Washington, DC nonprofit Achieve recently released a report that estimated only 25% of Texas students in the Class of 2015 graduated college/career ready, according to ACT and SAT data. The Austin Chamber uses a different methodology to determine college readiness – aligned with Texas’ lesser criteria which allows for lower ACT or SAT scores to count as college ready.

However, by either Achieve’s or Texas’ definition, Texas has a problem: we no longer have reliable information for each junior and senior on whether they are college ready or not. What we are finding is that, despite requirements in Texas law (passed in 2013), the vast majority of school districts around the state simply don’t know which juniors and seniors are college ready today. School districts need this information so they can counsel students who are not college ready to become so.

This wasn’t always the case. In 2006, Texas organized the public school system to expose students to a well-rounded course of study needed to graduate college/career ready. Content and assessments from elementary to high school became vertically linked to that outcome. But, in 2013, Texas abandoned ship. House Bill 5 significantly lowered course expectations and dropped Algebra II, Geometry, English III (11th Grade), Chemistry and Physics from state assessment. Thus, for the first time in a decade, Texas no longer systematically tests student college/career readiness. And as we all know, what gets measured gets done. With the absence of state tests – and the fact that only 66% of Texas students take the SAT/ACT – many students go through high school without knowledge of whether they are college/career ready…which is in clear violation of HB 5.

During the Interim, we urge the Legislature to reexamine Sen. Kel Seliger’s unsuccessful bill (SB 452) from 2015 which would have funded and required schools to administer a college readiness test for all Texas 10th grade students. This way, we will all know for sure whether or not a student is college ready and will be able to help students that are not.