The State Board of Education (SBOE) approved a request from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) to update its Texas Assessment Preparation student consumable and Texas Assessment Preparation teacher edition for its state-adopted language arts products for grades 2-12. These products were adopted by the SBOE under Proclamation 2011 in November of 2010 and are scheduled to be implemented in schools beginning with the 2011-2012 school year. Approval of the update entailed waiving one requirement of the update process described in 19 Texas Administrative Code §66.75.
The HMH request was made so the company could provide the most up-to-date, instructionally relevant materials possible, and to fulfill the commitment made to Texas educators during the recent reading/literature adoption to update HMH assessment materials as the state language arts assessment changed. In accordance with the requirements of the proclamation, HMH provided a list of editorial changes that it intended to make to its Texas Assessment Preparation student consumable and Texas Assessment Preparation teacher edition. Upon review of these proposed editorial changes, Texas Education Agency (TEA) staff determined that the extent of the revisions reflected a complete update to the components. This presented a unique circumstance for the SBOE as a publisher was requesting to update its products after the initial adoption, but before the products are delivered to schools for implementation. SBOE rule 19 TAC §66.75(c) directs that requests for the approval of updates shall not be approved during the first year unless changes in technology, curriculum, or other reasons warrant. In this situation, the move from the current TAKS to the STAAR was determined to warrant the approval. TEA curriculum subject-area staff provided a limited review of the changes.