By Rodriguez                                          H.B. No. 1338
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to testing and remedial education of a student enrolled in
    1-3  a certificate program.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 51.306, Education Code, is amended by
    1-6  amending Subsection (b) and adding Subsection (s) to read as
    1-7  follows:
    1-8        (b)  All students in the following categories who enter
    1-9  public institutions of higher education <in the fall of 1989 and
   1-10  thereafter> must be tested for reading, writing, and mathematics
   1-11  skills:
   1-12              (1)  all full-time and part-time freshmen enrolled in a
   1-13  <certificate or> degree program;
   1-14              (2)  any other student, prior to the accumulation of
   1-15  nine or more semester credit hours or the equivalent; and
   1-16              (3)  any transfer student with fewer than 60 semester
   1-17  credit hours or the equivalent who has not previously taken the
   1-18  tests.
   1-19        For that purpose, the institution shall use a test instrument
   1-20  prescribed by the board.  The same instrument shall be used at all
   1-21  public institutions of higher education.
   1-22        (s)  This section does not apply to a student enrolled in a
   1-23  certificate program of one year or less.
   1-24        SECTION 2.  Section 51.3061, Education Code, is amended by
    2-1  amending Subsection (b) and adding Subsection (f) to read as
    2-2  follows:
    2-3        (b)  A deaf student who enrolls at an institution of higher
    2-4  education must take the Stanford Achievement Test, nationally
    2-5  normed on the hearing-impaired population by Gallaudet University,
    2-6  if the student:
    2-7              (1)  is a full-time or part-time freshman enrolled in a
    2-8  <certificate or> degree program that contains nine or more semester
    2-9  credit hours of general education courses or the equivalent of
   2-10  those courses; or
   2-11              (2)  is a transfer student from an institution that is
   2-12  not an institution of higher education, has less than 60 semester
   2-13  credit hours, and has not previously taken the test required by
   2-14  this section.
   2-15        (f)  This section does not apply to a student enrolled in a
   2-16  certificate program of one year or less.
   2-17        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-23  passage, and it is so enacted.