The pieces of the House Bill 5 are put together and students are striving in classes and working harder than ever to reach goals in the 2013-2015 school year.

The bill includes less standardized testing, students being put on Distinguished and Endorsement plans and changes for a new minimum plan to graduate–.

As a staff we believe that the HB5 eliminates a lot of stress that students and teachers felt the STAAR testing brought. The Distinguished and Endorsement plans are very beneficial to students, because it helps put them on the right track and set them up for their futures as either a college student or working adult.

The less standardised testing part of the bill requires high school students to pass Algebra l, English l, English ll, Biology and U.S. History instead of taking five tests per year.

We think that this gives students the opportunity to learn more about the actual course, because students aren’t being taught to prepare for an end of the year test but more towards important things like college and tools they can utilize later in life.

Another thing that really affects students is the Distinguished and Endorsement plans. These plans are dedicated to try and focus more on the future careers of students.The Endorsement plan offers a variety specific career paths and requires 26 credits. The distinguished plan focuses more on students who want to be eligible for top 10 percent and who plan on going to college.

This is the only flaw we find in the bill. We believe that a student should be eligible for top 10 percent regardless what plan they are on.  If a student on the Endorsement plan is doing the same work, making the same grades and accomplishing all the same goals as one on the Distinguished plan they should be eligible for the same automatic admission to the college of their choice.

We as a staff believe that this bill positively affects everyone and is very beneficial.