The House Public Education Committee met yesterday and took up House Bill (HB) 5 by Committee Chairman Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R–Killeen). Here is a “one-pager” on the bill. A slew of invited and public witnesses testified in favor of the bill, which calls for reducing the amount of standardized testing required for graduation and granting students and local districts more flexibility in setting curriculum requirements. Among the topics witnesses discussed were:

• How testing requirements are taking away instructional days and strangling the learning experience for students, and
• How students are often required to take courses that don’t fit their career path.