|
Senate Bill 111 |
Senate Author: Shapleigh et al. |
|
Effective: 9-1-05 |
House Sponsor: Smith, Todd |
Senate Bill 111 amends the Education Code to require each public college, university, or institute that offers freshman-level courses to adopt and implement a policy to grant undergraduate course credit to entering freshmen who have completed the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program, achieved required scores on one or more Advanced Placement (AP) Program or College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests, or completed one or more courses offered through concurrent high school and college enrollment. The bill requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in consultation with the Texas Education Agency, to identify correlations between the subject matter and content of courses and examinations in the IB, AP, and CLEP programs and to make that information available to the public on the board's website. With certain exceptions, the bill requires each institution to grant at least 24 semester credit hours or equivalent course credit in appropriate subject areas to an entering freshman for successful completion of the IB program.
The bill also allows the commissioner of education to develop a standard method of computing high school grade point averages (GPA) that provides for additional weight to be given to honors, AP, IB, or dual credit courses successfully completed. If the commissioner develops such a method, the bill requires each school district to use the method to compute a student's high school GPA, and it requires the use of a GPA computed in such manner in determining a student's eligibility for automatic college admission.