Weekly Summary

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Legislators reforming the public education system have a lot to talk about this week. Chairman of the House Committee on Public Education, Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, filed HB 5, a comprehensive bill that overhauls assessment, graduation requirements, and state accountability. The law would eliminate three different graduation programs (minimum, recommended, advanced), replacing it with one diploma called the foundation high school program. Students could earn endorsements in arts and humanities, STEM, business and industry, or public services. The bill reduces the number of end-of-course tests from 15 to 5, and removes the requirement that the end-of-course test score determine 15% of a student’s final course grade. The bill also creates a new accountability system that evaluates districts in three categories:  academic performance, financial performance and community and student engagement, employing understandable labels of A, B, C, D and F.

Also this week Senator Dan Patrick, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, passed SB 135 out of the Senate. SB 135 removes the requirement that students’ end-of-course scores determine 15% of their final course grades. The bill now heads to the House for consideration.

On Tuesday the Senate Education Committee will hear SB 3, by Sen. Patrick. The bill revises the current high school graduation plan:

1. Replace the current Minimum, Recommended, and Distinguished high school graduation plans with a single Foundation high school graduation plan.
2. Enable students to obtain any of three endorsements, including: Business and Industry (includes a CTE focus); Academic Achievement in STEM or Arts and Humanities; and Distinguished.
3. Require all students to complete 26 credits to earn a diploma.
4. Enable the State Board of Education to approve additional rigorous CTE courses for academic credit.
5. Repeal the requirement that students graduate from high school with the Recommended or Distinguished diploma in order to attend a four-year public university.

Judge Dietz, presiding over the state education finance lawsuits, released his decision this week. He ruled the state’s formula for funding schools is unconstitutional. In making a judgment in favor of over 700 school districts, Dietz called the system inadequate and inequitable. Judge Dietz speculated that it would cost around $2,000 per student to create a constitutional school funding system, or $10 billion to $11 billion. The state will appeal the decision and the last words will be had by the Texas Supreme Court.

Predictions about when the legislature will address a new funding system for Texas schools suggest spring of 2014, after the primary elections.

 In last week’s Senate Finance Committee hearing TEA Commissioner Michael Williams was asked about the need to reinstate the over $5 billion in cuts made to public education last session.  He responded, “There are any number of great programs that the state was funding.  But we are in the midst of litigation at this moment, and I think it is more prudent to wait and make a determination of what the court is going to direct us to do before we begin to restore dollars or add new dollars.  Whatever funding we look at – whether it is adding more compensatory education money or additional money for teachers – the more prudent action is to wait at this point.”

News of the Week

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Aycock Proposes New Testing, Graduation Requirements

Aycock’s proposal, House Bill 5, would move public schools to an accountability system with grades of A through F, a concept that has drawn support from Sen. Dan Patrick and Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams. It would also significantly reduce the number of standardized tests students must pass to graduate.

-Read full article-

Editorial: Ruling sends Texas back to classroom

Not much has changed for the better in the past eight years when it comes to public schools and taxpayer money — so to call Dietz’s ruling a precedent or a landmark decision isn’t accurate.
-Read full editorial-

 

School Finance Ruling Favors Districts

In a decision certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, state district Judge John Dietz ruled Monday in favor of more than 600 school districts on all of their major claims against the state’s school finance system. With a swift ruling issued from the bench shortly after the state finished its closing arguments, Dietz said that the state does not adequately or efficiently fund public schools — and that it has created an unconstitutional de-facto property tax in shifting the burden of paying for them to the local level.
-Read full article-

 

Villalba Files School Marshal Bill

State Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, has filed a bill that would allow Texas schools to appoint “school marshals” — employees who could carry guns in an effort to protect students from violence.

-Read full article-

Speaker Joe Straus warns school voucher proposals might not see House vote

House Speaker Joe Straus warned the Senate on Wednesday that if it passes a divisive school voucher bill, the measure might not reach a vote in the House. Straus didn’t say a school choice bill definitely wouldn’t pass.
-Read full article-

 

Legislators filing fewer bills this session

Texas legislators are filing far fewer bills than in years past. Whether that is good news or bad is wholly a matter of your perspective. So far this year, state senators have filed 33 percent fewer bills and joint resolutions, and House members about 15 percent fewer, than during the same time period last session.
-Read full article-

 

Senate passes bill to end 15 percent testing rule

The Senate launched its effort to roll back high-stakes testing requirements in Texas schools on Wednesday, approving a bill that would scrap the state rule mandating that new end-of-course exams in high school count as 15 percent of the grade in each subject tested. The measure was approved unanimously and sent to the House.
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Bill is a step back from rigorous public schools in Texas
The so-called “four-by-four” curriculum, under which high school students have been required to achieve four credits in each of four key subject areas (English language arts, science, math and social studies) would be gone if legislation introduced Wednesday by House Public Education Committee Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock is approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry.
-Read full article-

 

Texas suspends school accreditation statuses for year

Commissioner of Education Michael Williams announced Monday that the TEA will not assign accreditation statuses for the 2012-13 school year for the state’s more than 1,200 independent school districts and charter schools.
-Read full article-

 

Editorial: ZIP codes are tied to a Dallas child’s destiny

Sobering data from the Stand for Children-Dallas organization highlights a cradle-to-prison pipeline in some parts of our city. The research reaffirms why the Dallas school district must tackle the issues that affect neighborhoods as well as schools, which is one of Superintendent Mike Miles’ top priorities.
-Read full editorial-

 

EPISD reps head to Austin for Appeal

Reps from the El Paso ISD will be headed to Austin this week to appeal the Texas Education Agency’s decision to strip the school board of its power.
-Read full article-

 

Ashby, Knight react to Texas school finance ruling

At issue in this case are $5.4 billion in cuts to schools and education grant programs the Legislature imposed in 2011, but school district officials say simply restoring that funding won’t be enough to fix a fundamentally flawed system. They point out that the cuts have come even as the state requires schools to prepare students for standardized tests that are getting more difficult and amid a statewide boom in the number of low-income students and those who need extra instruction to learn English, both of whom are more costly to educate.
-Read full article-

 

TPPF statement regarding the school finance trial ruling
“This ruling doubles down on the status quo: school spending in Texas has grown rapidly over the last decade, with few academic gains to show for it — and we aren’t a step closer to the change that our students, parents, and taxpayers need. With our statewide cost-of-living-adjusted per-pupil spending at about the national average through at least the latest National Education Association figures, there is already enough money in the system.
-Read full article-