The Senate Committee on Higher Education met on August 22 to hear invited testimony regarding interim charges related to mandate reductions as well as the monitoring of multiple pieces of legislation from the 85th Session, including transfer of courses, teacher certification, open educational resources and discussion on public education to technology and instructional materials allotment.

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.

 

Mandate Reduction: Examine all current state and federal regulations on public higher education institutions and consider whether reductions of regulations could reduce fees, produce efficiencies and greater student academic performance. Make recommendations to reduce certain regulations for increased flexibility to provide better student outcomes.

 

Raymond Peredes, Commissioner of Higher Education

  • There is not a lot of research on particular impact of mandates on specific institutions
  • Institutions are subject to numerous mandates (crime reporting, data reporting, etc.)
  • Institutions comply with 18 mandating bodies
  • Previous legislation from the Perry administration has led to data gathering at a very high level to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of Texas higher education
  • The cost of the federal mandates, according to Vanderbilt study would cost institutions between 3-5%
    • Texas Tech would be $23 million
    • University of Houston – Victoria would be $1.7 million
  • Regulations at every level inhibit efforts to make education affordable and to have timely graduation
  • Federal regulation regarding preferred lenders is one that has been frustrating for many institutions for many years
    • The Texas state loan program cannot be promoted without promoting many other programs with equal force, even though the Texas program has much better rates
  • Coordinating Board wants to know what regulations they have that may be unnecessary, so they can be changed
    • Likewise, would like to know what mandates can be created/changed to allow better flexibility for those institutions that need it
  • Seliger – can you characterize the mandates to the UT system that would cost so much?
    • Particularly those related to research
  • Seliger – don’t many of those come with money?
    • They do, but there is still a large burden put on the universities
  • West – written testimony shows 5-year data review, could you provide list of requests from that?
    • Will provide that to the committee
  • West – Texas Works- could not get that done last session, what are your thoughts on that?
    • We will try to get that passed this coming session
  • West – even though that didn’t pass what have we done regarding work study options for students?
    • Many institutions would prefer to have students stay on campus and working on something relevant to their major

 

Jason King, UT System

  • SB 5 eliminated many unfunded reporting mandates (no fewer than 29 mandatory reports)
    • Provided list in written testimony of list of those reports
  • Recommends reviewing all statutory reporting requirements from all agencies to identify those which can be eliminated
  • Need to recognize that most of the burdens come from the federal level
  • Up to 11% of Vanderbilt’s costs were associated with federal mandates – noted in Vanderbilt Study
  • Would like the legislature to weigh in with the federal government to find additional relief
  • Seliger – how long have you been with the system?
    • 6 years
  • Seliger – what is one federal mandate that could be eliminated tomorrow?
    • Would like to see the extent and mismatch of report and oversight of research – the number of entities that mandate reporting for research, but which definitions do not match
  • Seliger – what about state mandates?
    • Would change the way the DIR biennial agency security plan is conducted
    • DIR could ask for each institution to provide a copy of agency security plan
    • Are currently required to fil out forms through DIR database

 

Jim Yeonopolus, Central Texas College

  • Request relief from requirement of the Texas meningitis law, requiring all students to show proof of inoculation
    • Have many students that are in the military which also require inoculation, yet they still have to show proof when they should only have to show their ID
  • Disabled Veteran Tax Exemption – have disproportionate number of those individuals in the area have a huge impact on tax base which comes from Killeen
    • Seen 40% increase over the last 10 years
  • Seliger – for colleges not around Ft. Hood, are reporting requirements for meningitis is a good thing?
    • It is but there are many schools around military bases that could have an exemption
  • Seliger – the tax issue would seem to be a small price to pay for their service
    • There is not offset provided to colleges as there is to cities and counties

 

Updates on construction of facilities as a result of tuition revenue bonds authorized during the 84th Legislative Session

  • Seliger – noted that all entities responded that were requested to provide information related to facilities construction

 

Julie Eklund, Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • 68 TRB authorized projects totaling $3.1 billion
  • Over 11.8 million in gross square footage under construction adding capacity and increasing efficiency and work toward 60x30TX goals
  • Have received over $1 billion in other funding that has been reported – 41 TRB projects linked to other funds
  • Seliger – total student capacity gained will be about 108,000 students

 

Kevin Cruser, Texas Woman’s University

  • Seliger – the projection at Texas Women’s University was a new construction for education and general use facility, and totaled $51 million, projection is may of 2020, why will that take so long?
    • Are over 50% complete, largely due to ensuring that the programming was done correctly
    • Logistical issues associated with many other capital projects
  • Seliger requested information related to the length of time taking for the project as well as information from Sul Ross

 

Harrison Keller, UT-Austin

  • 84th legislature recognized the need for additional support for students to navigate the new graduation requirements
    • 2015 legislature charges UT Austin and others to develop online learning initiative for high school students – Texas OnCourse
  • Transforming professional learning for career planning for counselors and advisors
  • Empowering students through curated online resources
  • Encourage online learning
  • Is entirely free for all educators, counselors and advisors across the state
    • Reports of more confidence in the advice being provided
  • Described specific example of high school counselor using the online course
    • Able to easily navigate to military application information to better assist specific student
  • Over 98% of counselors said they were more confident in the advice given to students after using Texas Oncourse online program
  • Middle school resources help young student start career and college planning early
    • Using β€œMap My Grad” allows students to better identify high school graduation plan
  • Noted partnerships with agencies and external organizations have led to success of the program
  • Future plans include great opportunities to leverage the platform for competency-based training for educators
  • Will be looking into addition resources for parents
  • No other state has this kind of information at their disposal
  • West – there is still an issue concerning transferability
    • This is a very serious issue
    • Problem is not if courses can transfer but if they will apply
    • Starting to extend tools like Map My Grad to help with that issue
    • Expecting to go to scale in a year with tools like this
  • West – would be interesting to see how much that would save parents on tuition fees, and it is an issue we must address
  • Seliger – in your curriculum for counselors, how is mental health being addressed
    • Mental health and behavioral health are outside the scope of Texas OnCourse
    • Not that the infrastructure is available it could be used to address other issues at lower costs that would have been possible a year ago
    • Would be able to offer options on what that would look like
  • Seliger – scholarship funding is another issue we need to be sure is available on the program
    • That is one of the things that is highlighted on Texas OnCourse
  • Seliger – to what degree should counselors be involved?
    • Anything we can do to streamline scholarship application and financial aid applications would be beneficial
    • It is an area of focus, but we need to also be sure that the parents have access to that information
  • West – how are you making sure that parents are aware of the information?
    • There is a specific tab for parents on the website
    • Curating the information on the website is not enough, so we have started sponsoring financial aid nights at schools to provide that information

 

 

SB 2118 (85th) relating to authorization by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for certain public junior colleges to offer baccalaureate degree programs.

 

Rex Peebles, Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • Community colleges may offer up to 3 unless they already had a program in which case they can offer up to 5
  • Legislation requires same criteria as any other baccalaureate degrees
  • Required to look at financial aid and support mechanisms to ensure adequacy
  • Reviewing overall financial health is the area that has required extra thought in determining how financial health is determined
    • Have settled on a modified audit to give a better picture of the financial health of the institution
  • The institution is also limited at the contact hour reimbursement as well as tuition fees for the degree
  • Worked with board of nursing to iron out how approval for such programs would work
    • Believe that a mutual agreement has been arrived upon
  • 4 institutions have been approved for their baccalaureate programs with a few more pending
  • Institutions have been very measured in their approach to this

 

Katherine Thomas, Texas Board of Nursing

  • Establishing a nursing baccalaureate program required that it not be duplicative, and the student is able to apply to both at the same time
  • Have approved 2 colleges
  • Do not have any pending proposals
  • This addresses the gap between the associate degree and the baccalaureate graduate degree

 

Richard Rhodes, Austin Community College

  • First step before offering the program is to get the board of trustees to approve the program – December 2017
  • Submitted to Texas Board of Nursing and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved April 2018
  • Proposal to SACKS approved June 2018
  • Will have site inspection and approval in the near future
  • US Department of Education approval was received 2 months ago
  • Fall semester targeted 28 students beginning next Monday
    • 28 individuals are representative of the community
    • most are over 30 years old and are registered nurses
  • Seliger – what part of the curriculum is online vs classroom based
    • First 60 hours are hybrid courses
  • West – what is the cost to the students?
    • $900 per semester, about $4,000 in total
  • Menendez – thanked witnesses
  • Watson – noted that this allows people to stay at work while it advances their education

 

HB 2205 (84th) relating to the State Board for Educator Certification, educator preparation programs, educator certification, issuance of certain teaching permits, and certain procedures for investigating educator misconduct.

 

Ryan Franklin, Texas Education Agency

  • Commissioners first priority was centered around recruitment and retainment of educators
  • 135 different entities that offer educator preparation programs
  • 1 alternative certification program provides almost ΒΌ of all of the educators in the state
  • HB 2205 was a wide-ranging bill to include all aspects of educator preparation including but not limited to:
    • Bill added a non-voting member to the board representing alternative certification
    • Bill required dyslexia training for all certifications
    • Bill set minimum GPA requirements for certification
    • Added indicators related to reporting and accountability
  • Major change was establishing 5-time testing limit
  • Currently in implementation of all of these changes
  • The one item outstanding is new teacher surveys for accountability
    • Working to align new teacher survey with principal survey
    • Piloted last spring
    • Challenges moving forward will be getting new teachers to respond
    • Some concern on response rate before adding to accountability
  • September 1st, all attempts at testing will count, so there may be some impact in association to 5-time testing limit
  • Over 200 districts have taken advantage of district level non-core certifications
  • Watson – what were the issues related to subpoenas?
    • Are now receiving information that were not previously receiving
    • Had about 1400 subpoenas with only a small number of issues

 

SB 887 (85th) relating to a requirement that certain participating institutions under the student loan program administered by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board provide loan debt information to certain students.

Β 

Ginger Gossman, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • Requires institutions to provide estimates of student loan information
  • Will be in place this year
  • Financial aid advisory committee has been providing updates regularly
  • Coordinating board has been conducting webinars on how to create the required letters
    • Will be hosting additional webinars related to wording of the letter
  • Will be providing optional template of the letter for institutions to use

 

Christopher Murr, Texas State University

  • One obligation is to promote financial literacy in students and this is a piece of that
  • Will facilitate successful student paying of those loans
  • Many institutions have established financial literacy programs
  • A few institutions have indicated that the have a letter in place already
    • Many more have indicated that they will have the letter ready for the upcoming year
  • Challenges include transfer students, determining interest
    • Being worked through by administrators to help limit confusion by the students
  • Some administrators believe moving into a more centralized approach would help consistency of this information – is currently decentralized
    • Some options include updating requirements to institutions to report to the Financial Aid Database System (FADS) to be sent out to students
  • SB 887 is in alignment of student centered financial education and most institutions are on track to implement this

 

 

SB 802 (85th) relating to a study and report regarding best practices in the transfer of course credit between public institutions of higher education.

 

Rex Peebles, Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • Report is due November 1, 2018
  • Collected all of the data and are currently analyzing
  • One thing that has been noticed is the more dual credit hours a student has correlated to excessive hours by those same students
  • Articulation agreements have wide ranging outlines
  • Best practices are still being examined related to transfer
  • Noted creating clear pathways is a major part of this
    • Believe 30 pathways will be completed by next Coordinating Board meeting
  • Noted transfer from 4-year school to 4-year school is often more difficult that from 2-year school to 4-year school
  • Seliger – are we making progress related to geographical considerations?
    • Progress has been made largely related to fields of study
  • West – what is the best estimate of the cost of excess hours?
    • State funding roughly $13 million – does not include dollars spend by students and parents
  • West – relating to articulation agreements, are there common denominators that are best practices?
    • There is very small amount of literature related to articulation agreements
    • Created rubric to assess articulation agreements
  • West – is there collaboration in creating the agreements?
    • It is hit or miss, collaboration diminishes as distance grows
  • West – are other states doing this kind of work?
    • There are a number that have and have been successful, primarily in states where there is a single system
  • Seliger – what ensures that offerings at one institution meet the requirements of another
    • The field of study legislation has certainly made progress in that area
  • Seliger – have you seen a university explain why related to curriculum that a course is not accepted?
    • Usually it revolves around sequencing
  • Seliger – should that be a requirement to have an explanation?
    • Yes sir
  • Menendez – believes that explanation would be very important because there is a cost to the student
  • West – would like additional information from Higher Education Coordination Board related to explanations at the next hearing concerning transferability, would also like information related to which institutions have issues related to that

 

 

SB 810 (85th) relating to open educational resources.

 

Monica Martinez, Texas Education Agency

  • Majority of the bill did one thing – change the name of the IMA to technology and instructional materials allotment
  • TEA has gone through all of the rules and made conforming changes
  • Districts are currently spending the allotment 14% on tech, but the bulk is going toward instructional materials
  • Seliger – this seems low
  • Taylor – that was the point of changing the name, to help encourage spending on technology, OER and all these others things rely on having technology in the hands of the students
  • Seliger – is that a low number?
    • It is but we are seeing that number is growing slowly
    • Proc 2018 is a small proclamation and alternate between small and large or take a year off so they can purchase those items
    • Anticipate that as the board is more deliberate in the amount we would see more consistent spending on tech versus instructional materials
  • Taylor – argued there are closets full of brand new textbooks in schools that have never been taken off the shelf, what is the instructional materials funds being spent on?
    • Primarily text books or digital text books
    • Districts have spent about 43% of biennial allotment
    • Expecting districts to be saving money to be able to purchase the new English and Language arts new materials next year which is a large proclamation
    • Taylor – some vendors are charging more for online textbook than hardcover textbook
  • Seliger – is an electronic textbook not technology?
    • The distinction for TEA is in the content either delivered electronically or hardcopy
  • Seliger – do schools understand the discretion they have in the options
    • They do, a series of videos is also available to help explain options including OER materials that are currently available
  • Watson – when the option is provided, does the district have the option of utilizing textbook dollars on other programs so they can go with the cheapest option?
    • They can use it for other allowable expenses fitting constitutional requirements
  • Watson – maybe we should consider letting them use it for any other education necessary expense
  • Taylor – sees this as a transitional funding option and when everybody gets onto a more technological platform those funds could then be put into the basic allotment to be spent as necessary
  • Menendez – do you know if once schools are invested in technology, is there an additional fee for the materials?
    • There are some materials that are subscription based, but most of the materials adopted by SBOE are one-time purchase that does not update
  • The most substantive potion of the bill was a new section added that creates an IM portal that will include a more qualitative review information than what the SBOE is currently authorized t review for
    • Agency can have external reviews and those materials will be ranked or labeled to detail the level of quality in the material
    • Commissioner is required to conduct competitive process for the portal and utilize outside party for the review
    • OER materials would also be accessible through the portal
  • West – if more schools use OER, do we have projection of cost savings?
    • Difficult to say, and will likely vary by subject by area
  • West – would be interesting to consider this in terms of public school finance and the recommendation that are made
  • Taylor – related to connectivity, do you know the status of connectivity at schools?
    • Not directly involved but will get that information to the committee

 

Rex Peebles, Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • Directed the coordinating board to establish OER repository for the state
    • Spend less that the allotment for conducting the study
  • Study utilized stakeholder groups
  • Recommends developing statewide OER repository through existing mechanisms like Texas Digital Library or OER Commons
    • This would significantly reduce cost to state and institutions
  • Requested exceptional items funds for FTE for somebody to maintain the repository
    • Consistent revision is what makes OER effective
  • Have received 41 applications for OER materials
    • Initially restricted to core courses
    • In process of vetting the applications
    • Asked for exceptional item to increase this imitative
  • West – what about the transferability issue?
    • Not necessarily a direct connection except that faculty will make a decision about this
    • Believes this will help standardize this process across the board
  • West – recommends inviting comment on OER materials
  • Taylor – noted the impact on student costs on materials and lowering the cost of education
  • Menendez – requested adding evaluation of particular fields of study that get rejected more in terms of transferability when evaluating OER materials
    • Have started some of that analysis and will continue to look into that

 

Β 

HB 2223 (85th) relating to developmental coursework offered by public institutions of higher education under the Texas Success Initiative.

 

Jerel Booker, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

  • Believe implementation is on track
  • Institutions have been supportive and engaged in training and development of rules
  • Rider 33 enabled funds to grant to ramp up operations to meet needs of this legislation
  • Have also been able to put aside funds to enable development in the coming years
  • Do need to be sure reporting is accurate and appropriate

 

Warren Nichols, College of the Mainland

  • When 65% or higher of high school seniors are not prepared there is a problem
  • Developed data to track this
  • Supports the corequisite model and believes that it is a huge benefit to the state
  • Within a semester the college had fully implemented corequisite course
  • Data regarding this program has been submitted in written testimony
    • Data shows students are performing at a much higher level

 

Cynthia Ferrell, Texas Association of Community Colleges

  • A lot of good work happening at community colleges related to student development
  • Texas Success Center is helping with student success initiatives
  • Many outside funders backing the community colleges because of the honesty of the data and reforms being made
  • Described the Texas Pathways program
  • Success Center had series of meeting to support the strategic planning on scaling up the corequisite model
  • Taylor – these are the kind of things we need to be doing to improve the quality of education and the successes
  • Nichols – now in concert with ISDs to implement the corequisite model to ensure academically prepared students coming out of high school