Legislative Action Center

 

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that state Rep. Rob Eissler, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, agrees with Senate members that Education Commissioner Robert Scott has the authority to waive the so-called 15 percent rule for the current school year.

On Monday, state Sen. Florence Shapiro, chair of the Senate Education Committee, and three other senators sent Scott a letter clarifying legislative intent that cleared the path for Scott to grant a waiver of the so-called 15 percent rule.

According to the Chronicle, Scott was waiting for word from the House side that he had the authority to make the call.

House Bill 3 required that an end-of-course assessment be counted as 15 percent of a student’s final grade in a course, but school superintendents and district leader across the state have raised concerns about unintended consequences of the 15 percent rule which make it cumbersome for students, parents, counselors, teachers and administrators.?

Scott said at TASA’s Midwinter Conference in January that he would waive the 15 percent requirement if the statute allowed, but that his attorney had advised him he didn’t have the authority.

Shapiro’s letter says: “While we agree that the provisions of Chapter 39 may not be waived under your general waiver authority, we believe that you have the authority by virtue of the transition plan authorized under Section 39.025(f) to defer the requirement that an end-of-course assessment count as 15% of a final grade until the 2012-2013 school year to coincide with full implementation of the testing and accountability changes.”

Eissler, championed a bill last year to ease the grade requirement. It passed the House but couldn’t get past the Senate Education Committee.

Eissler told the Chronicle that the commissioner should be clear on his authority given the House action last year but he would talk to his colleagues about sending written confirmation.

“I talked to Robert (Scott) yesterday,” Eissler told the Chronicle. “I said, ‘You remember what we passed in the House. We should be fine with this.’”

Sen. Dan Patrick was quoted as saying this “isn’t a change in policy…. It’s a clarification of what was always intended going back to 2007.”

Contact your Representatives NOW and tell them to VOTE NO on HB 18. 

 

Today in Austin, the House is scheduled to vote on HB 18 (Eissler, R-The Woodlands). This bill calls for a mandatory district-wide waiver of the 22:1 class-size limit for grades K-4. It will let districts increase class sizes to up to 25 students. Under HB 18, districts would only have to meet a 22:1 district-wide average student-to-teacher ratio.

Tell Your Representative that this is unacceptable for teachers, and students in Texas!
Please contact your Representatives NOW and tell them to VOTE NO on HB 18.

The House Education Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to explore alternative school accountability models to replace the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) flawed system. Chairman John Kline (R-MN) blasted NCLB's accountability framework and the law's 2013–14 100 percent proficiency goal, which he said "isn't going to happen," and then roundly lamented that the "decades of escalating federal intervention in the nation's classrooms has not only failed to raise student achievement levels, it has also created a complex web of red tape that ties the hands of state and local education officials."

NCLB architect and ranking Democratic committee member George Miller (CA) agreed with "the need to balance the accountability we worked so hard to implement in NCLB with greater flexibility at the local level and less prescription at the federal level," but cautioned that some sort of federal oversight was needed lest schools return to a time when group averages obscured individual student performance in schools. Miller also took aim at the flexibility bill passed by the committee in July, which he labeled a "slush fund for school districts."

The hearing's panel of experts—including New Mexico's Secretary of Education-designate Hanna Skandera; Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho; and Bel Air, Md., elementary school principal Blaine Hawley—decried NCLB's one-size-fits-all approach and urged the committee to consider multiple measures of student achievement and school quality. Interestingly, the testimony and questions during the hearing veered several times from accountability to teacher effectiveness (another pending House Education Committee reauthorization bill), suggesting that lawmakers see a direct link between the two issues. Hawley neatly summed up the emerging situation: "My fellow colleagues and I who serve as principals know that being held accountable for student achievement is an important part of our job, but measures of student achievement must be comprehensive and accurately reflect the local context in all dimensions of student learning."

The hearing suggests the committee is still studying the complex issue and is not as close as it previously indicated in introducing an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bill addressing accountability changes. Chairman Kline set a goal to introduce the last two bills on accountability and teacher effectiveness sometime this fall, which will complete his five-bill ESEA package.

House Bill 1 is up for debate in the House today, April 1. On average, this bill results in reduced funding for schools of roughly 11.3 percent of state and local Foundation School Program funding for maintenance and operations. That’s equivalent to an estimated reduction of more than $870 per student (ADA). Cuts of this size would result in reduced employment levels of roughly 65,000 people statewide.

 

Take action and tell your legislators to say No to HB1!

The Senate passed their version of HB1 on May 4, 2011. The vote was split along party lines with the 19 Republicans outnumbering the 12 Democrats. The budget bill includes a large cut to public education funding, but the proposal has $5.9 billion more for education than the House version. Also, an amendment adopted Wednesday would prohibit using $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund.

The bill passed and moved back to the House, but after a chaotic session On Saturday, with Democrats walking out and republicans forcing votes on several bills without debate, the session was adjourned without a vote on many bills around education and the budget. The debate is expected to resume today, May 9, 2011.

Tell your representatives what you want to happen to funding for public education before it’s too late!

The 82nd Legislature convenes at noon on Januray 11, 2011. There will be several items up for discussion that affect Texas education in the coming months. Stay informed and take action to make sure your voice is heard.

Despite the current $28 billion revenue shortfall, the 82^nd Texas Legislation session will not debate raising taxes. The question of how to make up the shortfall is a matter of heated discussions both inside the Capitol and throughout communities across Texas. The proposed House budget would cut funding for public education by $9.8 billion and the proposed Senate budget would cut $9.3 billion. Without raising new taxes, the only way to reduce the proposed cuts for is to rely on funding from the state's Rainy Day Fund of $94 billion. Texas ASCD believes that the Rainy Day Fund exists to provide relief in cases of extreme emergency, when all other options have been exhausted. That time is now – the rain is upon us!

Contact your legislators to tell them that we need to rely in part on Rainy Day Fund to save public education in Texas.