The State Board of Education met on January 27 to take up several items. This report covers item number 1 on the agenda, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath’s comments to the board. Commissioner Morath provided updates on: Policy issues for the 87th, State of Education Annual Report, Operation Connectivity, COVID response and federal funding, Hold Harmless and public education funding, special education, EOCs/IGCS, and virtual schooling. The agenda and the video of this meeting can be found here.
The HillCo report below is a summary of remarks intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics discussed. This report is not a verbatim transcript; it 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.
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath
- Three policy issues for 87th
- HB 3 funding needs to be sustained – thinks budget answers this strongly
- Accountability system such as how interventions are handled, what a D means for campuses
- Long term picture for remote instruction
- Annual report for 2020 on State of Education has been released will be widely available soon
- Pg. 4 normal process of evaluating how students learn have been disrupted but there are some measures to give a sense of where we are
- Objective is to achieve 60×30 plan, key measure HS graduates after 6 years have some sort of degree or industry-based credential – less than 1/3
- Strategic Plan to address with 4 four key priorities
- Reading academies are going “like gangbusters” close to 50k completed by end of this school year
- Metrics should be available on this soon
- 64% of graduating class shows college, career or military readiness but work to do to make sure data is fully accurate particularly in military data
- 4 key priorities on page 9
- Updates on Special Education on page 10 – well over 10% students are identified and receiving supports
- Page 11 is a picture of funding that is an all-in funding picture – $66 billion in total spending year before HB 3 and HB 3 brought us to over $70 billion spending on education
- COVID 19 summary included
- Page 14 is NAEP scores, not new but thinks we should always be grounded in National Comparison
- Last week issued a research analysis on academic declines as a result of COVID 19 – very little academic gain cumulatively for student in Texas academic declines from COVID. 3.2 months of learning loss last year in addition to loss that takes place over the summer. This is based on learning loss in the spring. Little academic gain for students relative to normal school years. Very significant challenges that will have to be addressed for many years.
- Operation Connectivity – 3.2 million devices acquired by school systems, excludes devices purchased in April so have “completely closed gap” on devices but access is still a gap 3.2 million devices have been acquired by time of annual report, 4.5 million now. This excludes devices that districts purchased in April. Believes to have closed device gap. Still a gap in internet access.
- Ellis – hold harmless?
- Can only spend money they have
- Two huge dominoes fell – federal CARISSA bill of $5.5 billion for Texas and Comptroller released number on sales tax so it’s a big new piece of information
- Hope to have final decision sometime soon, in February is his hope
- Nothing specific to report now
- “Feeling very positive about financial picture for public education”
- Young – broadband? Thanks for attention to special education.
- Operation Connectivity – tirage is done but hot spots are above devices and does not address infrastructure
- Medium term, Phase 2 is find the mismatch, ensure fix line internet is established for families
- Phase 3 about infrastructure; shovels in the ground
- Believes Phase 2 and 3 will need legislation, “public policy attention”
- When transitioned remotely talked to people in-field how to support kids in special education, small contract on speech therapy they stood up and it is growing
- Nurtured existence of a remote dyslexia platform, seed-funded a program that is being piloted in 8 districts in Texas
- Hickman – School sports TEA involvement?
- UIL is what governs sports
- Metereau – EOC question, Budget questions on 5% cut and HB 3906 transition to online testing without a broadband plan? What states do we look to for best systems?
- Don’t have authority over much of IGC, legislature says 3 out of 5 EOCs need to be passed
- Public education protected by legislature, admin of TEA got cut but public education is funded and is number one priority of legislature
- Constantly looking for best practices, Massachusetts literacy scores envy of rest of country and they never waivered from teacher support in phonics and robust literary expectations
- Maynard – updates on how many in-person vs remotely? Prioritization of vaccines?
- Do not collect real time information from school systems next picture is Jan 30th and then Feb 30th
- About 55% of students on campuses according to last picture
- On-campus has to be offered everywhere, very few exceptions to that
- EVAP determines who gets the prioritization on vaccinations
- Ellis – also saw some counties reaching out to districts
- Johnson – recruiting or finding available teachers?
- Lot of work on how to recruit into the profession
- Teacher Incentive allotment changes some of the compensation dynamic
- Also investing in “Grow your own”
- Cortez – STAAR test waiver, funding K-12 under CRR (the latest round of federal funding)? When do districts know what they received and allowable uses?
- No on STAAR waiver
- Proportionate to Title I will get allocation
- Legislative appropriation will weigh in on distribution, TEA does not make the sole decision
- Legislature appropriates federal funds just like state funds
- Cortez – How much CARES is still unspent? And what will it be spent on?
- Funding streams specific to education – $1.2 billion but legislature took additional CARES money and put into education
- Page 11 gives you the picture
- Will share updates throughout the process and continue to do so
- Cortez – Devices, one of his districts purchased a little over $7 million in devices but have not received them
- Federal government changed the law; so funding no longer turns into a pumpkin and as a result they have extended the deadlines (CARES funding deadline was extended from Dec. 31, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2021)
- Perez-Diaz – Virtual school options for long term? Charter schools launching virtual schools? Spending and utilization on Texas Home Learning?– concern on virtual schooling being used for recruitment efforts and it will cause issues for districts where everyone is losing students
- ISDs have flexibility to serve kids anywhere in state of Texas and whether they choose to is their own choice
- Some ISDs are pretty aggressively rolling out state wide virtual learning
- Knows some ISDs have launched specialized virtual schools like Lubbock, a handful have stood up virtual full time schools but not sure if it is being used as a recruitment tool
- 415 districts using LMS, 471 using THL, just over 800 using implementation services
- Perez – EOC/IGC?
- Waives SSI requirements in 5 and 8
- Last year Governor used emergency powers to issue a gubernatorial waiver to EOCs but thought is it much less desirable with legislature in session
- Assume Seniors already re-took all exams or 4 out of 5
- Free passage was on EOC for last year by simply passing the course
- Perez – waivers? Were charters given 2021 waiver?
- Yes, given same emergency rules to charters and ISDs
- Will go back to status quo at end of year
- Robinson – will hold districts harmless for rest of school year? Could you let districts know asap?
- Trying to move with speed, complicating factor is often school systems don’t have clarity on budget until June with regular session
- Agrees districts need clarity as soon as possible
- Little – bill on average daily attendance vs enrollment?
- One of thousand plus bills in legislative session
- As a state employee will not lobby for or against the passage of a bill
- Pros and Cons to both approaches
- Parts of our school finance is based on ADA and parts on enrollment
- Attendance based system – incentive for kids to be there each and every day; so pros to ensure kids are there each day
- Enrollment based system – more predictable environment for budget
- Number of states that are attendance based and number of states enrollment based
- Number of people support attendance base and number of people support enrollment base
- Hardy – well this State of State be available to districts?
- Yes; will send a print version to Superintendents and School Boards
- Electronic version will be up as well