The State Board of Education (SBOE) met for their quarterly meeting September 11 – 14, 2018. The report below covers discussions of the General Meeting of the Full Board on September 14, 2018. During their comments, they discussed the State Land Board Allocations to the SBOE and its impact on public education finance.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Friday, September 14, 2018
Consent agenda approved
Adoption of Long-Rang Plan for Public Education
- Cargill moved to postpone this item until the November meeting
- Perez-Diaz – suggests they approve the plan now but pull out the technology component for November
- Cortez – wants to approve plan now so changes can be posted, said he got calls saying that the Governor’s staff is not in agreement with formula funded language
- Bahorich – can approve the changes now, put it out and have final vote in November
- Discussion was focused on the best motion to make to capture intent
- SBOE approve the draft as amended by committee of full board as set out in attachment A
- Motion adopted
- Final approval will be at the November meeting
- Staff requested they be able to go through and confirm name spellings (including accents) are correct before it is filed with the Texas Register
- Motion made to approve for second reading and final adoption as amended
- Motion adopted
- Motion made to approve for first reading and filing authorization
- Bahorich – 18C regarding emphasis and wants to add back “on life in the United States”
- Approved
- Maynard – pointed out staff will re-examine impact of amendments on instructional time needed, staff concurred noting they would also provide the number of grade level expectations
- Discussion continued on how staff will break out expectations and details in light of streamline
- Mercer – points out that they need to come back and strike “such as” and add “including” in subchapter C-21A which would give instructors a list to utilize
- Discussion on pros and cons of the motion, does the language mean there is a need for more instructional time or less, if the suggestion helps teachers, how this would impact testing or help
- Allen – argues general instruction was that if the board includes something, it would not streamline and did not think “including” would be streamlines
- Hardy – understands it differently, see this as narrowing since 8th grade and 11th grade are tested so teachers will understand specifically where testing will go
- Questions continued on what the motion included and its impacts
- Motion passed
- Melton- Malone – recommends adding Sam Houston (and the word state) before the 4th grade,
- Discussion regarding if this motion helps streamline, etc
- Motion passed
- Motion passed
- Motion made and adopted unanimously
Proposed Approval of Innovative Courses – This item recommends approval of innovative courses that do not fall within any of the subject areas of the foundation or enrichment curriculum. Statutory authority for this action is the Texas Education Code (TEC), §28.002(f).
- Motion made and adopted unanimously
Agenda items 7 & 8 were postponed. Staff is still working on dyslexia agenda item and will bring it back up during the November meeting – handbook will soon be posted
Consideration of Petition for Adoption of Rule Concerning a Requirement for School Uniforms – A petition to adopt a rule requiring that all Texas students wear school uniforms has been received from Ms. Brittany Clark. This item provides the opportunity for the State Board of Education (SBOE) to consider the petition. The statutory authority for this action is Texas Government Code (TGC), §2001.021 and 19 TAC §30.1.
- Motion made to deny the petition and passed
- Cortez – if a uniform were mandated by a district then they must provide a uniform, staff agreed so Cortez followed up on petitioner request
- Staff- outside authority of SBOE, each school board can make this decision
Review of 19 TAC Chapter 233, Categories of Classroom Teaching Certificates
- It a recommended that SBOE take no action – effective date of 20 days after filing the adoption notice with the Texas Register
- Motion made and adopted
Review of Proposed Amendments to 19 TAC Chapter 250, Administration, Subchapter A, Purchasing, §250.1, Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Program, and Subchapter B, Rulemaking Procedures, §250.20, Petition for Adoption of Rules or Rule Changes
- It a recommended that SBOE take no action -– effective date of 20 days after filing the adoption notice with the Texas Register
- Motion made and adopted
Review of Proposed Amendments to 19 TAC Chapter 247, Educators’ Code of Ethics
- It a recommended that SBOE take no action -– effective date of 20 days after filing the adoption notice with the Texas Register
- Motion made and adopted
Review of Proposed Amendments to 19 TAC Chapter 249, Disciplinary Proceedings, Sanctions, and Contested Cases, Subchapter A, General Provisions, §249.3, Definitions, §249.5 Purpose; Policy Governing Disciplinary Proceedings; and Subchapter B, Enforcement Actions and Guidelines, §249.15, Disciplinary Action by State Board for Educator Certification
- It a recommended that SBOE take no action -– effective date of 20 days after filing the adoption notice with the Texas Register
- Motion made and adopted
Review of Proposed Amendments to 19 TAC Chapter 228, Requirements for Educator Preparation Programs
- It a recommended that SBOE reject the proposed amendments
- Based on HB 3349 (Hawkins) – concern is that rule goes beyond what the bill calls for, bill intent was to get teachers from the industry into the classroom on an abbreviated timeline but the committee had several concerns and heard concerns from public testimony
- Rowley – concern was that this streamline method of obtaining a certification, committee was fine with industrial classification, but marketing and health sciences were totally different
- Cortez – marketing and health sciences were not even in the bill, so rule goes outside of bill
- Perez-Diaz – again restates concern was what was in bill text
- Ellis – training must be provided by EPP or school districts and campuses which was pointed out that it was not in the bill either
- Cecilia-Perez – asked about streamline of standards and accountability, does not think everyone can teach but making the profession of teaching easier to get into is not the solution but perhaps raising salaries
- Motion made to reject and adopted
David Bradley said all items from his committee on consent but wanted to follow up on discussion
- Adopted amount distributed per student, recommendation was down to the tenth of the penny
- Payout from PSF would impact per capita rate – will drop from $459 a child to $415 a child, notes this is the first time this has happened
- In regards to real estate portfolio, putting out commitments but promising to fund them – do not keep much cash on hand, less than 1% of fund assets in cash and they do not require $4 billion in assets waiting on calls (note: this is the practice of the SLB)
- SBOE members all signed a letter to request SLB to reconsider their decision and funds from the SLB be disbursed to the SBOE
- School Land Board meeting is October 2nd – there is an opportunity for public testimony
- Maynard – have undertaken an aggressive research project to capture some of the history of the Permanent School Fund and spoke to the art contest donations
- Will need action to forward the letter from the full board
- Cortez – is the money from the GLO/SLB, do they handle it the way the SBOE does?
- Staff – money from fund go to textbooks and per capita distribution to school district, so funds from SLB will pay per capita distribution, further explanation is offered on how the funds are distributed
- Cortez – this is a reflection of the loss of instructional materials dollars, funding will go to offset state’s portion of what they use to finance public education
- Staff – if legislature treats this the same they have historically, that is correct
- Bradley – letter states embedded in the letter that says the GLO ASF distribution will benefit per capita distribution but it will not benefit needed instructional materials and technology funding
- Ellis – when ASF goes to per capita distribution it benefits Ch. 41 districts because they get that on top of their funding, for Ch. 42 it goes into money they would have received anyway so the ones who do not benefit from ASF per capita coming over from the SLB are the property poor school districts who will not benefit at all
- Hardy – appreciates Bradley and Maynard went to Sunset hearing, and thinks this is an important message to get across
- Cecilia-Perez – disgusted by this action of the SLB and encourages members to work with officials across the state to correct this error
- Motion adopted unanimously to send letter to SLB
- Bahorich – unprecedented SBOE action to be unanimous signatories on a letter to a different agency, as this is the first time in over 160 years failure for SLB to send funding to SBOE
Public Testimony
Margaret Davis, Texas IB Schools
- Request consideration of updating IB Fina Arts when the IB Film
- Unintended consequence was created when language and literature credits were updated to be two credits to count as one graduation requirement – leading to some students with not enough English credits for graduation
- Would like to change the language to be changed to address that
- Also, would like to consider IB credits and the effect on endorsements
Jeanette Lafevers, Texas IB Schools
- Discussed differences between AP and IB physics credits and graduation requirements
- Believes the IB physics courses should get equal number of graduation requirements
- Maynard – understand that the English class is one class that counts as two credits and one graduation requirement
- Davis – That is correct, that unintended consequence was created in the summer update of the English course
- Maynard – would it be possible to solve it through splitting the English class into 2 courses?
- Davis – The problem is that it is 2 credits but one PEIMS number
- Hardy – speaking to unintended consequences, did you get everything worked out with unintended consequences at Bellaire?
- Davis – still working through those issues on a case by case basis
Randy Hutchins, Self
- Noted minimum passing scores associated with updated TEKS
- Texas is following the California trend – not a good one
- Member – did you go into detail about the process scores?
- 41% of questions in 3rd grade test are about process, not math – reviewed number of questions in each grade level
- Mercer – what is the difference between process and math?
- It is recognizing how the answer is found, not the answer
- Mercer – in the real world does a boss ask if you got the right answer or how you got your answer?
- It is almost always looking for the correct answer, not how you got there
- Maynard – how did you determine that the questions are getting easier?
- Through taking them, and seeing the impact on students while tutoring
- Maynard – you are saying the number of process questions have increased and the number of computation questions have decreased
- Perez – where are you getting your data?
- Directly from TEA raw conversion tables
- Miller – believe we have a common core math issue
Board Member Ethics Training
Chris Maska, Texas Education Agency
- Presented annual ethics training to the board members
Member Comments
- Ellis – is now an honorary lifetime member of the Texas Rural Educators Association, and will be speaking to TASA/TASB and Tribfest representing the SBOE for the Public School Finance Commission
- Maynard – will be sending out revised tweaks to the PSF
- Bahorich – Cargill has been named to the Arts Education Task Force
- Kay Cruz – has been re-elected to President at the American Institute of Parliamentarians
- 2019 Board Meeting dates are made available in the Meeting Agenda
- Details regarding the TASA hosted round table will be made available – Keynote will be Dr. Sharon Hoover
- Long Range plan will be up for approval in November