Senate Education – April 25, 2019

This report focuses on the discussions of school finance legislation in the Senate Committee on Education on April 25, 2019.

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.

 

HB 3 (Huberty)/SB 4 (Taylor) – public school finance and public education

Taylor lays out highlights of legislation

• Raising basic allotment to $5,880
• Reverses trend of declining state share, reduce reliance on recapture
• Increase level of comp ed and will bring in the density of poverty
• Resources for districts to implement full day quality pre-K
• Additional access to funding for meeting reading benchmarks
• Bilingual education to move from dual language to bilingual
• Increase funding for students with dyslexia
• Recognize important role teachers play in outcome of students, $5k for teacher/librarian and an optional program they can participate in similar to Dallas ISD program – offering more teachers money to incentivize teachers to stay where need is the greatest
• College, career and military ready students get bonus for district
• FASFA form incentive – missing out on $300 million a year in Pell Grants, need to improve the pipeline
• Reforming the STAAR test – all campuses should be on broadband, ability to do online assessment that allows for randomize test and smaller test that can be given at the beginning of the year over next 3-5 years moving to online version of STAAR test and no test on Monday
• Increasing the funding for special education mainstream

Discussion on lay out

• West – not jump on only things don’t like, look at whole package and how to move forward
• Campbell – agrees with West comments
• Bettencourt – have concern on 1cent sales tax swap concept, never had a swap that works so is passing out an alternative to sales tax, discusses items brought up in School Finance Committee from severance tax to Wayfair decisions to tax online purchases
• Taylor and Campbell interrupt discussion, Taylor notes there is an Senate Finance working group working on alternative revenue sources
• Bettencourt – asked to finish his comments

Witness Testimony

Mike Morath, Leo Lopez, and Von Byer, TEA

• Resource Witness
• West – Explain how all the pieces, revenue caps, compression, etc. work together with school finance and can you forecast how that will work over the next 10 years? How does it all work together?
  • Byer – Current CS is structured with a property tax reduction in the first year, and there is a further reduction in the second year contingent on a constitutional amendment passing
  • Byer – Third year after passage a new concept called localized compression will go into effect for individual districts, that is also dependent on the constitutional amendment
• Leo Lopez, Chief School Finance Officer for TEA – Bill has an 8 cent reduction in year one, which is coupled with the homestead exemption. If the constitutional amendment is accepted that will be a 15 cent reduction in year two. In year 3 there would be a revenue cap implemented, and sales tax swap would go to fund the ongoing compression of 15 cents. Individual buy-downs by districts would not affect the districts tier-1 budgets. For 10 year projections those are still being worked on
• West – What districts would be impacted under current growth by districts?
  • Taylor – There is a fast-growth school allotment that will take care of that issue
  • Byer – On the current year, the proposed bill does contemplate first year tax compressions. Current year-values tends to solve the externality issue, so you might want to keep that in mind
• West – If there is an impact on the current year, can you give info on how much those districts would be getting under the fast-growth allotment?
• West – Many daycare providers are worried about the impact of full-day pre-K on their business
• West – How does this bill change how we fund charter schools and make charter schools more responsible?
  • Lopez – Maintains average level funding for charter schools
• West – How much is that?
  • Lopez – Around $6500 under current law. But since the bill makes changes to the small-district formulas, it moves charter school funding to a weighted average based on total enrollment
• West – So how much would it be?
  • Lopez – Do not have that number
• West – IS $35,000 reasonable based on what you just said the calculation would be?
  • Lopez – No. It will not be one number for everything since there will be differences between small/mid-sized districts and large districts
• Watson – How are we defining fast-growth?
  • Lopez – Based on student growth
• Watson – So it does not take into account property value growth?
  • Lopez – No
• Watson – Is there an anticipated percentage of school districts not growing than the state average?
  • Lopez – About 25 or 205% are below the state average.
• Watson – Will any districts be negatively impacted by shifting the current year?
  • Lopez – We do not have runs of districts that would be impacted by this change in isolation.
  • Byer – We look at local collections by prior year to determine local share, so the increased collections from the current year would not count against the entitlement. If the district did not grow faster than the prior year or if collections go down, the formula does not care, it only looks at prior year. If a district continues to grow they will always have a little money that they can use to fund their operations. If it does not grow or declines then they will have less because the state assumes they collected money that they in fact did not.
• Watson – So right now we don’t know what districts would be negatively impacted by going to the current year? We know aggregates but not individual districts?
  • Lopez – That is a knowable number, but TEA looks at the totality when studying these things.
• Watson – You can probably understand why certain people might be interested in the individual districts
  • Morath – AISD would not get the fast-growth allotment since enrollment is shrinking, but property values are skyrocketing. Significant analysis is limited of individual districts, but there is a list of districts that are generally above average or below average. Using that data, the prior year value usage might be beneficial to around 300 districts, while going to current year would benefit the remainder of the 1200 districts.
• Taylor – But it is an equity issue because some districts are getting funding beyond?
  • Morath – You have to simplify the analogy to make it make sense. If districts A and B are largely the same, but Exxon builds a plant in A and increases values, then the kids in A will get more per student based on prior year values. But if you take away prior year values it will hurt a huge number of districts.
• Watson – Will that not create a greater number of schools that have settle-up swings?
  • Morath – Create greater cash flow variability at a district level
  • Morath – There are 20-30 years of business practice based on prior year values at TEA, Comptroller, and the districts. But the risk will be shifted to the districts, and you could see more settle-up swings which might create consternation for the Comptroller. There might be a more certain view of total finances, but it would also create greater cash-flow variability at the district level.
• Watson – And they might try to estimate low to settle up on the front end, which would hurt students?
  • Lopez – The districts do not submit estimates of property values, only of student counts. The settle-up amounts would depend on how accurate the estimates by the Comptroller re at the start of the year
• Watson – This would repeal the cost-of-education index, won’t that penalize the same districts that are hurt by going to current year?
  • Morath – Not necessarily, but there are some that would be hurt by both.
  • Morath – big three shifts are comp ed, prior year values and CEI
• Watson – There are districts that because of the CEI and going to current year would get a “double whammy”, but those problems would be solved by the transitional formula grant funds?
  • Morath – Not sure if AISD, for example, would get the formula transitional funding allotment?
  • Morath – system is set up so that no one looses
• Watson – because of the transition grant is why Morath says no one loses, would like a list of schools who would be recipients of the transitional funding, since it shows a list of every district who would otherwise lose under this bill
  • Lopez – Do not know how many districts would get that. Does not have a list and count right now. AISD is relatively low CEI so they would, all else equal, benefit from that change.
• Watson – Transitional allotment has a 5 year cliff, so the bill has a provision for formula transition that is supposed to -not supposed to say but will – “hold harmless”. In the past legislatures were not able to do away with hold harmless, which this bill tries to deal with by changing the name of “hold harmless” and by making it a 5 year transition.
  • Morath – If there is a change in underlying district characteristics it might reduce the need for transitional allotments.
  • Watson – So we are hoping it just kind of works out
  • Morath – Another reason they might not need it after 5 years is a change in the basic allotment that the legislature subsequently adopts.
• Watson – Why are we excluding outcomes bonuses and teacher pay increases in the transition grant analysis?
  • Morath – It is a policy call, if for example a school achieved better results one year than the last, then the outcomes bonuses would have no effect since it would just reduce the transitional allotments. So, 50% of outcomes based funding and teacher pay raises will not be counted
  • Watson – I interpret that as suggesting that we do not think of this as new money for schools, but we do think of it as new money for runs?
  • Morath – The proposal as drafted sort of splits the difference with the 50% provision, so your analysis of the policy decision was correct
• Taylor – The runs for Austin are increasing by a certain amount
• Watson – Would not mind getting a cost breakdown on all the items of all the allotments so we can make a direct comparison. Those kinds of lists would be important for members to make a decision on such a complicated change
• Watson – Initially thought the commission on public education was not the best idea, but the report was in general very good overall. Good that this discussion is happening and it is not being kicked down the road
• Hall – We are on the verge of making a monumental change that will affect education for years to come.
• Hall –asked about transitional allotment, are we just propping them up so they don’t lose money. Seems like we may have disassociated cost of education with funding.
  • Morath – As an abstract policy matter, there is a “cost of education”, but we have never been able to sufficiently answer what this is, so it comes to the collective judgement legislature says what the cost of running a district is. Since there are so many changes, it is difficult to say if any one change will hurt or help districts disproportionately, but in the aggregate it may or may not. The question is valid but there is no real answer to it.
• Hall – The disassociation comes when looking at funds in buckets vs how much it actually costs to run a district. “How much money are we getting” is not the answer to how much is needed for education. The formula is there to say if you need the money you get it and if you don’t you don’t.
  • Taylor – The transitional allotment is 5 years, so the numbers in the districts could change. This is better than the 92-93 hold harmless because the hold harmless would stay with districts forever.
  • Hall – I was just thinking 3 years might be better than 5.
• Paxton – asked about remaining districts who will be losing even with the transitional allotment?
  • Taylor – There are some outliers who are way out there.
  • Morath – All those districts are very small, although they are not the smallest districts, which receive a sparsity allotment. These districts might be getting up to $27,000 per student, while average is about $9,000. This is a small number of districts, and if you don’t want anyone to lose it would be relatively inexpensive at around $10m.
• Watson – What will this do for the mid-size districts special ed programs?
  • Lopez – Could have some districts where special ed allotments could be decreased due to the increases in the basic allotment.
• Watson – The increase in the basic allotment would cover it, but what happens to year-to-year maintenance of financial support?
  • Lopez –Think the bill covers that, but for the schools their calculation of basic allotment does not include that.
• Watson – So the state overall is meeting what it needs to do, but as it applies to individual schools the basic allotment will take care of that over time
  • Lopez – It is a different analysis
  • Watson – Would appreciate your looking at that

Todd Williams, Commit Partnership

• On the bill.
• Commission surprised his expectations as well, really focused on outcomes to generate with funding and what strategies are needed for those outcomes
  • Was on the outcomes working group
• Commission had a discussion about what outcomes should be generated with the funding rather than just arguing about how much funding there should be.
• Goals need to be set at every district to account for 3^rd grade reading and 12^th grade readiness.
• Focus on where and how funds are spent, makes sure districts and teachers are trying to drive best practices toward those outcomes.
• Watson – When you talk about the outcomes, how was the outcome money determined for the purposes of the runs? We are anticipating outcomes in the future, but no one has taken a test yet.
  • Taylor – We had a number, was 25% median based on different group and for every student above that they would get extra funding. TEA could explain further.
  • Watson – Seems like the rate stays at around 17%-18% per year, but we are not readjusting the performance changes. Why was that decision made?
  • Taylor – If more schools get the outcomes, then it will cost more money, but people will be willing to pay for education. That is why we did not keep raising the bar, we want continuous improvement, so once we attain 60 by 30 we could move to 70-40, but we are so far behind that we need improvement.

 

Michael Hinojosa, Superintendent Dallas ISD

• On the bill
• Support the educator excellence fund that is not in the House version, that is a key lever that helped Dallas move the needle.
• Intrigued about discussion on outcomes based
• If outcomes are funded it will incentivize people to do things differently that will help kids graduate and be ready after graduation
• Dallas is one of the districts that Watson was talking about, the 3% tax cap would be something that could constrain teacher pay
• $5,000 across the board raise for all teachers is not optimal, paying the best teachers more is better, so across the board raise also takes flexibility away from districts.
• Taylor- we modeled this after some of what you did in Dallas ISD, in your experience where are teachers on merit pay?
  • Hinojosa – Depends, teacher groups are not necessarily the same as teachers. Turnover rates have decreased, and are able to retain best teachers as teaches, instead of them leaving the schools or becoming Principals/admins to get raises.
  • Hinojosa – There are teachers here to tell them their side of the story, keeping best teachers is effective
  • Taylor – Appreciate that you were able to innovate, and what we have in this bill we will be allowing districts to design their own programs, subject to the approva
• Fallon – Parents were both teachers, and they were against incentive pay but I always thought they were wrong. That is the future, and appreciate you taking the lead on that. When you are going to do something that makes changes you will meet opposition, but this will make the Texas education system better.
  • Todd Williams – Keep in mind that the $3b is only a 5% increase in a $60b pool. Don’t anticipate triple increase in outcomes with 5% – points out handout has details regarding totality of effort arguing institutional changes are also needed
• West – When Florida went to universal pre-K how did they deal with private child care?
  • Williams – There were partnerships and there is a private community of child care providers
  • West – So there is a model, the child care providers who are contacting me might want to look into that
  • Hinojosa – In Dallas, have worked with child care providers, it is a partnership and need
  • Taylor – Need to make sure it is not day care, that it is high-quality pre-K
  • West – Any child care providers listening need to understand where this is going and work with us on this.
• West – How do current year values impact Dallas?
  • Hinojosa – It is a significant negative impact from prior year values, believes the impact may be $112 million but then asked what is it being replaced with? Will look to see how everything works together it might not be such a big decrease

 

Kelli Moulton, Superintendent Galveston & Texas School Coalition

• On the bill.
• Represents a coalition of school districts that pay recapture
• The current year values proposals is concerning
• If there is a late certification it will put the districts in difficult positions
• Want to make sure to bring forward a responsible budget, and there will be lost opportunities for students
• Important that no one has less money than before.
• Teachers deserve and need pay increases, and flexibility must be given to the districts
• Certain schools may need support staff raises, other may need to reduce class size, address deficit budget – districts will innovate given they have the resources
• Taylor – Could there be something done to help, are there other things we can do to move those dates?
  • Moulton – That would be a crazy thing to do, since we work with the CAD which has to argue their values, etc.
  • Moulton- they calculate now with unknowns and don’t settle up for years, forcing into more unknowns would be problematic
  • Taylor – How long would it take for discrepancies to be corrected?
  • Moulton – It never really ends, since we are always settling up
  • Taylor – Think we are used to doing it one way and changing that makes everyone uncertain
  • Taylor- It is important that if we can make it work it would be helpful, and if you could work with us on that
• West – What happens when values go down, does the $1.8b go down or would it be adjusted?
  • Taylor – If values went down then that number would go down
  • West – Would that increase the state’s share?
  • Taylor – Don’t think so, can talk about that after session.

 

SB 232 (Menendez) (Committee Sub)

• Passed 8-0 to local and uncontested.

 

SB 293 (Lucio) (Committee Sub)

• Passed 7-1.

 

SB 451 (Powell) (Committee Sub)

• Passed 8-0 to local and uncontested.

 

SB 869 (Zaffirini) (Committee Sub)

• Passed 7-1

 

SB 1045 (Hughes) (Committee Sub) – Relating to academic accountability ratings for certain school districts and open-enrollment charter schools that offer full-time online programs through the state virtual school network.

• CS contains provisions from Taylor’s virtual school bill so as not to conflict with that legislation.
• Passed 8-0 to local and uncontested.

 

SB 1182 (Campbell) (Committee Sub) – Relating to approval by the attorney general of certain bonds financing an educational facility for certain charter schools.

• CS clarifies that the AG has sole authority to issue approval for the bond process.
• Passed 8-1, 1 PNV.

 

SB 1374 (Paxton) (Committee Sub) – Relating to the sequencing of certain required mathematics courses in public schools.

• Has to do with concurrent offering of geometry and algebra 1 for students.
• Students looking to recover a failed algebra 1 course and students looking to accelerate their course can take the two concurrently.
• Passed 10-0 to local and uncontested.

 

SB 2283 (Campbell) (Committee Sub) – Relating to the eligibility of persons convicted of certain offenses to serve as a member of a board of trustees of a school district.

• Passed 10-0 to local and uncontested.

 

SB 1284 (West) (Committee Sub) – Relating to a competitive grant program to fund promotion of early literacy programs in certain communities in this state.

• Passed 8-2.

 

SB 784 (Hughes) (Committee Sub) – Relating to human sexuality instruction in public schools.

• Passed 8-2.

 

SB 4 (Taylor) – Relating to public school finance and public education.

 

Public testimony

 

Ray Freeman, Equity Center

• On the bill.
• Tax compression is district by district instead of on a statewide basis, which could create an equity issue. This concern is why testimony is on rather than for the bill.
• Bill makes a lot of improvements into the equity of the system, one of these improvements is the change from prior to current year values. Used several examples of districts who would benefit from decreased variance if current year values were used.
• Taylor – With the same property value changes, what would have happened to your example of Gregory Portland under current year?
  • Freeman – It would have been much flatter.
  • Taylor – So it would have been more stable.
  • Freeman – Yes, this is the kind of thing that happens across the board to all districts in the system.
• Would be better to use current year collections rather than values. Values is just a proxy for collections but going to current year values would be a step in the right direction.
• Taylor – There has been some angst around going to current year values, do you think it is a workable situation?
  • Freeman – Yes, that information is available to districts in the summer before they start budgeting. Districts worrying about the size of the settle-up could be mitigated by working with TEA to move the process forward. Most districts are within the Comptroller’s confidence interval, so TEA could do some things early on in September or October to make the settle-up less of a problem.
  • Taylor – Your group has been very helpful, would appreciate working with us to make sure the move to current year values is as painless as possible. We don’t want this to be a total disruption, we need people who can make this work.
  • Freeman – Yes, and that is the reason for the transition plan. The current system has created winners and losers, so when moving to a system that puts everyone on the same level there needs to be a transition plan.

 

Garrett Landry, Commit Partnership

• On the bill.
• Supports the teacher allotment.
• About 13% of students in the state will be on ACE program campuses by August.
• Many under-performing schools have similar problems, most significantly inexperienced teachers who are teaching students already a few years behind.
• State evaluation systems are designed well but are implemented in an ineffective way.
• Districts who have implemented ACE have used multiple measures of effectiveness to identify the best teachers and incentivize those teachers with financial incentives to improve under-performing schools.
• Results of ACE have been good, 17 of 18 schools which had consistently failed met standards within 1 year. This is with the same students, it was just a change in teachers and resources.
• West – In terms of teacher effectiveness, there were multiple measures used, what were some of those measures?
  • Landry – Assessments were used, but it is mostly district driven. It can be a combination of STAAR and MAP, or STAAR and something else. Each district weighted certain measures higher depending on the needs of their district and campus.
  • West – One size does not fit all, but the ACE program has been shown to work.
  • Taylor – That is why we are allowing districts to implement ACE.

 

Jeanie Stone, Richardson ISD Superintendent

• On the bill.
• Richardson ISD demographics mirror the state as a whole, including 4 campuses with over 90% economically disadvantaged students.
  • Stone – These campuses are falling in and out of improvement requirements. Improvements were made in resources, but no systemic changes, so any improvements were not permanent.
• Used the ACE model from Dallas ISD to identify teachers who can grow kids and provide financial incentives for those teachers to go to under-performing schools.
• In less than a year of ACE, there has been a transformation of the schools that will be life-changing for the kids at those schools.
• Problems with schools must be addressed through intentional, systemic reform.
• Taylor – There was an editorial in Dallas paper that said to stop calling ACE controversial and start calling it effective. It might take some time for the parents to accept it, but it is very beneficial to the kids.
• Watson – Do you provide the “wraparound” services that were provided in Dallas, such as extra time after school and free breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
  • Stone – Yes, we are providing all those and other extra services such as providing glasses. Working with the families is also important, because the family unit is one of the most important parts of a child’s education.
  • Watson – We need to pause and ask about the cost of those wraparound services and whether we will be able to provide that in a way that is necessary to the success of the program. This is the first time I have seen the state focusing on the way that pockets of poverty and economic disadvantage can prevent students from learning.
• West – In terms of systemic change making sure we can identify teachers and incentivize them, how long are those incentives maintained?
  • Stone – 3 years, then it will be looked at again and a determination will be made to continue it or not.
  • West – Is 3 years enough time to determine if the systemic changes are effective?
  • Stone – We will only see the systemic changes made and maintained at the 4 disadvantaged campuses, but it will eventually improve the entire school district.
  • West – How important is ACE in terms of getting the effective adults to go to campuses as opposed to the wraparound services?
  • Stone – It is both together. At the poor campuses it had to be a total reconstitution or a start-over. The teachers who want ed to go there really wanted to go there, and the money is not the only factor, but it is a big part. Working with challenging students deserves to be paid more.
  • West – Are you finding that many of the parents at these schools do not have high school education?
  • Stone – Yes, many do not have high school education, and many cannot come to PTA meetings, volunteer, etc. due to their working hours. We have made changes to how we support parents and programs to get parents more involved.
  • West – How do you deal with situations where parents have two or three kids in different schools?
  • Stone – Families do that a lot, but often what we are talking about are schools in the middle of multi-family complexes, so they don’t necessarily have problems with that.
• Paxton – What are your thoughts on the teacher pay raise, how will that impact you district?
  • Stone – Am concerned that the $5,000 could take away from the ability of school districts to provide other initiatives that individual districts might have. In Richardson raising teacher pay is a priority.

 

Javon Wells, Garland ISD Chief Academic Officer

• On the bill.
• Effective educator allotment would enable Garland to identify the most effective teachers and make sure the most effective teachers are placed in front of the most challenging students.
• ACE program has been extremely effective, moving schools from the bottom quartile to the top in les than a year. These are the same students, only the adults were changed.
• Taylor – To hear multiple stories of the effectiveness of ACE is reaffirming, that we can meet the challenges that the state has.
• Hall – It is refreshing to hear that these problems can be solved by doing things differently and by recognizing the underlying problems in education, such as poverty, doing the same thing over and over again was not working. We can move to the top of the nation in education.

 

Olivia Hernandez, Asst. Superintendent San Antonio ISD

• On the bill.
• Specifically support the dual language allotment increase.
• Transitional programs have not provided the need ed results for English learners.
• Goal is for students to graduate bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural.
• Dual language one-way and two-way are the only programs that fully close the achievement gap for English learners.

Jeff Baum, Lubbock ISD CFO

• On the bill.
• Laid of 84 central office staff members in 2011 in order to keep the same number of teachers.
• Performance pay structure for teachers is important in order to pay them competitively.
• Effective teaching is the most important driver of student achievement.
• Worked with a 3^rd party that helped to track value-added data on each teacher. Teachers can earn incentives of up to $3,100, and some of that is based on campus and core content progress, which foster cooperation rather than competition between teachers.
• Incentives have been a great retention tool because the teacher has to return the following year to receive that incentive.
• Taylor – Sustainability and affordability for these programs is an issue, that is why we have this bill. People are willing to pay a little more when they know the results are better for all kids in the state.
• West – How is Lubbock ISD identifying students?
  • Baum – Using map data, STAAR data and using that in the value-added formula.
  • West – How will you be able to utilize comp-ed funds associated with concentration of poverty?
  • Baum – A large percentage of students in Lubbock are comp ed.
  • West – Are there particular locations in the dsitrcit that are concentrated?
  • Baum – No, the majority of campuses qualify for com ed.
  • West – Has Lubbock got to the point where this program and the funding of the program will allow for systemic change?
  • Baum – Yes, it will eb possible to make systemic change given the resources we are availing ourselves of.

 

Josh Sanderson, Equity Center

• On the bill.
• Moving to current year values is crucial to make any changes toward equity.
• Understand that some districts have become reliant on extra funding above and beyond the formulas but use of prior year values will never deliver formula funding.
• It is impossible to determine what the actual costs of education are until everyone is one formula funding.
• Property values will always fluctuate, and in order to improve stability we need to move to a system that reflects accurate current year numbers.
• Taylor – Currently there are wealthy districts based on property values while they have a lot of low-income kids, SB 4 makes sure that those districts will get to keep the funds they need.
  • Sanderson – Yes and they only way you can do that is with up to date data.
• Watson – If you are not using the current year, you are going to have money off the books if the property values are increasing. IF for example AISD is collecting this year’s taxes but is being charged for last year, then there could be a $50m difference. If you are going to compare apples to apples on the runs you have to take out that $50m, so moving to current year valuations could leave AISD with less money.
  • Von Byer, TEA – Do not know if that “buffer” is accounted for in the runs. Would have to confirm if the runs include local collection above entitlement.
  • Watson – When I hear the Chairman say there may be a reduction in recapture using the current year system, it might not be the case because if you are not subtracting out the buffer or the teacher pay raise from the runs then you are not truly comparing apples to apples.
  • Leo Lopez, TEA – The runs provided by TEA or LBB would always use current year collections and state aid. In the model for this bill there is still a calculated local share, but any live money is accounted for already.
  • Taylor – So it is calculated in the settle ups.
  • Watson – If the run shows a $60m increase, you have already subtracted the buffer out of that? $60m is just making up a number.
  • Lopez – That would consider everything, including the carryover.

 

Rich Senna, Boerne ISD Board of Trustees

• On the bill.
• Like HB 3 and like many parts of SB 3.
• Boerne is a fat-growth district and is in the bottom 10% of ADA after paying Robin Hood, but support giving more funding to economically disadvantaged districts.
• Support outcomes based funding.
• Concerned with current/prior year value issues. Support the salary raise but coupled with the move to current year there will be very little money for other things the ISD needs to do.
• Seems like there are a lot of different ideas, using sales tax to replace present year values might be a good idea.
• Campbell – Boerne is a fast-growth district, and there is a concern that with the dollars for special ed and teacher raises there won’t be enough funds for the classroom space?
  • Senna – That is correct, we will have the bond revenue to build schools, but it is unclear if we will have the funds for staffing and M&O.
  • Taylor – You would have more money from formula funding since you have more students. It will not be either the SB or the HB, they will be one bill and we are trying to make sure we have no losers.

 

Josue Torres, self

• On the bill.
• Math teacher in Dallas ISD.
• Appreciate the Senate’s support for pay raises, but incentive pay structures would be more effective.
• Was making under $40k under the seniority system, now making over $90k under the incentive pay system. Monetary incentives are important to retain the best teachers.
• Had a class of largely economically disadvantaged kids, outperformed Highland Park.
• Taylor – You are at Blanton Elementary, within one year under the program they went from 40% pass rate to over 80% and after a couple years they are outperforming Highland Park.
• West – Your testimony has helped convince me that we need to make sure teachers are able to make over $100k based on their performance.
  • Torres – Yes, my background is in finance so I would have considered going back to that without the TEI that gave performance based pay.
• Bettencourt – Your testimony is very compelling as West said, and motivated teachers are an important factor, but what was the other factor that allowed you to beat Highland Park?
  • Torres – Had to do with a competitive spirit and the TEI encouraged teachers to keep growing as teachers and make sure that the children were doing things outside of the classroom as well.
  • Bettencourt – So it is a synergistic factor of both teachers and students growing together.
• Watson – Heard some testimony about the students, do the students you are teaching receive wraparound services?
  • Torres – Yes, at Blanton tit is an ACE school so they receive breakfast, lunch, etc.
  • Watson – So some of these students who may not have been getting fed at home are now getting fed at school, that is a huge difference.
  • Torres – Right and when the students do not have to worry about if the will be able to eat a meal they can focus on schoolwork.
• Taylor – A lot of times we have suffered from lowered expectations for disadvantaged students, and you have shown that they should have the same expectations as any other student.
• Powell – Where did you go to school, and what about your training prepared you to be teacher of the year?
  • Torres – I went to school in New York, and then was recruited by Teach for America. I had a mentor my first two years at Teach for America. Having someone to guide and advise me helped me become who I am now.
• Campbell – How do you see ACE and the teacher excellence initiative coming together to impact student achievement?
  • Torres – They go hand in hand, it is impossible to have one without the other.

 

Kimberly Kofron, Texas Association for the Education of Young Children

• On the bill.
• Encouraged by the support for full pre-k model and private/public partnerships in HB3 and SB4.
• TAEYC, asked to improve the bills by adding more provisions to encourage school districts to develop private/public partnerships.
• West – How developed is that relationship today?
  • Kim – It is patchy. Some parts of the state are doing it very well, but others are struggling to make it work.
• West – Give me three recommendations that should be implemented across the state.
  • Kim – Build infrastructure to be able to do that; improve childcare centers; and, fix childcare desserts, where there is no quality childcare.
• West – How do you define quality childcare?
  • Kim – Some aspects include qualified teachers; lower ratios; good curriculum standards; good balance of teacher initiated and child-initiated learning; structured learning that is moving the child forward.
• Watson – How is it we are going to determine if a teacher is in the top 5%, 20%, 33%, state wide, if we are having a local determination as to how teachers will be designated for each distinction.
  • Taylor – The district designs their programs, but you cannot have more that 33% state wide be recognized and you can’t have more than 20%state wide be exemplary.
• Watson – I get that. How are we going to make those comparisons, for example, between Austin and a smaller school district?
  • Taylor – We would work with the commissioner on this.

 

Allison Friedlander, TEA

• Resource witness.
• There are multiple components we would look at like teacher appraisals; student achievement; and student evaluations. And we would also look at correlations between those three.
• Watson – When you say student achievement, are you talking about tests?
  • Student performance and assessments, local flexibility will come into play here where they can choose what to consider for this.

 

Charles Woods, Alief ISD, Texas School Alliance

• For HB 3, On SB 4.
• Concerned over the loss of CEI in urban districts and building on the tax compression in tier 1.
• Appreciate the insurance consideration, increase in teacher raises, and teacher incentive model.

 

Orion Smith, Fort Worth ISD

• On the bill.
• Social studies teacher Fort Worth ISD.
• Invest in Texas kids by increasing the allotment rates for English language learners and students living in poverty, as well as supporting public pre-k and strategic compensation for outstanding teachers.

 

Daniel Casey, Moak, Casey & Associates

• On the bill.
• Concerned over the ability for small and rural schools funding that are depended over the structure is in place.
• West – Being the most reputable firm in public education, we need you to come up with some recommendations in regard to the calendar to make this work.
• West – We are putting in the teacher pay raise and the $1.8 billion, is that really new money coming into the system?
  • Casey – The $1.8 billion is essentially a revenue flow for school districts that is being used for maintenance and operations currently.
• Taylor – But wouldn’t that $1.8 billion only be going to some districts?
  • Casey – Yeah, but if they are getting a bump this year, they are getting taken back next year.

 

Jennifer Bergland, Texas Computer Education Association

• On the bill.
• Weighted funding for the technology application courses will incentive more school districts to provide those computer science courses.
• Excited that the blended learning program is remaining in the bill.
• Concerned over the specificity on grants in the bill, suggests leaving specifics up to the TEA.
• Suggests making it clear that the commissioner may allow school districts to use the funding for all of the components that they might need for the grant, which could include technology.

 

Milton Perez, Round Rock Teacher

• ELA teacher.
• Advocated for the funding of the teacher incentive model.

 

Michael Lee, Texas Association of Rural Schools

• On the bill.
• Concerned over the loss of the current funding structure for the small school adjustment, but not recognizing the diseconomies of scale for the weighted programs.
• Adding weights goes against recapture and helps them pay less recapture. Concerned about how setting aside allotments will impact recapture.
• West – What is the reason the small school adjustment is a multiply of student weights under current law?
  • Lee – It goes to the diseconomies of scale.

 

Angela Burch, Dallas ISD Teacher

• On the bill.
• Hopes committee will continue to include incentives for the implementation of multi tired performance-based compensation systems in other districts.
• Paxton – Can you talk about the multi tired evaluation systems?
  • Burch – Our worry is that outcomes based will mean STAAR scores. We want to make sure we are evaluating how effective teachers are in the class room, not on a test.
• West – We have to make certain that the bill says that it cannot be solely based on STAAR, but we also have to answer how much it should be based on the test.

 

Emilia Phoenix, student

• Against HB 3.
• Opposes the repeal of the GT allotment.
• GT kids have different needs and they need teachers who can understand them.
• Taylor – We are putting the GT allotment back on the bill at $400 million.

 

Kathrine Warren, student

• Against HB 3.
• Opposed the repeal of the GT allotment.

 

Drew Scheberle, Austin Chamber of Commerce

• For the bill.
• Hopes the budget will include reimbursement of SAT, ACT, & TSI.
• Hopes the final budget will represent the data infrastructure, data partnerships, and technical talent that they will need to help support a system.

 

Chandra Villanueva, Center for Public Policy Priorities

• On the bill.
• Appreciate the compensation increases for teachers, but that money should flow through the basic allotment so that school districts can decide whether they want to hire new teachers or increase pay.
• Biggest concern is the 2.5 revenue cap, we believe this will create inequities in the system and put pressure on the system to continuously pay for property tax cuts.
• Bettencourt – No matter what bill it is passed in, there has to be an element on property tax relief. What is the difference if we decrease or increase the revenue cap?
  • Villanueva – For us it is the fact that districts get to have an individual compression. We are fine with a unified compression. We also believe that the best way to address recapture is to actually put money into the basic allotment and raise the floor for all of the districts.
• Bettencourt – So you like the macro compression, but you are concerned with the district compression?
  • Villanueva – I can live with the macro compression.
• Taylor – We are putting the money in and it is still there in the system, why wouldn’t you like that?
  • Villanueva – I worry that it will hurt our future ability to invest in public education. We haven’t talked to much about other revenue streams. I think we need to have a discussion about how to improve the revenue stream going forward.

 

Jesus Chavez, South Texas Association of Schools

• On the bill.
• Emphasized the need to use current values, versus previous year values.

 

Barney McClure, Agriculture Teachers Association of Texas

• On the bill.
• Concerned over funding for CTE students because there is nothing in SB 4 to direct a school district spend any specific amount of the 135 funding on the programs that generate it.
• Asked for the committee to add 8^th grade CTE funding.

 

Doug Williams, Superintendent Sunnyvale ISD

• On the bill.
• Prior year values are more accurate because they have been vetted through the state property value studies.
• System in place for merit pay would not address rural school districts. Asking for flexibility be added to school districts to improve instruction across the board.
• Taylor – In SB 2 we have allowed the use of a certified estimate, which is about 99% accurate according to the comptroller. Would that help alleviate if we put that in this bill?
  • Williams – What would be the date of the estimate?
• Bettencourt – There is two, an April and July 1^st
  • Williams – We need as good a number as possible to know what those revenue projections are.

 

Kristen De Rocha, Neighborhood School Teachers

• On the bill.
• Relying on testing in teacher evaluations causes problems for neighborhood school teachers who cap out on the other criteria.
• Highest paid teachers are in the schools where kids are easiest to teach.
• Powell – You have articulated one of my fears, which is that the average school environment will not be measured correctly. In the Dallas ISD, how many of the campuses are impacted by the ACE program, and how many are just teaching regular kids?
  • De Rocha – We have no ACE high schools in Dallas ISD. 90% of the high school students are what we would say regular students.
• Powell – Would it change your mind if we changed the weights of how we evaluate teachers, less influence on test scores and more on others?
  • De Rocha – I top out at teacher performance, so the test scores is what is relied on. Until we can perfect that, we should not link test scores to pay.

 

David Lee, Teacher Dallas ISD

• On the bill.
• Concerned that the TEI system creates a competitive environment on campus instead of a collaborative one.
• Concerned over student surveys because they can be bias.
• There is also too much focus on the test scores.
• Taylor – We have seen such outstanding performance; it is hard to not pick up this program and move it to other places.
  • Lee – I think there are commendable elements to the ACE program. I’m just not sure there is a correlation between the TEI system and the success of those schools.
• Taylor – We are allowing districts to come up with their system with teacher input. I can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

Andrew Kirk, Teacher Dallas ISD

• On the bill.
• The testing component of TEI is the most significant. I’ve been advised to skip critical learning materials because they are not included in the test.
• Linking teacher pay to test scores leads to students having gaps in their education just to fulfil testing requirements.
• Taylor – If we eliminate the reliance on test scores, what do you suggest we use to evaluate teachers?
  • Kirk – I am not against using assessments in a diagnostic way. However, the way that data is being used in Dallas ISD promotes narrow thinking. We just have to re-evaluate evaluation.
• Hall – How would you rank effectiveness vs popularity in importance in the decisions being made. You mentioned the system is not popular, but effective. What would you rather have?
  • Kirk – I don’t think the system is effective either because if you look at our data for STAAR, the gains of that is not aligned with gains in NAPE. It is not effective nor popular.
• Taylor – So you’re saying your NAPE scores have not gone up?
  • Kirk – We don’t know.

 

Emily Garcia, Urban Teachers

• On the bill.
• Supports differentiating pay for highly effective teachers and using multi evaluating methods to measure those teachers.

 

Amber Scanlan, PNT Bank

• On the bill.
• Grateful for the commitment to early childhood education.

 

Lonnie Hudson, self

• Against the bill.
• Opposed to the fact that the bill sets up mandated full day pre-k for 4-year olds but does not explicitly include qualified licensed childcare centers as part of that plan.
• Taylor – Where do you think you are not included?
  • Hudson – We are included as an opportunity, but we would like to see language that we be a mandated partnership.

 

Steve Swanson, self

• Against the bill.

 

Holly Heard, Houston Education Research Consortium

• On the bill.
• Research has shown that full day public pre-k leads to school readiness for kindergarten.

 

Robin Panovich, Career and Technical Association of Texas

• On the bill.
• Requested stand-alone rider for PTECH, Howard amendment from HB 3, consideration for the allotment of grade 8.

 

Jennifer Almond, Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops

• On the bill.

 

Shannon Noble, Texas Industrial Vocational Association

• On the bill.
• Requested funding for CTE from 6-8^th grade and summer CTE.

 

Shay Adams, Lovejoy ISD

• On the bill.
• Please modify the calculation of the formula for the transitions funds to include all state funds that the districts are currently receiving.

 

Kara Belew, Texas Public Policy Foundation

• On the bill.
• We can ensure that money is used wisely by allocating it to programs that improve student outcomes: Merit-pay program; Efficiency audits for tax payers; Adopting school board goals.

 

Joan Altibelly, Legislative Committee for Texas Licensed Childcare Association

• On the bill.
• Appreciate the intent to support pre-K, but it could have negative, unintentional consequences. Transition to full-day, public pre-K could result in fewer total seats due to the closing of child care centers, especially in high-poverty areas.

 

Stephen Aleman, Disability Rights Texas

• On SB 4, in favor of HB 3 as passed by the House.
• Clarity needed in language on outcomes-based funding for students with disabilities.

 

Melissa Horton, Texas Licensed Childcare Association

• On the bill.
• Funding for full day pre-K for state-funded might cause some unintended consequences. Might make it harder for some families to find quality, licensed care.

 

Timothy Mattison, Texas Charter Schools Association

• For the bill.
• Support outcomes-based funding and allotments for underserved students.

 

David Fagan, Texans Care for Children

• On the bill.
• Support the early reading allotment and the full-day pre-k requirement, which will help achieve 3^rdgrade reading goals.

 

Stephanie Stoby, self

• On the bill.
• Against merit pay, such a system that bases performance on outcomes in a state test could hurt teachers who take on needy or dyslexic children.

 

Charles Luke, Pastors for Texas Children

• On the bill.
• Support full-day pre-k, maintaining a strong basic allotment, and teacher pay raises.

 

Chris Watt, Children at Risk

• On the bill.
• Support funding for early childhood education. Providing students with an extended school year could help prevent the summer slide.

 

Bibi Katsev, District Charter Alliance

• On the bill.
• Support comprehensive school finance reform
• Support increased funding and allocation for quality education in 3^rd grade reading levels
• Also support SB’s attempt to address equity issues in public schools
• A priority of our organization is strategic teacher compensation, which is seen in the bill

 

Suzi Kennon, Texas PTA

• On the bill.
• A major goal of our organization is the creation of uniformity of student funding across the state
• Support the components of the bill that increase said equity and basic allotment
• Increasing funding and basic allotment is simplest path to increasing adequacy in the system
• Believe new dollars must be focused on Pre-K grade first
• Support paying effective teachers better and incentivizing them to teach where their skillsets are needed

 

Paul Colbert, himself

• On the bill.
• Would like to highlight the inequity of the 2.5% cap
• The bill gives the most new money to the districts that already have more money; this does not seem to be the expressed intent of the bill
• There is a 7% difference in total revenue between a wealthy district and poorer district, despite them having a same rate of growth

 

Lonnie Hollingsworth, Texas Classrooms Teachers Association

• On the bill.
• Support the $5000 pay raise for teachers and librarians in the bill
• Have some suggestions for the bill that were not in previous consideration
• Teacher Compensation Allotment does not go up as the number of teachers goes up, unlike Senate Bill 3
• The provision that provides the $5000 pay raise has no supplementation
• Taylor – When teachers move around, that shows flexibility to the district. Those teachers are guaranteed to get the pay raise, but as they leave, the number stays the same. So, the district has the money for however they want to do the pay for the other teachers.
  • Hollingsworth – Yes, but the number can’t go up
  • Hollingsworth – If the district’s funding is going down as they gain more teachers, than they don’t have the funding to continue to pay other teachers that come on
• Taylor – So, what is your suggestion?
  • Hollingsworth – I suggest the language in Senate Bill 3 be revisited
  • Hollingsworth – It should be left to the districts to determine how to select the more effective teachers
• Taylor – Well, we’re trying to establish some parameters for what deems an excellent teacher. Could you offer some help on the language to do that?
  • Hollingsworth – We worked with House on some language, so it will look a lot like House language
• Watson – The allotment is established so that a school gets a bonus for the number of teachers and librarians that are employed in 2018 and 2019. That amount decreases if student enrollment is decreased. But it is not increased if enrollment increases?
  • Hollingsworth – Correct
• Watson – So does that mean in fast-growing districts, the raise will start eroding after the first year as growth continues?
  • Hollingsworth – The allotment for the raise will
• Watson – If we want to provide a widespread pay raise for all teachers every year, there would need to be a change in the way we do that?
  • Hollingsworth – Yes, there needs to be a change. And we can help you with the language
• Hall – I think instead of trying to tweak the model that we’re using, we need to take another look at funding based on cost of education, and separate that from how we get the money. Funding should be based on the child’s education, and what it costs for them.

 

Molly Weiner, Texas Aspires Foundation

• For the bill.
• We believe additional state investments should be directed to improving student achievement
• Support the priority of funding early childhood education, 3^rd grade literacy, and college career and military readiness
• The data tracking piece in Senate Bill 4 seems critical to tracking the effectiveness of newly implemented investments

 

Bob Papinsky, Raise Your Hand Texas

• On the bill.
• Support the flexible funding through the basic allotment increase and funding of the full day Pre-K program
• Would like to examine the next biennium, and when the 2.5% cap kicks in
• We support uniform tax compression that the state can afford, we don’t believe the state will be able to sustain the 2.5% revenue cap as it goes along
• We recommend being cautious about the tax compression and competing needs as they go forward

 

Morgan Craven, Intercultural Development Research Association

• On the bill.
• Have some concerns on the elimination on the spending guidelines for the bilingual education allotments
• Current statute for these programs includes the most basic directive for their funds
• SB 4 removes these fundamental provisions, which threatens to open up the allotment for any use, not necessarily for the kids that truly need it
• If the bill’s purpose truly is to ensure equity, then we have to have spending guidelines to help districts realize that purpose
• Will provide documentation of our organization’s recommended amendments

 

Theresa Trevino, Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment

• On the bill.
• Support the addition of money to schools, particularly deep poverty kids’ programs, Pre-K programs, and so on
• Support the addition of provisions for dual language courses
• We appreciate the focus on early-level education
• Support breaking up the STAR test into smaller pieces, which should be easier for our students to take the test
• We are concerned with the outcomes-based funding; that seems to be the highest stake possible to put on 3^rd-graders
• The new funding and A-F accountability system that are being put into place by the bill should be enough to bring our kids up
• The language surrounding the provision of additional writing tests is very unclear

 

John MacMan, Admission Readiness

• On the bill.
• Support the investment in early education and outcomes-based initiatives

 

Kristie Haset, self

• On the bill.
• Would like to highlight the benefits of the start date
• Removing the ability for us to change our start date would be detrimental to our students
• STAR has several structural issues
• Post-equating the test as instructional practice occurs is not a good thing to tie to incentive-based funding, because it means that teachers are doing their job
• Watson – So, you want the freedom of start date?
  • Haset – Correct
• Watson – What this bill does is, even for districts of innovation, it sets a date, and removes that freedom.
  • Haset – Correct. That means we can’t equalize the days before and after Christmas
• Watson – To my understanding, that would mean that all traditional public schools lose the freedom of start date. And yet, charter schools still have that freedom.
  • Haset – Yes. And I believe that would educationally injure middle and high school students.

 

John Fitzpatrick, Educate Texas

• For the bill.
• Raising the floor, either through SB 4 or HB 3 version, would put millions of dollars into the teachers and other educators, which is incredibly important
• Support the addition of effective-teacher allotments
• The bills’ optional concepts of classroom observations, annual growth, student surveys, and mentoring seem incredibly significant

 

Heather Gulman, self

• On the bill.
• Would like to highlight the decisions made on a campus-level
• Concerned on how less-skilled principals are making these campus-level decisions, and how that affects their students
• Concerned about students who have been living in educational deficit, when funds were cut; would recommend the basic allotment to fund better opportunities for them

 

Debbie Clark, self

• On the bill.
• Concerned about the substitute bill introduced today with outcomes-based funding, wherein the schools would receive less money for students with learning disabilities
• Disagree with having funding rely on eight and nine-year-olds who are taking the standardized test for the first time
• Urge the creation of a commission on better ways to evaluate students

 

Sonja Howard, Del Valle ISD

• On the bills.
• Early childhood education is important to achieve college and career readiness later on.

 

Annette Villerot, Del Valle ISD, E3 Alliance, Central Texas Superintendent Alliance

• On the bills.
• Private pre-k, daycare, and childcare is not a substitute for public school pre-k.
• Pre-k helps students achieve grade reading levels and college and career readiness.

 

Robert Floyd, Texas Music Educators Associations

• For the bill.
• Extending CTE down into middle school would negatively impact fine arts.
• Asked the committee to stick to the language in the bill in regard to CTE.

 

Richard Atkinson, Family to Family Network

• For the bill.
• Commends committee for raising special education funding rate from 1.10 to 1.15 and for including funding for students with dyslexia.
• Asked committee to support a study on the special education funding system.

 

Fatima Menendez, MALDEF

• On the bill.
• Concerned with spending directives that have been taken out for bilingual education and compensatory education.
• FAFSA requirement language is very narrow. Believe there should be an opt-out option for counselors; oversight over the creation of the opt-out form; directive over distribution for FAFSA & TASFA; and, a stakeholder committee that works with TEA to oversee the process.

 

Jennifer Mitchell, ATPE

• On the bill.
• Disagree with the merit pay program because it would require major changes to the state framework for teacher evaluations.

 

Michelle Smith, Raise Your Hand Texas

• On the bill.
• Outcomes funding tied to third grade testing is reliant on one test and should be allocated towards the early reading allotment or the basic allotment.
• Asked to committee to invest money on inputs not outcomes.

HB 3 and SB 4 left pending.