PHOENIX — Arizona high schoolers should continue to be required to pass the AIMS tests to get a diploma, a special tax force recommended Wednesday.

But committee members say they also should be taking another test, too.

The panel, created by the Legislature, concluded that the tests, more formally known as Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, do play a valid role in determining if high schoolers have learned certain academic skills.

But Jim Zaharis, who chairs the panel, said committee members acknowledged the tests in reading, writing and math can go only so far in determining achievement.

“What it does not do is measure college and career readiness. So students can be passing AIMS and still not know where they are relative to the next step,’’ he said. What’s needed, Zaharis said is a “benchmark’’ to determine if they are actually ready to go on with their education or career after high school — or if they still need to learn something more.

This new test would be administered in the 11th grade. But, unlike AIMS, passage would not be required to get a diploma. And students could opt out with a written request of a parent or guardian.

The panel is recommending yet another test on top of that, this one to be administered in the ninth grade. And this one, like the new 11th grade exam, would be focused on college or career readiness.

But Zaharis, a vice president of Greater Phoenix Leadership, made up of business leaders, insisted that this test would not become a new screening device to counsel some students that they are not really college material.

“The decision remains in the student and the family’s hands, not in the school people’s hands, as to what they wish to do,’’ he said.

“This (test) is feedback for them to make decisions,’’ Zaharis continued. “But it is not to put them on a path that is prescribed by a school.’’

The decision to maintain the AIMS test is a defeat of sorts for Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa.

Crandall, who pushed legislation last year to create the task force, had hoped the panel would recommend scrapping AIMS entirely in favor of some test of college readiness, perhaps the ACT or SAT tests used by many colleges as part of the admissions process.

Committee members acknowledged that the tests, while required to get a diploma, measure only 10th grade achievement. But they said even proving that level of proficiency is important.

Beyond that, the panel called the tests an “essential component’’ of school accountability.

“For the first time, Arizona has functioning school accountability system that should be maintained,’’ the report reads.

“Schools and districts are held accountable for student mastery of these core state standards,’’ it continues. “A consistent system is necessary for schools to focus their efforts and measure their own improvement.’’

Crandall, former board president of the Mesa Unified School District, also wanted to scrap passage of any sort of high-stakes test as a prerequisite to graduation. In fact, Crandall said any highstakes test should moved earlier  much earlier: He said last year that students who can’t pass a third grade reading test should not become fourth graders.

“The third-grade idea still is a much better idea,’’ he said Wednesday. He said an early test like that provides schools with a much better opportunity to ensure that students are learning what they need than a test first administered in 10th grade.

And Crandall said he still believes the AIMS test, which is based on 10th-grade knowledge, doesn’t really show much.

“You would think that we could think higher than that,’’ he said. Crandall said the new 11th grade test, while not a graduation requirement, probably comes closer to measuring true proficiency because it would be based on determining if someone is ready for college or other postsecondary education.

The tests originally were supposed to be a graduation requirement for the Class of 2000. That was scrapped, first by lawmakers and later by the Board of Education, amid low test scores.

It was not until 2006 that passage became mandatory to get a diploma.

But facing complaints from students and parents, lawmakers agreed to a temporary reprieve: students could use their good grades in certain courses to get bonus points.

That system, though, is being phased out, to the point that by the Class of 2011 students will be able to supplement their AIMS scores by only 5 percent with bonus points.

State School Superintendent Tom Horne, a strong proponent of both the AIMS tests and the link to a diploma, praised the report.