Legislative Update

5-9-08 Bragging Rights

Texas School Business, a magazine that focuses on Texas educators and vendors that serve the public schools, publishes Bragging Rights each year to honor school districts and their innovative programs. The magazine is accepting nominations for programs to be featured in this year’s Bragging Rights, which will be published in December. If your school has a successful program you would like to nominate, send an e-mail to brag@texasschoolbusiness.com that briefly describes the program, its development and noteworthy results. All types of programs are welcome, including athletics, curriculum development, staff development and special education. All nominations must be submitted by June 1.

For more information, contact Texas School Business editor Katie Ford at Katie@texasschoolbusiness.com or (512) 469-9746.

5-9-08 SBEC meeting  

The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) met May 9 in Austin. Among the items on the agenda was a review of revisions to rules for educator preparation programs. State law requires the board to review such rules every four years. ATPE submitted testimony to the board on this item outlining our concerns about educator certification as outlined in the ATPE Legislative Program. The testimony also called for greater oversight to help maintain the highest standards for educator certification in Texas.

The Board took no action on the proposed rule changes relating to educator preparation, but instructed staff to make changes to the proposed language for consideration at SBEC's next meeting in July. You can view the testimony at http://www.atpe.org/Advocacy/LegislativeResources/sbecReviseTAC.asp.  

Proposed revisions to the board’s operating policies and procedures were also on the agenda. ATPE submitted testimony on this item outlining our concerns about proposed revisions to the rules for public testimony. The revision would allow the board chair discretion over which speakers would be heard and limit all public testimony to 30 minutes per meeting. This could limit opportunities for stakeholders to voice their concerns on contentious issues. ATPE recommended that the board not make any changes to the current operating policy and that it embrace public testimony in accordance with SBEC’s own core principle, which states, “We believe stakeholder input is valuable and student success is primary.” In response, the board voted instead to allow 30 minutes of testimony on each agenda item. You can view the testimony on this item at http://www.atpe.org/Advocacy/LegislativeResources/sbecLimitPublicTestimony.asp.  

For more information, contact ATPE Governmental Relations.

4-21-08 ATPE testifies before education committee

The House Committee on Public Education met in Austin today to hear public and invited testimony on its fourth interim charge, which is to research and evaluate state-supported policies and programs designed to attract, train and support effective teachers and instructional leaders, including programs designed to recruit and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools. ATPE was part of a panel of experts invited to appear at the hearing.

ATPE’s testimony was geared toward shedding light on the reasons recruiting and retaining teachers in our public schools is such a challenge. According to an ATPE-commissioned teacher retention study, the primary reasons educators leave the profession are working conditions and compensation. ATPE stressed that while many school districts offer attractive starting salaries, most do not provide worthwhile salary advancement opportunities, which discourages beginning educators from remaining in the profession and creates a disincentive for qualified candidates to enter the field. ATPE also pointed out that it will be a bigger challenge to address working conditions because the term encompasses so many different aspects of the job. According to our study, the aspects that cause educators the most concern are student behavior, lack of administrator support, burdensome paperwork and state mandates.

The committee will continue meeting during the interim to gather information in order to make recommendations to the Legislature on how to address these issues. ATPE will continue to monitor the committee’s work and will report on any significant developments.

Stay tuned for updates.

4-18-08 ELAR TEKS revisions open for public comment

ATPE recently reported on controversy surrounding ongoing work by the State Board of Education (SBOE) to revise the English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) TEKS. The controversy started when certain board members attempted to replace revised standards developed with the input of educator workgroups with alternative standards rejected by the state more than 10 years ago.

To resolve the dispute, SBOE formed a subcommittee to choose experts to conduct a review of the proposed revisions, take input from all interested parties and submit a final proposal for the full board’s vote.

The subcommittee released a new draft of the revised standards March 19 and heard invited and public testimony on the draft at the March 26 SBOE meeting. The new version contains components of both the original TEA revisions and the proposed alternative revisions, but it also contains new components not in either of the previous proposals. The revised standards have been posted in the Texas Register and are now open for public comment for 30 days. ATPE encourages all educators to review the standards and submit your input.

To view the revised standards and submit your comments, go to www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/home/sboeprop.html. Don’t miss this opportunity to help shape policy that may directly impact your profession.

4-15-08 Joint Select Committee on Public School Accountability Hearing

The Joint Select Committee on Public School Accountability met April 14 in San Antonio to hear invited and public testimony.  Five panels of experts representing the business community, school districts, higher education, school boards and community organizations testified before the committee. Among the experts were Charles Miller, former chairman of the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, and former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff. Ratliff also leads Raise Your Hand Texas, an advocacy group that was instrumental in passing the legislation that created the committee.

The “school district” panel included representatives from the Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Kerrville, and Plano school districts. Their testimony focused on how their districts incorporate student achievement growth into their accountability systems using a form of value-added regression analysis to evaluate individual students, teachers, classes and campus progress. Generally, the systems rank the performance and progress of each area using TAKS scores, norm-referenced tests, end-of-course exams and other measures based on local needs. The goal is to identify students in need of individual attention, predict performance in specific areas and determine a course of study based on each student’s experience.

The panel’s testimony also shined a light on issues districts will face when implementing pay-for-performance programs for administrators and teachers. According to the panel, growth model analyses can help determine the "teacher quality effect" on student learning by taking into account aspects such as demographics, wealth levels and other student variables. The key is to have reliable data systems and develop the goals of the plan based on local needs.  However, evaluating individual teachers using “growth models” is complicated and can be divisive and should be only a portion of the overall evaluation.  Most of the districts also include test scores in absolute terms (number of students passing by campus) in their pay-for-performance programs. Such a competitive system can have an adverse effect on campus teamwork and overall working conditions, especially in smaller schools. Several witnesses stressed the importance of using multiple measures to determine student progress, including criterion or norm-referenced measures and computer adaptive testing.   

The committee also heard from witnesses who called for incorporating college and workforce readiness standards into public education and making curriculum, assessments and accountability systems more rigorous in order to help Texas meet the demands of the global economy. Commissioner of Education Robert Scott responded by pointing out that Texas has done a good job of phasing in more difficult standards by meeting the system at its current level and increasing rigor and difficulty over time. According to Scott, that is what should be done with any future changes resulting from the committee’s work. 

Upcoming committee meetings:

May 12, Houston
June 16, Dallas
July 14, Brownsville
Aug 11, West Texas (Location TBD)

ATPE will continue to monitor the committee's activities as it travels around the state. Stay tuned for updates. 

4-3-08 Pensions and Investments Committee meeting

The House Pensions and Investments Committee met April 3 to discuss its first interim charge. That charge is to evaluate the possibility of requiring the state and employee contribution rate to meet the annually required contribution (ARC) for the statewide retirement funds each biennium in order to prevent unfunded liabilities.

ATPE testified before the committee that requiring pension systems to meet the ARC is not a complete strategy for preventing funding shortfalls. We recommended that the state contribute above the ARC so that the fund would have a buffer against market losses and, more importantly, so that benefit increases could be granted to retirees. ATPE also reiterated our opposition to increasing active member contributions and recommended that the committee establish a ceiling for such contributions in order to provide more security and stability for educators.

ATPE will continue to monitor the work of the committee. Stay tuned for updates.

3-31-08 Opportunity for principals

Raise Your Hand Texas (RYHT), the pro-public education group chaired by former Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff, is offering public and charter school principals the chance to attend one of four leadership workshops being offered by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. RYHT will select 100 principals to attend the event. All expenses would be paid. For more information on this opportunity, visit www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/harvard.