HOUSTON -- Texas moved a step closer Thursday to replacing its high-stakes test with end-of-course exams in high school.

The state Senate Education Committee unanimously approved a bill that would revamp the way student learning is measured in the upper grades; elementary and middle school students would still take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, which has long been criticized for putting too much emphasis on a single assessment and forcing teachers to tailor their instruction to a single exam.

High school students must currently pass the TAKS in English, math, social science and science to graduate. Under the new system, students would have to earn a cumulative score of 840 on 12 standardized end exams -- which averages out to a score of 70 per test, but high scores on one exam could compensate for lower scores on another.

The exams would cover material taught that year instead of more general and cumulative information that students should have learned throughout high school, as the TAKS focuses on. The end exams would also account for 15 percent of a student's final grade in a course.

A handful of states, including New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland, already use end-of-course exams in place of high-stakes tests. End exams can be used to fulfill the No Child Left Behind requirement for testing if they are standardized.

Also on Thursday, the Houston Independent School District board unanimously approved a resolution calling for the legislature to end TAKS testing in high school and replace it with the comprehensive end-of-course exams.

State Sen. Florence Shapiro, a Plano Republican and former teacher who chairs the education committee, said the new system will better reflect the needs of students and teachers.

"We heard from a lot of parents and we've heard from a lot of teachers that the original intent of the TAKS hasn't happened," Shapiro said. The test hasn't proved to be an effective diagnostic tool or a reliable measure of student learning, she said.

End-of-course exams will be more timely and relevant, as well as less high-stakes, Shapiro said. "It'll be much more indicative of the progress a student is making."

The Texas bill has bipartisan support and the endorsement of several teachers' unions and school districts.

"The high school teachers like it. The elementary teachers want to know why they're still stuck with the TAKS," said Houston Federation of Teachers president Gayle Fallon.

Teachers have been "screaming" in complaint about the high-stakes test because they must spend about a month of instruction going over past material that will be on the TAKS, Fallon said.

If this system had been in place when Fallon was a government teacher, "we'd have only done two of the three branches of government," she said.

The board of the Houston school district, the state's largest, unanimously passed a resolution Thursday calling for the same changes to the state's accountability system as are outlined in the bill.

"The school board's action on this should be heard loudly in Austin and shold be heard around the state," said district spokesman Terry Abbott. "We think it's a more thorough way to make sure kids are learning."

But at least one expert expressed caution on how the plan is implemented.

"This is a lot more complicated than getting rid of the mean ol' nasty TAKS test and going to the more sensible end-of-course exam," said Sandy Kress, an Austin-based education consultant who advised Bush on No Child Left Behind.

The new system would complicate how schools as a whole are assessed, Kress said, and how the state can move toward measuring students' growth, since comparing performance on a general math test is easier than comparing how a student did on Algebra 2 versus geometry.

"It's a good idea," Kress said, but "the work doesn't end with passing the bill, it just begins."

The measure is expected to go the Senate floor in the next few weeks. The Texas House Public Education Committee is considering a companion bill. If the legislation passes in both chambers, it would have to go to the state and federal education departments for review before Texas can say farewell to the high school TAKS. Shapiro said she hopes the new system can start being phased in beginning in fall 2008 with ninth graders.