Texas high school students who graduate after Aug. 31, 2027 will no longer have to pass a state English II exam to earn a diploma, the Texas Education Agency told school administrators in a letter dated Aug. 20, ending a testing requirement that has stood since the state built its current graduation system.
The agency’s guidance is unusually specific about who is caught on which side of the line. “The final administration of the English II EOC assessment will occur in June 2027,” the letter states. “Students who graduate before August 31, 2027, must satisfy all applicable graduation requirements, including the English II EOC assessment requirement.” EOC stands for end-of-course, the family of subject tests Texas gives at the close of certain high school classes rather than by grade level.
Students now in the class of 2027 therefore still have to pass it. Students behind them do not — but they still have to sit for it. “For students who graduate after August 31, 2027, the English II EOC assessment is no longer a graduation requirement,” the agency wrote. “However, students enrolled in an English II course in the 2026-27 school year must still participate in the English II EOC assessment as first-time testers.”
The practical decision now falls to districts, and it arrives in the middle of a school year that has already started. TEA told testing coordinators they “may remove the English II EOC Eligibility and Retester flags in the Test Information Distribution Engine (TIDE) for the December 2026, Spring 2027, and June 2027 administrations for students who are not required to pass the English II EOC assessment for graduation.” In plain terms, districts must decide this fall whether to keep pulling students out of class to retake a test that will no longer stand between them and a diploma. The agency’s answer is that “retesting is not required for graduation purposes.”
The change carries out House Bill 8, passed by the 89th Legislature in 2025, which reworked how Texas measures high school students. The letter was one of seven the agency sent administrators on Aug. 20, a batch that also included guidance on teacher certification incentives, prekindergarten partnerships, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exam fee subsidies, and a broader update on House Bill 8.
One of those letters adds a graduation requirement even as the English II letter removes one. Under a rule that took effect Aug. 1, “beginning with students enrolled during the 2026-2027 school year, each student must satisfy the new direct admissions requirement to graduate,” according to the agency’s guidance on graduation requirements. Direct admissions is a program in which public colleges tell qualifying students up front that they are already admitted.
A student satisfies the requirement by setting up a My Texas Future profile and electing to take part, by formally opting out on a state form, or by being 18 or older. Districts must notify parents annually once a student has earned three high school credits, or by the end of ninth grade, and the opt-out form must be offered in English, Spanish “and any other language spoken by a majority of the students enrolled in a bilingual education or special language program.” The requirement comes from Senate Bill 2314 of the same session.
The English II exam has been one of the more stubborn obstacles in the Texas testing system. Reading and writing scores across the state have moved little for years, a pattern the Dispatch examined in its analysis of the 2026 STAAR results, and the results feed the A-F ratings the state released to districts on Aug. 14. Removing the exam as a graduation gate does not by itself change what students learn or how campuses are graded; it changes who is held back for failing it.
The agency did not say in the letter what, if anything, will replace English II as a check on writing before a diploma is awarded. Districts have until the December 2026 administration to decide how they will handle the students still carrying a retester flag they no longer need.