If enacted, the bill would limit the weight standardized high school and graduate tests, such as the SAT, ACT and LSAT carry in the admissions process to no more than 20 percent.
Depending on the school, the current weight for standardized tests is 50-75 percent, said Texas Rep. Domingo Garcia, D-Dallas.
Garcia, co-author of the bill, said universities place too much importance on standardized tests in their admissions criteria. He said standardized tests "cannot measure how well a student will do in a university classroom."
Garcia also said several other factors, such as academic performance, community involvement and socioeconomic status should hold more weight in the admission process.
Citing a common criticism of standardized tests, Garcia said institutions use SAT, ACT and postgraduate test scores to prevent higher-education opportunities for solid students.
"The SAT is being used as a tool to exclude people from colleges," he said. "There seems to be something fundamentally wrong (with the system)."
An emphasis on standardized tests discriminates against students from disadvantaged backgrounds, Garcia said.
He also said several studies have indicated that students attending affluent high schools fare better on standardized tests than those from urban and rural public school systems.
The bill follows a recent proposal by University of California-system President Richard Atkinson that called for the elimination of the SAT as an admissions requirement.
