Dive Summary:

• Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an education reform bill into law on Monday.
• The new law will cut the number of end-of-course exams students must take to graduate high school from 15 down to 5.
• The law also gets rid of the requirement that students' end-of-course test scores make up 15% of their course grade.

From the article:

The new reform initiative Perry signed into law cuts from 15 to 5 the number of end-of-course exams students must take to graduate from high school, and eliminates the requirement that test scores represent 15 percent of a student’s grade for the course. The new law, among other things, gives students more curriculum flexibility, an apparent nod to teenagers not headed to college.

The Texas testing revolt first got traction when, in January 2012, the state education commissioner at the time, Robert Scott, said the mentality that standardized testing is the “end-all, be-all” is a “perversion” of what a quality education should be. He also called “the assessment and accountability regime” not only “a cottage industry but a military-industrial complex.” School boards across the state then began passing resolutions demanding that the testing regime be reconsidered, and Texas lawmakers began to publicly call for a reduction in testing.