The Senate Committee on Education has published their report to the 82nd Legislature. Below is a summary of the recommendations.
Interim Charge 1 – Charter Schools Recommendations:
1) Ensure commissioner’s authority, based on the best interests of the students, to take action regarding a charter application or holder due to a violation of the charter:
- including failure to satisfy accountability provisions prescribed by the charter;
- failure to satisfy generally accepted accounting standards of fiscal management; and
- failure to protect the safety of the students enrolled at the school.
2) Ensure performance monitoring for special mission charter schools is appropriate for the population served.
3) Extend the Permanent School Fund bond guarantee to academically and financially sound charter schools.
4) Remove the cap on the number of charters able to be awarded.
5) Establish an alternative for turning over consistently poor performing campuses to high performing charter management organizations.
6) Allow for more new charter school campuses that primarily serve students with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
7) Exempt charter facilities leased by a private owner from property taxes for the duration of the lease agreement.
8) Provide charter schools with greater access to existing public school facilities with vacant or unused facilities.
9) Review the funding structures of per pupil allotments for children attending public charter schools and alter them to more accurately reflect per pupil allotments for children attending public district schools.
Interim Charge 2 – Middle Grades Recommendations:
1) Support individualized instruction in order to meet the needs of each student.
- Create an advisory class which would address students’ academic and socio-emotional needs.
2) Ensure a high-quality curriculum for core subjects in grades 6-8.
- Expand and improve the writing component of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies across all content areas.
3) Redesign personnel practices in order to increase the quantity and effectiveness of middle grades teachers.
- Require that 6th, 7th, and 8th grade core content classes be taught by a certified teacher in that specific content area.
4) Identify practices and develop programs to ensure effective school leadership at every middle school.
Interim Charge 3 – Teacher Quality Recommendations:
1) More effectively align resources with achievement. Considerations should include:
- Establishing compensation that induces capable individuals to enter the profession, provides flexibility to school districts to meet local conditions, facilitates placement of effective individuals in instructional settings where most needed and provides a comprehensive and long-term view of compensation.
- Ensure data between different systems link so the state may explore how policies such as retirement packages affect educator decisions.
2) Develop standards to ensure the quality of content in courses for university based teacher candidates in core subject areas as well as elementary reading instruction.
3) Include a student achievement component in teacher evaluations to measure individual educator’s effectiveness.
4) Redesign the state’s current mentoring and induction program to better focus on beginning teacher retention and effectiveness.
5) Develop an accountability system for professional development to monitor the quality of courses used for continuing education hours.
6) Create a statewide teacher leadership program by issuing specializations, endorsements, and/or mid-management certifications.
Interim Charge 4 – Cost Drivers Recommendations:
1) Provide greater local control to school districts in determining classroom operations. Options to explore include:
- Modify class size limitations to allow more flexibility to school districts to meet the needs of their students.
- Provide districts greater flexibility in educator contracting.
2) Consolidate grants and other funding that lie outside of the foundation school program, and where feasible or where the program proves ineffective, reallocate those funds to the foundation school program.
3) Ensure that resources serve the students on the campus from where the funding originates.
4) Ensure parents and taxpayers have access to information on how efficiently and productively school districts operate. Options include:
- Require greater detailed reporting of funds categorized as ‘auxiliary’ spending by school districts.
- Establish reporting requirements that provide a measure of classroom costs.
- Establish a Center for Financial Accountability and Productivity.
- Create a compendium of cost savings measures and make available to all school districts.
5) Establish incentives for cost savings at the district and campus level.
- Provide an expiring match from the state for cost savings measures achieved by school districts.
- Require school districts to implement programs whereby a campus may earn funding for operating more efficiently than their prorated share of costs in such areas as substitute teacher utilization, utilities, maintenance, food service, transportation, etc.
6) School districts should explore revenue generation options including leasing vacant facilities to charter schools.
Interim Charge 5 – English Language Learners Recommendations:
1) Some Texas Districts do effective work in educating their English Language Learners. Other districts can learn from their peers. Texas schools and districts in search of effective bilingual programs should utilize the Best Practices Clearinghouse and learn from surrounding districts.
2) Regardless of program type, high quality teachers with in-depth content knowledge in their subject area and experience in research-based teaching methodologies are what make the most difference for children learning English and learning in English. Successful English Language Learner programs at districts have to common themes: effective teachers and effective leaders. Texas should raise the bar for teacher training across the state, including for bilingual teachers, as well as provide effective professional development.
3) The distribution of qualified and effective ELL teachers is not equitably distributed across the state. The state should explore ways to remedy the gap in demand and supply of these teachers.
Interim Charge 6 – Special Education Recommendations:
1) Require high quality teacher training for special education teachers.
- Require teacher candidates for elementary special education to take courses in relevant academic subjects and take subject matter tests.
- Require secondary special education teachers to earn the equivalent of one subject area minor and pass tests in those areas so they have content knowledge necessary to educate their students.
2) Offer students, with special learning needs, school choice options.
- Invent universities specializing in a specific research area to open a charter school serving students affected by that specialization (for example, Autism Spectrum Disorder) by appropriating a planning grant.
- Shift focus of decision making to families when school districts contract services with non-p
ublic schools.
3) Improve transition services and hold schools accountable for outcomes.
- Change the transition age from 16 to 14
- Increase number of indicators under PBMAS to include a variety of transition indicator changes.
4) Require parents and taxpayers to have access to district’s special education program statistics and direct TEA to gather the following information and publish in an online “consumer reports” format to improve transparency:
- Track withdrawals, beginning at Preschool Programs for Children with Disabilities (PPCD), to include number of students served under IDEA who are parentally withdrawn from school.
- Per student data should a variety of factors.
- Total dollars spent on special education dispute resolution each year.
Interim Charge 7 – Dual Credit recommendations are in joint report with Senate Committee on Higher Education.
Interim Charge 8 – Implementation of Legislation Recommendations:
1) Expand student access to coursework in a digital medium including expansion of the virtual school network, along with similar virtual school options, and removing barriers to access of virtual options.
2) Ensure there is no delay or modification in implementation the assessments and accountability provisions in HB 3 as postsecondary readiness remains the highest priority of Texas’ education system.
3) Review of HB 3646 was deferred to the Select Committee on Public School Finance, Weights, Adjustments and Allotments.
4) Expedite the implementation of the educator preparation program accountability system enacted by SB 174.
A copy of the complete report can be found by visiting: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/commit/c530/c530.InterimReport81.pdf
