In debates over secondary assessment, the question is not whether grades are imperfect, but whether transcripts can more faithfully signal learning without sacrificing fairness or portability. Districts piloting competency-based transcripts—records that certify specific skills demonstrated on common performance tasks—report better alignment with college placement and CTE hiring. A multi-state study found that externally moderated capstone tasks predicted first-year persistence more accurately than GPA, which varies by school culture. Yet critics worry about inflation of "proficient" ratings and idiosyncratic rubrics. Those risks are real if competency claims lack verification and if districts diverge wildly in what "proficient" means. The remedy, however, is not retreat to seat-time credits; it is a standards-backed system that couples competency transcripts with statewide task banks, third-party moderation, equity audits to detect pattern gaps, and portability standards so colleges and employers can read them at a glance. Early adopters in public systems show admissions officers can adapt when evidence is trustworthy and comparable. Competency records, when built on shared definitions and audited evidence, can reduce perverse incentives to chase points and instead reward verified mastery—especially for multilingual learners and students whose talents are ill-captured by timed tests.

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Texas's proud tradition of local control has long shaped water management, but the rule of capture—treating groundwater under one's land as essentially unlimited to pump—no longer fits a state facing megadrought cycles, booming metros, and industrial demand. Regional groundwater districts do important work, yet aquifers ignore county lines, and uncoordinated pumping creates a race to the bottom that penalizes conservation-minded ranchers. The alternative is not a distant bureaucracy but a Texas-designed market with guardrails: set science-based aquifer floors and sustainable yield at the basin level; allocate tradable pumping rights to landowners; allow leasing across districts under common accounting; and establish a state clearinghouse so prices signal scarcity. Pair this with enforcement teeth, public-interest set-asides for springs and ecosystems that anchor tourism and hunting economies, and compensation pathways for small producers. Evidence from cap-and-trade in air quality and Australia's Murray–Darling basin shows markets can curb overuse if quantities are firm and transparency high. Desalination and new reservoirs help at the margins, but without coordinated limits they invite new overconsumption. A Texas-grounded cap-and-trade for groundwater—locally administered, ecologically bounded—honors property rights while preventing the tragedy of the commons.

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Calls to pause artificial intelligence miss the regulatory tool we already use for risky technologies: impact assessment tied to accountability. Aviation certifies airframes before flight; medicine requires trials; finance stress-tests models. High-risk algorithms that sort applicants, set bail recommendations, or steer cars should face a comparable regime: mandatory algorithmic impact assessments prior to deployment, renewed when models drift, and coordinated with sector regulators. These AIAs would include independent testing on representative data, disclosure of model purpose and limits to qualified auditors, and documentation of downstream monitoring. To spur innovation rather than smother it, the framework should offer safe harbors for developers who meet benchmarks and promptly remediate harms, while imposing liability multipliers and procurement bans for those who ship unassessed tools. The objection that standards freeze technology misunderstands iterative certification: evidence thresholds evolve and can be risk-tiered. Voluntary ethics pledges have not prevented discriminatory scoring or opaque surveillance. What changes behavior are predictable rules and credible penalties. By harmonizing requirements across domains and focusing on demonstrable outcomes—accuracy, robustness, equity, and recourse—the United States can harness AI's benefits while reducing systemic risk.

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Texas cities face a false choice between preserving cultural districts and making room for teachers, nurses, and service workers priced out by growth. Treating heritage as a museum piece accelerates displacement; treating growth as value-neutral erases the very communities that make neighborhoods worth living in. A better approach is a heritage-compatible housing overlay around historic and culturally significant areas: allow small, context-sensitive apartments and courtyard fourplexes by right if they meet design standards set by neighborhood conservation plans; finance facade and cultural venue preservation with tax-increment funds and transfer-of-development-rights from protected landmarks; and require a share of below-market units in exchange for the extra flexibility. Early evidence from cities that legalized gentle density shows rents stabilize where supply can grow without bulldozing legacy businesses. Crucially, enforcement must target speculative teardowns while streamlining permits for community land trusts and co-ops. State preemption can enable the overlay while letting local boards write the pattern book. This framework preserves the look and life of beloved streets while putting workforce housing within reach.

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Debate over graduation policy often reduces to a false choice: keep seat-time rules and a single exit test, or abandon comparability altogether. A more credible path is a hybrid mastery system. Longitudinal research following multiple cohorts across five states found students in competency-based programs retained key math and writing skills longer into college, yet the same studies warn that poorly resourced schools struggle to document mastery at scale. Employers report that clear, skill-level transcripts improve hiring, but they also need assurance that a "B" in one district means the same as a "B" in another. The solution is to set a statewide floor of common competencies verified through periodic sampling audits and blind moderation, while allowing districts to evidence additional mastery through portfolios, performance tasks, and work-based learning artifacts. To prevent widening gaps, funding should weight supports—such as assessor training and secure digital infrastructure—toward high-need districts. Privacy safeguards and transparent rubrics can protect students while enabling comparability. Critics argue only standardized tests guarantee fairness; yet a single test captures a narrow slice of learning and incentivizes test prep over durable skill-building. A calibrated hybrid honors rigor, comparability, and equity simultaneously.

Which option best states the author's complex central claim?

Regulating algorithms should neither default to blanket bans nor to laissez-faire optimism. Because harms concentrate in high-stakes settings—credit, employment, policing, health—governments should adopt risk-tiered accountability. High-risk systems would require pre-deployment impact assessments, bias and robustness testing against representative data, independent audits, and public documentation of intended use and limitations. Lower-risk tools would qualify for safe harbors if they adhere to baseline transparency and allow user opt-out. This proportionality aligns with established safety regimes in aviation and medicine: intensive oversight where failure is catastrophic, sandboxes and post-market monitoring where it is not. Evidence from early audit pilots shows that independent evaluations uncover material model weaknesses that internal reviews miss, while sandbox programs reduce compliance costs for startups without raising incident rates. Critics warn that audits will chill innovation, but risk-based thresholds, trade secret protections, and standardized reporting templates keep friction predictable and scalable. Meanwhile, delay-only approaches externalize costs onto the public, and bans ignore beneficial uses—like fraud detection or assistive technologies—that outcompete human-only baselines. A tiered framework, updated as evidence evolves, disciplines high-stakes deployment while preserving room for low-risk experimentation.

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On the Texas Gulf Coast, storm surge risk and petrochemical reliability are intertwined. Decades of coastal science show wetlands and oyster reefs attenuate surge and reduce insured losses, yet restoration remains chronically underfunded because benefits disperse across counties and facilities. Rather than rely on episodic grants, Texas should link industrial storm-hardening incentives to verified nature-based protection by requiring that facilities seeking tax abatements or insurance premium credits purchase certified coastal resilience credits tied to measurable outcomes—acres restored, elevation gained, surge reduction modeled by independent reviewers. A transparent, state-run registry and third-party verification would prevent greenwashing while allowing firms flexibility to fund projects near their actual exposure (from Port Arthur to Corpus Christi). Precedent from habitat banking and catastrophe modeling indicates such markets can allocate capital efficiently to the highest-impact sites. Critics prefer traditional levees, but hybrid defenses outperform single-asset solutions and can be built faster. Doing nothing simply socializes disaster costs through public bailouts. By aligning private incentives with public protection, a performance-based resilience market would make coastal communities safer and industry more reliable before the next landfalling storm.

Which option best captures the author's complex central claim?

Texas cities face twin pressures: soaring housing costs near job centers and mounting flood risk. Local zoning often bans "missing middle" homes—duplexes, courtyard apartments—near transit, pushing growth to fringe areas with weaker drainage. Meanwhile, municipal utility districts (MUDs) finance infrastructure without reliably delivering affordability or resilience. The legislature should authorize by-right middle-density housing in designated transit-rich corridors and tie approval of new MUD bonds to clear affordability and flood-mitigation benchmarks: inclusionary set-asides, maximum impervious cover ratios, green stormwater infrastructure verified by performance standards. Evidence from peer metros shows that legalizing modest density near frequent transit reduces commute times and stabilizes rents, while performance-based drainage criteria cut flood damages. Critics argue this preempts local control; however, the proposal sets a statewide floor and leaves cities to tailor overlays, form-based codes, and context-specific design. Without alignment, taxpayers subsidize infrastructure that deepens inequity and risk. With it, Texas can grow in ways that keep teachers, nurses, and tradespeople within reach of jobs while hardening neighborhoods against the next severe storm.

Which statement best expresses the author's main claim?