The State Board of Education met on June 20. Commissioner Mike Morath opened the meeting with the following comments:
Commissioner’s Comments
- Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education: We have finished the testing cycle for the spring; testing went remarkably well.
- As a result of testing, and a one-year effort by our agency to redesign the Confidential Student Report Card (CSR), we have a new STARR report card.
- New report cards try to put as much information in context for parents as possible.
- With respect to the most recent legislative session, HB 22 passed. The A-F rating system is now the law of the land with regard to how public school accountability works.
- HB 22 sets up a 3-domain system, taking into account student achievement, school progress and ‘closing the gaps’. It will take effect this upcoming year.
- In August of 2018, the ratings will be issued according to the 3-domain system.
- At campus level in August of 2018, the ratings will still be ‘met standard’ and ‘improvement required’.
- At the district level in August of 2018, the rating will be tiered based on A-F ratings.
- In August of 2019, the first A-F ratings will come out, and a local accountability plan will be rolled out.
- To reiterate, there will not be campuses graded in August of 2018 on an A-F labeling, even though they will be graded on the 3-domain methodology.
- The State has asked for a “what-if” report by January 1, 2019 for all the campuses.
- The use of attendance rates, previously the most controversial element of rating criteria, has been removed.
- The state has asked us to create a task force to analyze the feasibility of using extra and co-curricular participation in the state accountability system, an estimated 5-year process.
Questions
- Donna Bahorich, SBOE Chair – District 6 (Houston): On the local accountability plan, how does it apply at the campus level?
- Morath: There are three domains that every campus and every district will be graded on. School district accountability is always determined by the state, exclusively. When the district wants to apply labels to the campus, they can adopt a local accountability plan regardless of their status. They have to use the three domains presented by the state, but they can come up with other sub-domains. We will run an analysis based on the 3 overarching domains and give it to a particular district so they can incorporate it into their local accountability plan.
- Patricia Hardy, SBOE Member – District 11 (Fort Worth): The STARR test results, how are we assuring that parents are notified?
- Morath: We send printed STARR report cards to every district in the state around this time. It is the districts job to get report cards out to parents. Some districts have compiled emails of parents and sent them out as a PDF; others have some sort of a delivery process. It is up to the individual district. Long term I would like to take that burden off of the districts – maybe mail them to all the parents.
- Keven Ellis, SBOE Member – District 9 (Lufkin): The legislature gave you some additional authority with open education resources, how will that new process change the ability of us to issue a proclamation for this material? How will it affect the accessibility standards that are involved in that?
- Morath: The open source materials that are developed via a procurement process, oppose to a proclamation process, are put through a thorough review that assesses accessibility standards. None of these have come live yet. Our plan is to add to the existing process. Similar to vendors submitting during a proclamation for SBOE adoption, these resource materials will go through a similar process.
- Ellis: That would include the new suitability standard?
- Morath: That is right. Hopefully we are not paying a vendor for something unsuitable, but you are right, it would be included.
- Ken Mercer, SBOE Member – District 5 (San Antonio): Could you talk more about students’ growth year over year, even if they fail the assessment?
- Morath: With our new reports, even for students who did not meet grade level standards, you can still see the gains they’ve made year over year.
- Mercer: On the ‘what-if’ analysis, that is a great way of migrating this before we go into full implementation.
- Morath: I think there was wisdom in the proposal. Every school district will have the underlying logic and methodology of the A-F system for a year before labels are applied. The ‘what-if’ comes in-between to gauge expectations for the following next year.
- Mercer: Any guiding words on what we are doing today with respect to English 1 and 2?
- Morath: In terms of the standards, one of the major interests we have is in grade level differentiation. When we are crafting the tests, what you see is a reflection of the standards. To the extent that you see grade levels have an appropriate differentiation in the standards, I think makes for a stronger system overall.
- Hardy, District 11 (Fort Worth): I am not sure how the process works to get into the open source, let’s say for a like a professor.
- Morath: It is a procurement process. The state is actually paying for the materials so that it owns the license and can give it away for free.
- Hardy: If there is a professor who wants to give his or her book to the open source program, who checks for the alignment with respect to state standards?
- Morath: The evaluation process is pretty rigorous; it checks for alignment and utility. If the state is paying for the material, we want it to be the highest quality. I think it will be an integrative process –it will get refined over time.
- Hardy: In the free enterprise system, are we not knocking out the textbook publishers from their bread and butter?
- Morath: That is a policy question for someone else. The law just says we are to procure a certain amount of these materials each year.
- Hardy: On RTI, I know the funding has been cut. What is your vision about what is happening with that?
- Morath: I have a meeting with staff coming up in regards to that. The funding source for RTI research was eliminated in this session which could mean that the availability of those resources for free is also eliminated. We are trying to figure out whether or not there is an alternative option. When we do, we will alert all districts.
- Hardy: On English 1 and 2, I think a lot of English teachers would say the discipline is recursive. Even though standards do not vary much, it can be increased in assessment given the selection of materials.
- Morath: I would encourage this council to put that language in anything you adopt because that is what drives the assessment.
- Erika Beltran, SBOE Member – District 13 (Fort Worth): It looks like there are local accountability plans that will potentially change certain campus ratings?
- Morath: The state would actually use their state accountability plan for when the state applies a summative to the campus. The state will use the local accountability plan for the state summative.
- Beltran: How do you account for differences across different districts?
- Morath: Every school still has the 3-domains run on it. From an analytics perspective, you can still run a consistent comparison.
- Beltran: Will all ratings be made public?
- Morath: Yes. A district website would, ostensibly, display their ratings according to their local accountability standards.
- Beltran: Campuses that are given D’s, after the first year, will have sanctions imposed. Can you elaborate?
- Morath: That hasn’t really changed with HB 22. The longest you can have an F campus, according to new law, would be 5 years. The longest you could have a D campus would be 6 years.