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November 19, 2008
School Fund will provide $300 million less for education
The financial market turmoil has taken such a toll on Texas’ Permanent School Fund that it will provide about $300 million less for public education in the upcoming 2010-2011 budget than the $1.4 billion it will produce for the current budget.
The practical effect of the smaller distribution is relatively small. But the symbolic effect is huge.
The fund has dropped from $26.5 billion last October to $17.5 billion today, erasing many of the returns of the past 10 years.
The State Board of Education on Wednesday was in the untenable position of protecting the fund for the state’s future students and providing something for today’s students.
Those two guiding principles of managing the fund are “at war with each other,” said James Voytko, president and chief operating officer of RV Kuhns & Associates Inc., the financial consultant for the fund.
Board Chairman Don McLeroy said the compromise of sending a little something — 2.5 percent of the average market value over the past four years — is the right thing to do.
“We have to pay something. It’s not fair to the current students,” McLeroy said.
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November 10, 2008
Shutting the door on school vouchers
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is looking to close what some public school advocates say was a back door to private school vouchers.
SB 186, submitted on Monday, removes language from the education code that allows nonprofit organizations to get certain public grant money.
The inclusion of that language in the 2007 law allowed nonprofit private schools to compete for the public grant and made the relatively small $6 million program to help dropouts the focus of intense criticism.
Three nonprofit organizations were among the recipients, which prompted a lawsuit from the Texas State Teachers Association. The association failed in an effort to block the Texas Education Agency from disbursing money to the nonprofits but the overall lawsuit continues.
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November 3, 2008
Board of Education member's Obama commentary criticized
Here is some pre-election commentary on the Christian Worldview Network Web site by State Board of Education Member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond.
Needless to say, she is not a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency.
But her rhetoric that an Obama administration will likely lead to martial law has been criticized as “reprehensible” and “reckless” by the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that advocates for religious freedom in the public schools.
Dunbar, who was elected to a four-year term in 2006, is a graduate of Regent University Law and has written a book called “One Nation Under God: How the Left is trying to Erase What Made Us Great.”
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October 2, 2008
Biz groups want improved education system
A newly formed coalition of business groups on Thursday called for tougher student accountability standards and more money for performance-based payments to teachers as a way to improve Texas’ workforce.
“The public education system in Texas needs to be strengthened in order to meet the needs of employers,” said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, one of the founding groups of the Texas Coalition for a Competitive Workforce.
“We need to keep more kids in school and graduate more children who are career or college ready,” he said.
As an example of shortcomings in the education system, Hammond pointed to the large number of first-year college students — about half, according to a 2007 report — who must take remedial courses.
The other coalition members include the Texas Institute for Education Reform, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Governor’s Business Council and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
The coalition is silent, however, on how to pay for higher standards and their other demands.
Among the other priorities are flexibility in course requirements so that students can learn some core lessons while also getting career-skills training.
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September 10, 2008
UPDATED: Combs launches new Texas college tuition plan
State Comptroller Susan Combs launched a new Texas college-tuition savings plan today, encouraging parents to check out an online calculator intended to demonstrate how much college that participants in the Texas Tuition Promise Fund can buy.
“It’s actually kind of entertaining,” Combs said of the calculator.
Combs offered examples of how much parents might need to pitch into the fund to cover future college tuition for a newborn or 7-year-old child.
The online calculator—here—wasn’t viewable from my computer at about 11 a.m., but the Web site opened later.
UPDATE: On the calculator, I checked on what it would cost a late-starting parent to assure four years’ tuition at the state’s most expensive four-year public colleges and universities through the plan for a child who turned 13 in August 2008.
Sitting down? The expected payment would be $955.50 a month, accumulating to $45,863.96 over four years.
There’s a reason Combs stressed the significance of families investing early.
In her example, parents of a newborn would be expected to pitch in $60.36 per month over 18 years—just for the kid to afford one year of the average cost of tuition and required fees at a Texas public college or university.
Parents of a 7-year-old child would be asked to contribute $81.53 a month over 10 years to afford one year of the average cost of tuition and required fees at a Texas public college or university.
Thanks to an astute reader for guiding me to correct my reporting on Combs’ examples.
The enrollment period for the new program, which was authorized by the 2007 Legislature, starts today and runs through February. Combs noted that participants don’t have to start paying in until May.
The program is Texas’ second try at a prepaid tuition plan.
The new plan offers families the choice of buying “units” in three types of plans that can be used as currency at schools. The units lock in tuition at current prices.
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August 28, 2008
AG rules on whether Bible course is mandated
Texas school districts are not required to offer a Bible elective course created by the Legislature last year, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in an opinion issued Thursday.
But districts will still have to offer some kind of instruction in religious literature, whether integrated into an existing course or offered separately.
The ruling has advocates on both sides claiming victory.
The Liberty Legal Institute said in a news release that Abbott agreed with their assessment that schools must include instruction on the Bible’s impact on literature and history.
Dan Quinn, spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, said most schools already meet that requirement.
TEA officials said Thursday afternoon they were still sorting through the opinion and did not have a definitive answer.
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August 19, 2008
Bilingual ruling appealed
As expected, a federal court ruling on bilingual education in Texas was appealed by the Texas Education Agency on Monday.
Senior U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice found in July that the state had not properly educated middle school and high school students with limited English proficiency. The order, part of a decades-old case claiming violations of the Equal Education Opportunities Act, called for TEA to develop a new language program for students in secondary school and improve monitoring of the program.
The appeal kicks the decision up the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal.
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August 11, 2008
Judge allows dropout grants to go forward
The Texas Education Agency was cleared on Monday to send up to $1 million to three nonprofit organizations that won grant money to help dropouts finish school.
The Texas State Teachers Association, which sued the agency last week over the inclusion of nonprofit recipients in the $6 million dropout recovery grant program, had sought a temporary injunction.
State District Court Judge Stephen Yelenosky denied the request but the case will proceed.
At the heart of the case is whether the agency had the authority to give public money to private nonprofits. The teachers group maintains this move creates a “stealth voucher program” by diverting public money to private interests.
Lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s office argued that the legislation creating the dropout grant program states explicitly that nonprofits are eligible for the money.
TEA awarded grant money to 22 entities, including school districts, charter schools, community colleges and others. Each grant recipient will get up to $150,000 for startup costs, plus additional money for every student they move toward a high school diploma.
The Christian Fellowship of San Antonio could earn up to $510,000 while both the Community Action Inc. of Hays, Caldwell & Blanco Counties Inc. and Healy-Murphy Center Inc. could get $270,000 each.
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August 7, 2008
TAB wants tougher accountability system
The Texas school accountability system is not doing a very good job holding schools accountable, Texas Association of Business president Bill Hammond said at a news conference Thursday.
“We can’t have a first-rate education system in Texas with a second-rate accountability system,” Hammond said.
He took issue with the recent decision by Education Commissioner Robert Scott to give school districts another one-year reprieve on tougher dropout rules. That decision kept some districts being labeled academically unacceptable.
And the standards are too low, said Hammond, adding that schools can be deemed “academically acceptable” if only 50 percent of their students pass math.
Texas businesses — Hammond’s membership — are the ultimate consumers of the Texas education system’s product and they are finding the product lacking, he said.
Hammond called on the Texas Education Agency and legislators to be more “honest” about how the education system is performing. But he didn’t have any specific recommendations to improve the system.
He did make clear that more money for schools is not the answer, according to TAB.
“If money were the solution, the problem would have been solved long ago,” Hammond said. “The public schools system in Texas needs to do better with what they have,” Hammond said.
There was a roomful of school superintendents last week who would probably disagree.
At a school finance summit organized by Scott, superintendents complained that the state is ratcheting up the performance standards but not given the districts the resources to improve the schools.
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August 5, 2008
Teachers group sues over dropout grant
The Texas State Teachers Association has sued the Texas Education Agency over dropout recovery grants awarded Monday to three private, nonprofit entities.
The group argues in its TSTA lawsuit 080508.pdflawsuit that TEA does not have the authority to grant public money to nonprofit organizations to provide direct student services.
Critics have maintained that Education Commissioner Robert Scott is using this $6 million dropout recovery grant program as a way to create something akin to a school voucher so that public dollars can be used at private schools. Scott has repeatedly denied this contention.
The lawsuit seeks initially to prevent TEA from sending money to the three organizations — Christian Fellowship of San Antonio, Community in Action Inc. of Hays, Caldwell and Blanco Counties, and the Healy-Murphy Center Inc. Each organization was awarded $150,000 in start-up money.
“Given the finite pool of money available for dropout recovery and the pressing need in our state, diverting public money to private educational programs clearly shortchanges public schools that need it and could effectively use it,” said Rita Haecker, president of the teachers association.
Grants were also awarded to 19 public school districts, charter schools and community colleges. The aim of the grant program is to lure high school dropouts back to school and provide programs tailored to their needs.
Scott said in a statement that the state needs to marshal all its forces to respond to dropout problem.
“It’s incredible that TSTA thinks that non-profit organizations don’t have a role to play in reducing the dropout problem and increasing the graduation rate,” Scott said.
Scott pointed out that the state has given public money to private, nonprofit organizations in the past.
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July 18, 2008
Bible course standards approved
The State Board of Education on Friday adopted Bible course curriculum standards that critics say provide little guidance on how to teach the course without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
In a 10-5 vote, the board approved curriculum standards largely mirror the standards now used for developing independent studies courses in social studies or English. They do not specifically address how to teach the Bible and what the students should learn, beyond some broad language from the law.
In 2007, the Legislature approved a high school elective course aimed at using the Bible to understand literature, history, policy and more. The material must be presented in a neutral manner without proselytizing.
The first course under this law will be offered in the 2009-2010 school year.
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July 17, 2008
Bible course standards OK'd by subcommittee
The curriculum standards for an elective Bible course sailed through a subcommittee of the State Board of Education on Thursday with a 3-1 vote.
The issue goes before the full board on Friday for final action.
Stemming from a law approved by the Legislature in 2007, the course will focus on the Bible’s impact on history and literature. The law calls for the material to be presented in a neutral manner without proselytizing.
But critics of the curriculum standards, which are required by the law, say they are too vague and will leave districts vulnerable to legal challenges.
State Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, made an unusual appearance at the subcommittee meeting Thursday to urge the board not to adopt the standards. Instead, he wants the board to develop detailed and content-specific standards that will provide districts’ clear guidelines for offering the course.
“For this course, that has the imprimatur of the state, this was an attempt to say: ‘We want to make sure you can offer this course safely,’” Hochberg said of the bill.
Two of Hochberg’s colleagues on the on the public education committee, Republicans Rob Eissler and Diane Patrick, backed his position in a letter to the board:
“The Legislature expects the Board to adopt specific curriculum for elective courses, and the Board has consistently done so, until now,” according to the letter signed by the three legislators.
But Board Member Terri Leo said the proposed standards, which largely mirror the general social studies standards, are specific enough and have gotten the approval from the Texas Attorney General, as required by the law.
“I don’t see where there is specific language that says we have to come up with brand new (curriculum standards),” Leo said.
The Attorney General last week said the standards were constitutional, a determination required by the law. But it could not be determined if the course was constitutional, the attorney general wrote, because there were no courses to examine.
Jonathan Saenz of the Free Market Foundation said the call for more specific standards is a stalling tactic — it will take at least two years to develop the standards — and a roadblock to academic freedom.
“That is time and that is a loss of choice and opportunity and freedom for students to take this course,” Saenz said. “That is two years they have to wait.
Board members Leo, Cynthia Noland Dunbar and Barbara Cargill voted for the standards while Lawrence Allen dissented.
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School Finance Summit scheduled
The Texas Education Agency will hold a School Finance Summit on July 29 to discuss some key issues for the 2009 legislative session.
The immediate focus will be on adjusting how much money schools get for transportation, technology and other specific items.
“There are some things we need to do to keep school districts afloat,” Education Commissioner Robert Scott said Thursday morning.
Also on the agenda will be the big and vexing school finance question of how to distribute money to districts across the state.
The summit will be held in room 1-104 of the William B. Travis Building from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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June 25, 2008
Vouchers were not part of high school bill, legislators say
State education officials had hunkered down for day-long hearing Wednesday on a small but controversial grant program to help dropouts finish high school.
Within an hour, the speakers had made their points and left.
Most said the Legislature never approved a program that would send public dollars to private schools, which is allowed under the grant program, and the Texas Education Agency was overstepping its authority by creating such a program.
First out of the gate, state Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, summed up the opposition to the use of public money for private schools while noting that there is universal support for finding ways to help dropouts.
“This pilot program closely resembles a voucher program though we have been assured it is not,” said Patrick, a member of the House Public Education Committee.
Any program where public money can flow directly to private schools can accurately be described as a voucher program and Legislature has spoken loud and clear in opposition to private school vouchers, Patrick said.
Education Commissioner Robert Scott, who was not in attendance, has said repeatedly that this grant would not be a voucher program because it does not give money to parents to shop around for a private school nor does it take money from school districts.
Patrick’s point was echoed by a statement from three legislators who served on the conference committee in 2007 that negotiated HB 2237, a high school improvement bill that opened the door for this grant program.
HB 2237 passed both the House and the Senate with only dissenting vote, wrote Sen. Royce West, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, and Rep. Scott Hochberg, all Democrats.
“Rarely do we see such consensus surrounding legislation. Clearly, the will of the legislature to help address dropout rates in Texas is strong. Equally strong however, is our decade-long stance against the use of taxpayer funds to pay private school tuition. Commissioner Scott’s proposed rule directly contradicts the will of the 80th Texas Legislature, which refused to pass any measure that would allow tax dollars to be used to pay tuition at private and religious schools.”
The two speakers testified in support of allowing private schools to participate.
“Public schools have had their opportunity to educate these students,” Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity. “I wonder what we’re so afraid of.”
The next step is for Scott to finalize the grant program rules later this summer.
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April 21, 2008
Pay, support for educators key to school success
It will be no small feat for the Texas Legislature to attract and keep good teachers and principals in Texas schools, particularly those schools that most need high-quality educators, according to testimony before the House Public Education Committee today.
Schools must recruit better qualified teachers, provide adequate support and pay to keep them in the profession and provide top-level leadership from principals.
None of that will be easy — or cheap, the committee heard.
“If you really want to do it, we have to come at it with real money,” said Ted Melina-Raab with Texas-AFT, a teachers group.
Holly Eaton of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said particular attention should be paid to compensation for experienced teachers.
A teacher with 10 years of experience in the classroom makes about $43,000 in Austin compared to a first-year teacher who brings in almost $39,800, according to an association analysis.
“It’s hard to attract and retain the best and the brightest when your salary growth is unlikely to keep up with inflation over the years,” Eaton said. “The state needs to address the issue of teacher pay soon, by providing funding for more ‘stretch’ in the teacher salary schedules and increases in salary that reward experience.”
Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association note that working conditions has now surpassed salary as the reason teachers give for leaving the field.
Keeping experienced principals, too, is key to school success but they tend to leave in droves after five years on the job, University of Texas researcher Ed Fuller testified.
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March 27, 2008
Bible curriculum moves forward
A subcommittee of the State Board of Education gave its OK Thursday to Bible course curriculum that religious freedom advocates say is problematic.
The vote was 3 to 1 with Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi the sole dissenter.
Now the curriculum goes to the full board, which will take up preliminary approval on Friday.
Strong opinions on both sides marked the subcommittee’s discussion.
Board Member Terri Leo said a student or parent who does not like the Bible course offered by the district does not have to take it because the course is an elective.
But Berlanga said the board would best serve the state by developing specific curriculum for the course, as it does it most every other subject.
The Texas Freedom Network has objected to the proposed curriculum, saying it does not provide guidance to school districts on how to craft the Bible course to protect students’ religious liberty and to not run afoul of the First Amendment.
The Texas Attorney General must ensure that the curriculum passes legal muster once the board gives its final approval.
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March 11, 2008
The silence is deafening on vouchers
Silence met an effort Tuesday to clarify whether a school voucher program targeting dropouts could be developed under a statewide plan to improve high schools.
“I don’t believe in government by stealth or sleight of hand,” said Don McAdams, a member of the panel developing the legislatively mandated plan.
So McAdams asked the voucher question directly after several voucher opponents raised concerns Monday that some language in the plan — talk of alternative delivery systems — opens the door to vouchers despite the Legislature’s rejection of such a program.
He got nothing. Silence.
McAdams seemed to take that as assurance.
“The language means what it says,” McAdams said.
It might not be so simple.
Education Commission Robert Scott, who is a member of the High School Completion and Success Initiative Council, said Monday that vouchers could be useful for helping high school dropouts to complete their education and a program could be created using the Texas Education Agency’s rule-making authority.
The council’s refusal to reject vouchers explicitly must mean they are still on the table, said Texas Freedom Network spokesman Dan Quinn.
“They have not reassured anyone that there will not be an attempt to implement a voucher scheme administratively when they couldn’t get it through the Legislature,” Quinn said.
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February 29, 2008
Spellings calls for more high school accountability
The next frontier of No Child Left Behind is “high schools, high schools, high schools,” U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said Friday.
Spellings has been meeting with policymakers across the country in recent months to discuss the law and has consistently heard concerns about high schools, particularly drop-outs.
Her latest stop was Austin to address a joint hearing of House and Senate education committees.
“We need to focus on providing more rigor, more relevance, more preparedness in our high schools,” Spellings said.
But the current law requires only one test in high school so there is little data to determine why students are struggling in high school.
“We cannot cure a problem that we have not adequately diagnosed,” Spellings said.
Spellings dismissed a recent study conducted by researchers from Rice University and University of Texas at Austin that found the Texas’ test-based accountability system contributes directly to low graduation rates.
“I think it tells us virtually nothing,” Spellings said as she pointed to methodological issues with the study.
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December 18, 2007
School finance pioneer Craig Foster dies
Craig Foster, whose encyclopedic grasp of school finance helped change the way the state of Texas funds its schools, died with his family at his bedside Monday night at a Kerrville hospital.
Foster, 69, was diagnosed in September with a rare form of cancer, Uveal melanoma, that had spread to his liver. After months of experimental treatment at M.D. Anderson Medical Center in Houston, the family moved him to Kerrville last week.
The co-founder of the Equity Center, the largest organization of limited wealth school districts in the nation, Foster was a key figure in the Texas Supreme Court declaring the system of school finance unconstitutional in 1989. He was also instrumental in making sure the Legislature created a system that would meet the Supreme Court’s standards in the mid-1990s.
Simply put, Foster believed that school districts and their students in poor regions of the state were miserably funded. He marshaled data to demonstrate irrefutably the gap between rich and poor school districts, former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff said.
“The fact that poor school districts, who literally were being told to make bricks without straw enjoy something nearing equity in funding today is, in large part, because of Craig Foster,” said Ratliff, chairman of the Senate Education Committee at the height of the school finance battle in the early 1990s. “That’s a huge legacy for Texas.”
Foster served as executive director of the Equity Center, which carried on the fight for limited wealth districts, for 18 years. Ratliff appointed him a citizen member of the Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance in 2001.
Foster had been involved in public finance issues in Texas for more than 40 years.
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November 7, 2007
Leander school bonds pass
Leander voters on Tuesday approved a $559 million bond package, the largest school bond proposal in Central Texas history.
The Leander bond proposal — a single proposition — included eight new schools, land for an additional nine campuses, a new stadium and additions and renovations to other buildings. Voters approved it 5,283 to 4,197, according to unofficial final returns released early this morning.
It was the second bond vote for the district in less than two years. In May 2006, voters approved a $286.1 million package to build eight schools but rejected $6.9 million for upgrades to the stadium, including a new sound system, a press box and additional restrooms.
Greg Grounds , chairman of the pro-bond Leander Building for Learning PAC, said he was encouraged by the strong support in early returns.
“It looks like the voters liked the citizens committee’s plan to open a high school earlier than we had planned,” Leander school board President Jim Sneeringer said. “I’d like to thank our citizens for their trust. I promise that we’ll be careful with their money.”
A facility advisory committee made up of parents and community, city and business leaders recommended the package based on its study of student growth projections. According to enrollment projections, Leander, which expects to enroll 28,954 students this year, could have 58,618 students by 2017.
Leander’s package eclipsed the $519.5 million program approved by Austin in 2004, which included money for eight new schools, renovations at more than 100 campuses, and land for future campuses and a performing arts center.
The Leander district has 30 campuses and might need as many as 22 more in the next decade: 16 elementaries, four middle schools and two high schools.
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October 23, 2007
'White smoke' on community colleges?
Negotiations between Gov. Rich Perry’s office and legislative leaders concerning community college funding have been difficult and protracted ever since the governor vetoed $154 million for employee health insurance in June.
But Rey Garcia, president of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, is expressing optimism that a resolution could emerge shortly. Borrowing language associated with the signal that cardinals have selected a pope, Garcia put it this way:
“I think there will be white smoke very soon.”
Of course, white smoke was predicted a long time ago.
The state’s top three political offices — governor, speaker and lieutenant governor — pledged in September to come up with a new funding plan. And early this month, officials said they were edging closer to an agreement.
“I think we’re still in back-and-forth mode, but I do think we are very close to an agreement,” gubernatorial spokeswoman Krista Moody said.
Among the apparent sticking points: how much money to pump back into community colleges, and, of that, how much should be earmarked for performance incentives sought by Perry.
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October 16, 2007
Scott named education commissioner
Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday named Robert Scott, one of his closest advisers and a powerful force at the Texas Education Agency for many years, to lead that agency as the state’s education commissioner.
Scott will be the third commissioner appointed by Perry but the first of the three to lack experience as a school superintendent or teacher. Jim Nelson, the last commissioner appointed by George W. Bush, also came to the job without working as a teacher or administrator.
Scott, 38, has been acting commissioner since June, when Perry told then-commissioner Shirley Neeley that he would not reappoint her. He oversaw day-to-day operations of the agency as chief deputy commissioner under Neeley, and previously served, separately, as an adviser to Perry, Nelson and former commissioner Mike Moses.
“With an unmatched record of service and commitment to Texas’ students, Robert has the experience and dedication needed to raise the bar in classrooms and make sure students receive a top-notch education,” Perry said.
As commissioner, Scott will oversee the state’s 4.6 million-student education system and write the fine print on executive orders from Perry and laws passed by the Legislature. He’ll also head an agency with 915 employees and an annual administrative budget of $123 million.
He’s twice been interim commissioner. When the Legislature faced a budget shortfall in 2003, he led an effort to scrap almost 200 jobs and $40 million in operating costs.
Jeri Stone, executive director of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, said she was not troubled by Scott’s lack of experience in the classroom, instead praising his “broad policy experience.”
“He’s worked closely with us in the past, he’s been accessible and he’s been willing to modify based on our concerns,” Stone said.
Linda Bridges, president of the American Federation of Teachers - Texas, was more skeptical.
“In positions like this we would prefer someone have some hands-on experience in public education so that they undertand what we’re doing from being in the trench level, instead of trying to understand it from the outside,” Bridges said. “But our goal is to work with whoever is there.”
Scott was the subject of some controversy this summer when a report from the agency’s inspector general said he and others at the agency had helped friends and associates win subcontracts to provide consulting and other services. Scott said the report was untrue, and the state auditor’s office has been investigating its claims for months.
The new commissioner, who will make $180,000 per year, said Tuesday that much of his time will focus on the ongoing process of rewriting the state’s curriculum to help students better prepare for college and teachers better understand the state’s expectations.
“Aligning all of those rewrites to make sure we have clear and consistent standards is hugely important,” Scott said. “It’s not all over the map right now, but the standards are not grade-level specific.”
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June 6, 2007
Perry expected to approve safety belts mandate
Gov. Rick Perry is expected in Beaumont on Friday to sign into law a measure mandating lap-shoulder safety belts in large school buses, a local leader said Wednesday.
Perry is penciled in to sign the legislation at West Brook High School in Beaumont. In March 2006, a chartered school bus carrying 23 soccer players from West Brook High overturned, killing two girls and injuring others. The bus lacked seat belts.
Parents of the girls had urged lawmakers to mandate lap-shoulder belts. The House and Senate adopted a proposal requiring belts only if the state comes through with funding for the changes.
Michael Truncale of Beaumont said Perry might have committed to the signing ceremony partly because one of the girls who died in the crash had just been awarded a scholarship to Texas A&M University, Perry’s alma mater.
“That may have played some role,” Truncale said. He added that he expects lawmakers to find dollars in the 2009 legislative session to pay for buses with the belts.
“With the way it passed and the governor’s exclamation point, I think it will become a priority,” Truncale said.
Perry’s office had no immediate comment.
Under the change, all new buses purchased by a school district, including school buses, school activity buses, and school-chartered buses, on or after Sept. 1, 2010, would have to be equipped with three-point (lap/shoulder) seatbelts. The mandate would apply to all buses contracted for use by a school district on or after Sept. 1, 2014. In either case, though, the requirements would not take effect unless lawmakers appropriate funds to cover the cost of changes.
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May 28, 2007
P.E. bill heads to governor
A bill that would require 30 minutes of daily physical activity for Texas elementary school students is heading to the governor’s desk.
That is already a rule, but this would put the requirement into law.
The measure would also require annual fitness assessments of students in grades 3-12.
The bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, said more than a third of Texas students are overweight.
“We can reverse this trend, but only if we restore in our public schools a strong focus on basic health and exercise,” said Nelson, a former school teacher.
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May 23, 2007
House gives final OK to PE requirement
Texas elementary school students would have to participate in “moderate or vigorous physical activity” for at least 30 minutes a day — or 135 minutes a week — under a measure given final approval by the House this afternoon. That’s already a rule, but this would put the requirement into law, according to the office of Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, the bill’s author.
The proposal has already been approved by the Senate. It now returns to that chamber since it was changed in the House.
The proposal, intended to combat obesity-related diseases, originally required the daily physical activity for students in kindergarten through eighth grades. The current version only requires it for kindergarten through fifth grade; it also requires students to take four semesters of P.E. in grades six through eight.
The measure also calls for physical assessments of students.
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May 8, 2007
House passes committee version of Bible bill
House members tentatively passed legislation tonight allowing high schools to continue to have the option of offering courses on the literature and history of the Bible.
In the process, they resisted an effort by the bill’s author, Rep. Warren Chisum, to require that all schools offer the course as an elective.
The version of the bill approved by the House requires the Texas Education Agency to design training for teachers of the course. It also says schools can offer classes based on books from religions other than Christianity.
After Chisum filed his first bill, the House Public Education Committee took public testimony on several days before changing the bill significantly into the version approved Tuesday.
“The bill as amended will pass both houses,” said Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.
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April 30, 2007
House says aye to seat belts in school buses
House members voted resoundingly for requiring school districts purchasing school buses after Sept. 1, 2010 to make sure the buses have seats with three-point seat belts—though they attached a financial escape clause.
Members of a Beaumont girls soccer team injured in a wreck last year applauded the 124-15 preliminary approval of House Bill 323, sponsored by Rep. Tuffy Hamilton, R-Mauriceville.
Before the vote, Hamilton accepted an amendment by Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, suspending the mandate unless the state gives districts funding to pay for compliance.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Education, House
April 23, 2007
House OKs counselor mandate
Rep. Kelly Hancock’s proposal requiring school counselors to tally and report to the state the instances they refer students to facilities or services outside of a school won tentative House approval today over objections from Rep. Valinda Bolton, D-Austin, and others.
Bolton, who led opposition that temporarily turned back the measure last week, queried Hancock this morning on the necessity for the proposal.
She’d said last week the reporting requirement could both deter students from seeking counseling and touch off retaliation in cases where individuals use the reports to guess at which student was being referred for what reason.
From outside the Capitol, the Plano-based Free Market Foundation urged approval “so parents can know what is going on at their school. All student information will remain absolutely confidential to the public. This is an important bill for parental rights and the protection of children.”
Rep. Ellen Cohen, D-Houston, speculated after the 74-69 action that the change means residents of small communities could divine when students are getting referred to Planned Parenthood or other groups providing birth control counseling.
Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, added an amendment exempting school districts with 5,500 students or less from the mandate. Hancock, R-Richland Hills, said the change would bring more accountability to what counselors do.
Permalink | | Categories: Education, House
April 19, 2007
Bolton assails counseling mandate
Austin Rep. Valinda Bolton, telling colleagues she spent two decades overseeing shelters for battered women, led opposition today against a measure that would require school counselors to tally instances when they refer students to facilities or services outside of a school.
Bolton, a first-term Democrat, said the proposal by Rep. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, could both deter students from seeking counseling and touch off retaliation in cases where individuals use the reports to guess at which student was being referred for what reason.
“It puts victims at risk,” Bolton said in debate. “It puts victims at risk because schools are small communities. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out who got a referral for what.”
Reps. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and Ellen Cohen, D-Houston, likewise signaled their concerns, while Hancock stressed that he wrote the measure so that only counselors with more than 20 referrals would have to write the summary reports — in any case keeping out the names of individual students.
Members appeared to give the measure preliminary approval by 67-66. After a requested verification — showing numerous members not actually on the House floor at the vote — the proposal fell by 63 to 62.
It’s not entirely dead, however. After the narrow rejection, members voted in favor of Rep. Harvey Hilderbran’s request that the vote be reconsidered Monday morning after he works with Hancock on an amendment that would raise the threshold for reported incidents at a school before a counselor would have to file a report.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Education, House
April 16, 2007
House moment of silence
At 3:49 pm today, the Texas House paused from business for a moment of silence in memory of the shooting victims at Virginia Tech University. Members stood by their desks. Audience members, in the overhead gallery, remained sitting.
Permalink | | Categories: Education, House, State budget
March 29, 2007
This aint your 2005 House
By far the most interesting moment of today’s long, and I mean long, House debate over the state budget was when members voted to scrap the state’s sizable incentive pay program for teachers and replace it with a modest across-the-board pay raise for teachers.
Defenders of the incentive program point out that some teachers will get $800 when they could have gotten between $3,000 and $10,000 if lawmakers would have stuck with the incentives. And some school districts have been working for months designing their incentive programs.
Still, the vote points to the growing strength of the state’s teacher groups, which strongly favor across-the-board increases over incentive pay.
Maybe even more significant was an overwhelming House vote to block any state money from being used in a private-school voucher program. Two years ago the House beat back vouchers by a very narrow margin. This time it wasn’t even close.
Some explanation for all of this lies in the fact that the anti-voucher language will not make it into the final budget, and incentive pay for teachers is very likely to live to fight another day. But for the time being, the House hardly looks like its old self.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Education
March 26, 2007
Cracks start to show in testing plan
A couple of weeks ago, the heads of the House and Senate education committees laid out a major overhaul of state testing in high school. The plan would end the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in grades nine through 11 and replace it with 12 end-of-course tests, with students required to average a passing score on all 12 to graduate.
House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said Monday he’s working on a revised proposal that would require students to still take the 12 tests, but only pass four of them to graduate. It’s not yet clear which ones they’d have to pass — probably one from each major subject, and you couldn’t count lower-grade classes like freshman English or Algebra I. The idea of averaging a passing score, instead of passing all of them, would be out.
That proposal more closely resembles the current system, in which students have to pass the 11th-grade TAKS in each subject.
Eissler points out that students would still have to take all of their end-of-course exams because each would count for 15 percent of their grade in that class.
Eissler also said he wants to push back the start of end-of-course tests until the fall of 2011, instead of 2009, as the legislation now reads. Several school officials testified to legislative panels last week that they need more time. Eissler said a delayed implementation would allow more time to make sure the curriculum measured on the test is in good shape, plus allow more time to make sure the questions are appropriate, so all of that does not have to be crammed into a couple of years.
An aide to Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said Shapiro still wants all 12 tests to factor into whether students graduate.
Asked about the difference in his approach and Shapiro, Eissler said, “That’s what conference committees are for.”
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February 19, 2007
Zero tolerance for teachers' groups?
Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, has a plan to get tough on teachers’ groups who get out of line.
Zedler filed a bill late last week that would impose an unspecified civil penalty on teachers’ groups that spread false or misleading information, “including information that omits relevant facts in order to elicit a particular opinion.”
Maybe he’s trying to intimidate them, or maybe he’s trying to avenge someone’s defeat in the 2006 elections.
The proposal isn’t likely to go far, but its filing reinforces the discord that has developed between educators and legislators in recent years.
Groups representing teachers, school boards and administrators fought vigorously against the efforts of the legislative leaders to change the school finance system in 2005. Their opposition helped push the issue into 2006, when lawmakers approved a plan that drew more bipartisan support but was still described by key teachers’ groups as inadequate.
The fights carried over to the campaign trail, where teachers’ groups and others helped defeat key Republicans, including Kent Grusendorf, the former chairman of the House Public Education Committee.
If the same standard was applied to the politicians, thousands of campaign operatives would be out of work, and probably dozens of legislators from both parties would be sitting at home.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Education
February 12, 2007
Vouchers could improve dropout rates, supporters say
More private school vouchers could lead to lower dropout rates, according to a study from groups that support school choice.
The study was commissioned by the National Center for Policy Analysis, Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, and the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit started by the late economist dubbed “the nation’s leading voucher advocates” by The Wall Street Journal.
The study estimated that public school graduation rates would increase by 2.4 percentage points to 4.8 percentage points with more private school enrollment. Supporters argue that public schools’ educational quality improves with competition from private schools.
“School choice won’t fix the problem, but I think it’s an essential first step,” said Robert McTeer, a distinguished fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, former chancellor of the Texas A&M University system and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Former Education Secretary Rod Paige also expressed support for expanded school choice, saying the “consequences of continuing without aggressive modification are too dire.” Paige, the former Houston schools superintendent, said he supported state involvement in school choice as long as their conditions and standards were not overly burdensome to private schools.
The group maintains that a lower dropout rate would save the state between $27 million and $53 million annually over the expected life of the students due to increased health care and incarceration costs along with the loss of tax revenue associated with many high school dropouts.
Fewer than 7 percent of Texas students attend private schools.
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February 7, 2007
Teachers skip school
Four Austin teachers participated in the Association of Texas Professional Educators’ lobbying day at the Capitol Jan. 29, which was a teacher in-service day in the Austin school district. The district doesn’t hold classes on in-service days.
State rules require students to receive 180 days of instruction each semester, with teachers allowed to take off up to six days per year for staff development. The exact number varies from district to district. On those days, educators most often attend training programs, seminars or conferences.
In 2005, some lawmakers expressed their disapproval when 400 educators visited the Capitol on an in-service day, saying that it seemed unprofessional.
The four Austin association members used personal leave time to visit the Capitol last month. On its Web site the group lists standardized testing, school finance, teacher retirement, vouchers and charter schools among the issues it will watch this session. The Austin teachers could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Education
January 29, 2007
School districts to get safety kits
Each school district in Texas will get a child-safety program including lesson plans and a DVD for students in kindergarten through second grade.
Each district will get 25 videos to lend out to students and can purchase more. The Safe Side, which makes the materials, is donating the programs to each district.
John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted, joined Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Monday to announce the distribution of the safety kits through the Texas Association of School Administrators. Walsh also said he would visit with Dewhurst about the lieutenant governor’s efforts to toughen penalties for child sex offenders, which he praised. Walsh said some states pass ineffective laws against child predators just so they can take credit for having something on the books.
