made plans. "I'm scared," she said.
Her older sister didn't get to walk across the stage, Dembe said, because she didn't pass the state's
old exams, the TAKS, in time. She passed a retest, however, and now attends community college.

2. Under the bill, school districts must set up an "individual graduation committee" for each student. It
must consist of the principal or a designee; the teacher and department chair of the subject area in
question; and the student's parent or guardian - or the 18-year-old student.
The panel is charged with reviewing several factors, including the student's course grades,
attendance, past scores on state exams, scores on other tests such as the SAT or ACT, and whether
the student took advanced or industry certification courses. The committee must agree unanimously
to graduate the student.
State Sen. Kel Seliger, who authored Senate Bill 149, said he has not heard any concerns from Gov.
Greg Abbott, and he expects it to become law automatically Tuesday, or sooner if Abbott signs it.
The law will expire in 2017.
"Did our entire educational system get better because we came up with a measure and called it the
STAAR test?" Seliger, R-Amarillo asked, referring to the latest testing regime, the State of Texas
Assessments of Academic Readiness. "No, not at all. Look at all the people who work at NASA who
have never taken a STAAR test."
H.D. Chambers, superintendent of the Alief Independent School District, said he strongly supports
the bill and his staff has been making plans since January. About 190 of his seniors still had to pass
at least one exam before re-testing last week.
"This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for students who have not mastered end-of-course exams,"
Chambers said. "All we're attempting to do with this is, let's not let a single test, for students who
struggle with a test, prevent them from graduating."
For example, Chambers said, students may struggle to write an expository or a persuasive essay, as
required by the state English exams, but the district could ask them to write a cover letter to a
potential employer to demonstrate their writing skills.
Alternative review
In the Cypress-Fairbanks school district, all students who go before the graduation committees will
have to complete an alternative assessment - one that doesn't involve bubbling in answers, said
Linda Macias, the associate superintendent of curriculum, instruction and accountability.
"Obviously that's the part they've had a hard time with," she said.
In biology, for instance, the students will rotate through five activities, covering lessons such as
population changes, animal systems and genetics.
The district has about 200 seniors who have all their course credits but had not passed all the state
exams before retesting last week, said Macias. She expects that most students who go before the
graduation committees will be approved to http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/law.html
graduate, as their teachers already have given them passing grades.
The state has similar special committees that can promote fifth- and eighth-grade students who fail
the mandatory exams in reading and math. Few of the students end up being retained. Among the
eighth-graders, 95 percent of those who failed the exams were promoted by the grade placement
committees in 2013, according to the latest state data.

3. Those students who were retained, however, passed state exams the next year at higher rates than
those who were promoted, the data show.
Anna Eastman, a Houston school board member, expressed concerns that the graduation
committees, like those for younger children, are going to graduate too many students who lack basic
skills. Still, she said, she supports the committees to grant exceptions for some students.
"I http://transportation.dmas.virginia.gov/UserProfile/tabid/260/UserId/329/Default.aspx worry when
we've already lowered our standards as much as we have, that allowing for not passing two of the
exams is just going to hurt our kids in the end, more than help them," Eastman said.
Courtney Boswell, a former algebra teacher who serves as executive director of the Austin-based
advocacy group Texas Institute for Education Reform, echoed concerns about the exemptions. She
noted that school officials have an incentive to graduate more students to improve their graduation
rates.
"My concern is for the student. Why is that student getting to their junior and senior year and not
able to perform on these tests?" she said.
Printers on alert
In Spring ISD, where district officials uncovered problems with students' credits and transcripts
earlier this school year, top staff have compiled a detailed timeline for the graduation committees.
Notice will go out to parents next week. If student names need to be added to the commencement
programs, chief of staff Julie Hill said the district is prepared.
"We've already got our printers on alert," she said.
In Houston ISD, the high school chief, Harrison Peters, sent an email to principals calling an
"Emergency Meeting" for Tuesday to discuss the graduation panels and other issues.
HISD students have struggled on the state English exams, with 57 percent passing the freshman test
last year. The district was not able to provide a count of the number of seniors at risk of not
graduating.
Jessica Smith, a social worker with Communities in Schools at Lee High School, said she has seen
students like Dembe stress over the state exams, and she hopes the graduation committee approves
her.
"She's a perfectly capable, smart, talented young woman who deserves to walk across that stage,"
Smith said.
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