Print 🖨

The Texas Commission on Virtual Education met on June 29th to discuss regular agenda items. An archive video of the hearing can be found here.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions 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.

Sen. Larry Taylor Opening Remarks

  • Theme for today’s meeting is that there are lots of good things happening to improve career college readiness outcomes
  • “Good virtual resources with appropriate funding and flexibility help break the time space constraints that otherwise impeded the rate of adoptions” and maximum flexibility
  • For districts doing the work, additional accountability is not needed and already have it through A-F
  • The districts leading in these areas are not the ones they typically worry about

 

Alexis Bauserman – Texas Education Agency, Career and Technical Education Infrastructure Overview

  • Reauthorized Perkins 5 drove a shift into programs of study
    • The shift of Perkins 5 has driven TEA to think about coherent programs and pathways not just specific courses so that Texas can direct all students to be college ready
    • Noted students need to be intertwining academic with technical skills to be college ready
  • CTE Program of Study benefits
    • Provide opportunities for students to transition directly into higher education or in work force
    • Aligns education to regional economy, align talent pipeline to needs
    • Use a gap analysis to look at current TEKS and what is needed in job postings, can prioritize which courses need to go before SBOE
    • Allowing for flexibility of alignment to teacher certification, course sequencing, and better data collection
  • CTE participation for Texas is significantly higher than most other states
    • Wanted to determine if they are dabbling in CTE or immersed in it
  • Reviewed Industry Based Certification process
  • Implementation models were shared including pathway elements
  • First innovative model is the Texas college and career readiness models
    • Early college high schools
    • Pathways in Technology early College High School (P-TECH)
  • Early college high schools’ partner with a system of higher education so that they can get extensive dual credit, allowing a college degree and high school diploma at same time
  • Merge a college and high school schedule can be difficult, flexibility is one of the key focal points of the partnerships
  • CCR’s school models go through rigorous planning over several years before going into designation
  • Seen great success with post-secondary outcomes with our school models
    • Success in comparison to typical dual credit vs. our school’s model
  • Texas regional pathways network
    • Has a particular emphasis on the small and rural districts that when putting together the curriculum they are strongly focused on careers regarding infrastructure but have continued to develop much broader array of choices
  • There are lots of instances of structure already in place to support our investments into these programs
  • Tielle – Is military readiness counting this year, was told they were not counted this year
    • They have been a mechanism that has been identified as something to be reinstated in the coming year
  • Continue to think about scaffolding of CTE programs and incentives for various pathways/programs to encourage engagement
  • Francis- could this be used to help with dropout prevention?
    • Yes, students targeted for several programs are at risk
    • Can be used as visualization as the why behind the program
  • Francis – is your program a pathway into TSCC?
    • TSCC is simply a partner in helping us to measure the current TEKS skills of our relevant programs
  • Francis – So, you don’t have a partnership with TSTC that sends them to TSTC?
    • There are individual partnerships within districts of TSTC, can not speak to specifics but will follow up
  • Little – recommends touring a career and technology facility, provides an example of the gap analysis, notes the district had to master a software program that is not longer used in the industry and the SBOE is trying to update this issue
  • Little – can core subjects be provided virtually so students can work on career or have a job in the career
    • Raises questions of where student is learning, have not seen it in the field at this point but said Little makes a compelling point
  • Tielle – Is there a possibility for TEA to partner with business industries? Businesses are saying students are not prepared for specific technical skills within the industry, but they have soft skills
    • Something they are engaged in in multiple levels both state and district level
    • Next frontier is the Tri-Agency initiative to align closely with partners on an employer engagement strategy
  • Francis – you can combine the job site with virtual and you could have them as an intern for four hours, then they go virtual at the job site for their academics
    • Think P-tech models are approaching more of this model to give concentrated time for workforce and academics
  • Taylor – we have technology to help make this happen, and refers to drop out discussion noting students used to drop out more that did not see their needs addressed
  • Taylor – need to evolve with the world and meet students where they are, need to align with the workforce or it is a waste of time
  • West – wanted clarification on whether industry was participating at the state level, concerned if this is not occuring?
    • There are quite a few opportunities where TEA engages with industry as well as other stakeholders
    • The intention is for that to continue to become more robust
  • King – think we have done a better job since HB 5 to partner with industry but it is still a bureaucratic “mess,” TEA could address and help move the opportunities along
  • King – If you are going to invite industry to participate, you are going to have to give them some indemnity in insurance, could be the holdup in a lot of cases, is that something TEA needs to work with commission on
    • A core piece of work in Tri-Agency, one of the planned deliverables is a toolkit for work-based learning and provide details from a legal perspective so that businesses can understand what is and is not a barrier
    • Once there is understanding then TEA can work with them on next steps
  • Little – curriculum is so spread and businesses are different, they are looking for discrete skills and would like to see the need for these discrete technical skills to be addressed
  • Francis – offers his assistance to help on insurance
  • King – since HB 5 there have been several changes in the insurance code, but the insurance companies pretend like these clauses don’t exist
  • King – Will propose legislation for CDL driver’s license training for seniors in high school, mentioned as an example for insurance need

 

John Harchuck, TX 2036

  • Highlights three main topics
    • Significant challenges facing labor market
    • The traditional pipeline of K-12 in many cases is broken
    • Options for this commission and the 88th legislature to help meet states work force needs
  • Labor market challenges
    • Texas is a jobs engine
    • Most job growth has been concentrated within low-income jobs (many paid less than $45k a year)
    • More than half of Texas counties have seen a net decline in population, economic growth is not evenly distributed in Texas
    • Rural communities expected to lose employees and job counts in next decade
    • Points to opportunity of virtual education to solve for some of the issues facing rural communities
  • Employers have more job openings than workers to fill them
    • Large middle skill gap that emerges in their data
    • Migration trends have helped economic growth and masked over labor challenges
    • 200,000 migrants move into the state in the last decade, we had more moving into the state than natural births in the state
    • Wide disparity of post-secondary education between those who move to Texas and those who have lived here at a 2:1 ratio
    • Points to opportunities for the commission
  • Challenges
    • COVID learning loss needs to be addressed, for example only 30% of students in the SOT were reading at grade level in 2019
    • Now ranked in the lower of states for reading comprehension
    • Great high school graduation rate, but high school diploma does not have the same market value signal it used to have
  • Having just a high school diploma is no longer a sufficient wage level for living in the SOT anymore
    • 11% of those making $65k or more only have a high school diploma or less
  • King – what is number nationally of workforce that doesn’t have college education?
    • Does not have that information
  • Less than 30% of the class of 2013 HS students in Texas obtained a post-secondary credential
  • 62% of all jobs in Texas by 2030 will require a post-secondary credential
  • Four-year university enrollment plateaued in recent years with some populations declining
    • Also concerning trend with community colleges and technical
    • Large disconnect between our youth and perceived value of higher education
  • Sees some of this as a real opportunity, look at value in post-secondary credentials
  • West – In regards to the statement perceived value of higher education is declining, does that correlate with loan debt?
    • Almost certainly
  • West – thinks a great part of this is due to cost of higher education
    • The more a valuable workforce credential can be ushed into HS the better in the long run for the workforce
    • West – always had a running debate if community college should be free, thinks it should be
  • Little – follows up on cost, noting her personal experience was she had to pay $500 per hour and thinks cost is a big concern and it has changed drastically over the last ten years
    • Mentions micro-credentials and thinks this area is ripe for further expansion
    • Anticipates a soon full credential library in Texas
  • King – do you see a correlation between specific fields of occupation that see a return on investment
    • This specific data doesn’t see that, but the market data certainly bears that out
  • Will be looking at cost vs ROI, our big focus has been workforce alignment, Texans seem to want education investments driven toward ensuring good paying jobs
    • Can know what wages were so they can make value-based decisions in credentials
  • SOT invests $100 billion annually in our education to workforce pipeline
  • Tri-agency was developed in 2016, but last session it was statutorily secured to continue to develop plans to make sure that the goals of the tri-agency are accomplished efficiently
    • Need to find ways to include the employer voice in the process
  • Can think about efficiently deliver age appropriate and cost-efficient education
  • Lots of work going on in 60×30, including a recognition that it is not just about college credentials
  • HB 5 stated way of thinking workforce alignment and HB 3 continued that with expansion of CTE funding, and CCMR bonus
  • Next session opportunities
    • Virtual learning is a tool that can be used to help solve some big problems in our education system such as: equity challenges particularly rural access issues, supplement existing learning activities, provide with better aligned workforce systems, and help address labor challenges
  • People don’t want to be forced into low quality online learning, but when it is an option that can improve the education of a student if available is incredibly popular
  • Points to statistic of gap between people who thought online learning was good or not successful, but many people approved of online classes as a supplement
  • West – how do we do what’s best to make sure that the fatigue and attitude of virtual learning does not creep back into what we are trying to achieve?
    • Some of the future testimonies will better explain best practices in student engagement
    • Digital tools to allow for self-pace, or in advanced course work more motivated
  • West – how do you make certain students in rural communities that need prompting are encouraged and have a meaningful experience?
    • Many students don’t have opportunities to meet full potential because courses are not available to them
    • Virtual is not a panacea but an opportunity to help overcome obstacles to provide courses they would not otherwise be able to
  • Francis – can we deliver quality education virtually if done right and if done with high tech?
    • I believe there is a huge gap between positive and negative virtual learning
  • Francis – need to bend the cost curve
    • Taylor – it is being done a WGU, online learning during COVID is vastly different from virtual learning intentionally…as an enhancement tool, virtual learning cannot be beaten
  • King – No one wanted to look at it in 2013, but wrote the legislation because virtual has a place to level a playing field and to mitigate cost
    • King – in 2013, and so few schools that chose not to use it when the toolbox was given, but now the practitioners and the agency are realizing that this is going to be a part of the industry/ it’s not going away
    • King – Without this, rural Texas cannot be in the same playing field
    • Witness agrees and will be putting out data tool in the next few months where you can look at districts offering AP courses
  • Tielle – Online should be a model, hybrid model to offer rural students the ability to access courses
    • Think this would be the baseline choice for most districts, if you could have an expert on the topic to students scattered about the state then could leverage what was put into online learning
  • Francis – Mentioned migration as part of the challenge on keeping up, but on the 60×30 Commission we thought it was helping on the post-secondary challenges because aren’t most credentialed before they come to the State of Texas?
    • Yes
    • The large thing that we are focusing on is that we want those who are born here and taught by our schools to have the opportunity to participate in the Texas miracle in the State
    • Different career outcomes can occur because of educational skills acquired
  • Huge promise in the P-TECH and other early-stage programs, but when TX 2036 looked at what is currently there, only 2% of students are graduating with a community college degree, and only about 13% are getting workforce-based credentials
    • Virtual learning can help with this
    • Huge opportunity to help students complete the credential while they are in high school and not afterward
  • Workforce Commission data shows opportunities for high paying jobs, credentials will help them obtain those jobs
  • Texas does not have best record in terms of completion of courses
    • Completion rates on CTE is 50% less than California
  • Ask how we do you rethink senior year to offer more value, prepare with soft skills or workforce skills
  • Virtual education allows for the ability to rethink what a school day looks like, allows for greater flexibility in the calendar to learn throughout the workday without losing rigor
  • Recommends promoting a culture of innovation, have little impediments to design the way needed
  • Need for disaggregated efforts since different needs for workforce skills based among geography
  • Opportunities involving dual credit – large gap between the state of academic dual credit and CTE dual credit
    • Labor market barriers discussed in CTE dual credit, will not get easier
    • Working hard to make sure Tri-agency efforts are coordinated among agencies but more needs to be done to ensure whole of government is coordinated
  • Francis – asked if students are clear eyed on the difference between work force credentialing and community college credentialing
    • There is an emerging trend whenever there are new opportunities, can’t speak on that but I think counseling will be a huge aspect of that
    • Understanding career pathways, wages and paths of the models would be helpful for students to know

 

Mattie Parker, Mayor of Fort Worth

  • Hope to discuss what the business community is asking for
  • Three stakeholders: People Involved in education, people who are involved in philanthropy, and people in the business and industry
  • Launched a Mayor’s Council on Education and Workforce Development
  • Regarding Francis’ question on if students are clear eyed about the opportunities, the answer is no
    • 15-year old’s will never be able to make that decision quickly and surely
  • A lot of stigmas around the choice of not going to college and it starts very early
  • Want students to recognize career path for making a living wage and college may not be that path
  • Tarrant To and Through Partnership was highlighted in her presentation, described the model and how it works
    • Regions across the state thinking about implementing their model
    • Graduation rates were at a much lower rate than expected for Tarrant County
    • Money is not enough, especially not for low-income families
      • Offering free education is not enough
    • Working with TCU college advising core to try and find ways to utilize virtual education to reach students differently
  • West – in terms of the incentive money, what type of results are you getting?
    • Will send the entire data deck from cohort to see the success but will note it is working
  • West – would like ideas on how to make sure accountability is still in place when removing the mindset of butts in seats
    • Its transformative for a student to be at the workplace, have real apprenticeship opportunities and take needed virtual core classes
  • CCMR trends dipped during COVID but starting to see significant outlook thanks to T3
  • Virtual will have to be an option, would like commission to think about importance of more opportunities
  • Provides personal stories of the students and the transformative work of T3
  • Funding model for districts on attendance does not work for districts and does not think it works for workplace either
  • Need overall support to strengthen education landscape between workforce and economic strength of Texas
  • A lot has changed since bill passed in 2013, need to expand and think bigger
  • Would love to implement a master teacher concept to let a teacher teach at multiple campus virtually with another teacher on campus
  • Need to invest in students differently, cannot export poverty and education is the thing to address students in generational poverty

 

Molly Young & Tracee Bentley, Permian Strategic Partnership & Scott Muri, Ector County ISD Superintendent

  • Young – here to discuss how industry and education are coming together in the Permian Basin to improve student outcomes
    • High level overview of Permian strategic partnership
    • Dive into what the PSP is doing in partnership with out education partners
    • More granular view of what is happening in Ector counting with blended virtual learning
  • Molly provides introduction to Bentley who begins presentation
  • Bentley – shows a study of the expected job growth in the Permian Basin in the future
    • Most needed jobs are truck drivers, accountants, auditors, etc.
  • Contribute billions of dollars a year and hundreds of thousands of jobs each year for Texas
  • World now seeing how important Permian Basin is
    • Permian basin is the third largest energy producer just behind Russia and Saudi Arabia
    • Permian Basin makes up ½ of US energy produce
    • Six months ago, US became the largest LNG exporter in the World
  • 17 companies came underneath one umbrella to solve the needs of the Permian Basin for the region as well as World
    • Public private partnerships are the best way to be effective in addressing challenges
  • Bentley – “Our mission is to strengthen and improve the quality of life for Permian basin residents by partnering with federal state and local leaders to develop plans that foster safer roads, better schools, more affordable housing, affordable health care, and a stronger workforce
    • Research before we launched showed we needed to focus on these five areas
  • Coming out of pandemic, decided to double down on providing access to quality education and workforce opportunities
    • Launched in January 2019, Permian Strategic Partnership has invested 100 million dollars
    • Our investment led to other further investments both public and private that total over a billion dollars
  • Lists some uses of the investments – STEM teachers, CTE high school, distribute energy curriculum, working with skill point alliance, etc.
  • Believe this is a once in a generation opportunity to strengthen the state and Permian basin
    • It should be a partnership between the State and the private sector
  • Want to make Permian Basin an occupation destination area and no longer an area people are leaving or just passing through
  • Closes her presentation
  • Young – partnerships with PSP huge impact for this project
  • Starts with where we are located
    • Full Permian basin, including Southeast New Mexico
  • Very little resources available to us in West Texas
    • In a mission to remedy that situation
    • Virtual connectivity will be one of those solutions
    • The Permian Basin is the only one within their research
  • The percentage of high school students enrolled in post-secondary is less than 50%
  • In comparison too other regions, our GV is doing great, but have a lot of work to do
  • Looking at low-income students in the Permian Basin, so much work to do
    • Only 10% completion rate for low-income students who get to post-secondary
  • Must focus on ways to get students to and through post-secondary school
    • Asking the question of how we do that
  • Feel strongly that every student should be leaving high school with an industry recognized credential
    • Put innovative practices in place for our goals for all areas of the Permian Basin
  • Showcases one of the new workforces their team has developed
    • energy education and workforce innovation initiative
  • set out to gather the data
    • did a CTE landscape scan
    • found all available data to determine the true labor market in the Permian Basin
  • created a set of recommendations that we used internally to set the CTE guidelines and goals
  • discussion of the district surveys they did in order to see how districts felt about CTE programs
    • want legislature to help with the work base learning that they cannot offer to their districts yet
  • None of school districts are offering full scale energy programs in their district
    • Being a collective organization of 17 energy companies – felt we needed to help this change
  • Teachers need strong tools, training, and resources to be successful
    • We will bring those to them
  • Discussing mobile classroom units, virtual learning opportunities, dual credit, and making sure data is aligned with industry
    • Need the academic support piece and want the industry connection
  • Finding ways to attract students and parents to this idea, and thanks to Ector county’s engagement also building upon advising framework to make sure advising is ready to go
  • Education Partnership of Permian Basin will deal with the partnerships and opportunities involving these curriculum
  • Muri – asked PSP who they were and what it is that they do and wanted to share about what the school district he was serving was
  • Introduces Ector County, city of Odessa, demographics for his school district
    • Large teacher shortage
  • Needed to recruit attract and obtain new staff for their districts so students could get staff they needed
    • Teacher incentive allotment was the way in which we did this and financially compensate our very best teachers
    • Some teachers make over 100,000 if they are the best
  • Raised Teacher salaries by over 15,000 dollars
    • Add that to the teacher incentive allotment the incentive has become very heavy
  • Teacher preparation
    • 60% of teachers teach within 25 miles of which they graduated
    • This meant we needed to find the teachers within our own district, and cultivate them ourselves instead of recruiting outwards
    • Partnered with colleges to develop pipelines
  • Own educator preparation program
    • One of three in the whole state
    • Had to develop in partnership with others that helped us to bring it along
  • PSP provides opportunity for our teachers to have one on one coaching
    • PSP virtually coaching teachers as they navigate their certification process
    • Provides seed money to provide experiences for existing teachers as well as new
  • Project rise – thinking differently about how to leverage our best performing teachers and to rotate teachers to the best way that I can
    • Want to make sure no student has a substitute teacher for every day of the year
  • Next step was to work on connectivity
    • Discovered that 39% of our students either didn’t have access to internet or marginal internet access in their home
  • Leveraged money to help our teachers distribute devices, but the students never had broadband, the PSP utilized their oil sites and with a partnership with Elon Musk, helped us provide high speed internet access to families and homes who have never had it before
  • Created a task force to create our own community plan
  • Last step was to improve academic performance
    • Children were struggling during pandemic
  • Tutoring was the first big step
    • Partnered with a variety of companies to provide virtual one on one private tutors
    • Leveraged outcome space contracting and funding
  • King – are you advocating for outcomes-based funding?
    • As we work with partners – absolutely
    • We are taking this, and we are spreading it to other organizations as we leverage it
  • King – “I believe you will find there is a lot of positives with outcomes-based funding even though it gets a bad rap around here, but hearing you talk about it is what some of us have been beat up about it over here for some years…. but your testimony is first of its kind from a superintendent, so I appreciate it”
    • You are welcome, look forward to showing more
  • Francis – can you virtually share teachers across jurisdictions and cut into your shortage
    • It’s an opportunity that we have but it is a struggle because of our funding model today
    • Opportunities to add more flexibility in the way we teach virtual will certainly benefit students
  • Virtual tutoring and blended will benefit students
    • “Sen. Taylor, I know you have some good experiences there”
    • Seen great acceleration due to blended learning
    • Helps provide one on one support for students
  • Young – appreciate being here and do believe industry has a large role in moving this forward we appreciate flexibility and industry doesn’t move by process and rules all the time and we believe schools should model that
    • Look forward to improving student outcomes by showing what we are doing

 

Steve VanMatre, Premont ISD

  • Current superintendent in Corpus Christi, but was the superintendent in Premont ISD
    • Sharing a story about what happens when school districts team up with other ISD’s and the legislature to elevate learning
    • Seven people in Premont who received the incentive, makes a huge difference for those teachers in small town
  • TEA gave Premont two closure letters, Premont had a negative fund balance, performance was sub-standard, parents were taking students elsewhere, 60% of the staff was fully credentialed
    • High school had no heat or hot water and could not control the AC
    • My first month in Premont I would drive home and wonder why the schools didn’t get closed
  • Had been the superintendent in freer, left freer to go to Premont because their superintendent had been arrested, witnessed the nightmare that was that ISD
    • Had conversations with the agency as well as the community and people in freer and just heard they had received a grant to open up a next generation health care facility, and Premont had nothing
    • No CTE or any type of technology at the school
  • Noticed that the Freer superintendent had staff that he couldn’t afford, offered to make a deal where they bus Premont kids to Freer, but help pay for some of the salaries that the other superintendent couldn’t afford
    • Started the Rural Schools Innovations Zone
  • Four years later: enrollment has been doubled, passed two knew bonds, built two new schools, have early college high school relationships with TX A&M, Corpus Christi A&M, and many others
    • Added Brooks County ISD which has a great welding and electrical program
  • Wanted to change the way rural schools teach children their education
    • Shocked at the lack of opportunities these children had
    • Through collaboration and partnerships, we could make things better for everyone
    • Also, stops argument on consolidation
  • Got together and received some seed money from the agency to develop our charter and then we created our board
    • Had representatives from the Universities and from each of our ISD’s trustees
    • The governing body of our Rural Innovation Zone
  • 3 high schools and 5 different academies that any of these students can go to
    • Health science academy
    • STEM academy
    • Grow your own educator academy
  • Kids at Premont were constantly traveling throughout the State
    • Now have just as much opportunities as the inner-city children
  • These students need a form of education to teach them of the secondary education, which means that they must go somewhere else
  • A Premont child has little understanding of what happens on a college campus, more or less the outside world
    • Need the students to begin experiencing things exterior to the city of Premont
  • Travel via bus from Premont to Corpus for classes
    • WIFI on the bus
    • On the hour that they are going to Corpus and the hour that they go back they are taking courses online on the bus as they travel
  • Coordinating most of our professional development through virtual
    • Major efficiency of operations when we can hire one PD person between three districts
  • Hard to find Spanish teachers in South Texas – Premont has one and we serve all three high schools with one teacher, but we don’t charge the other schools – it’s just part of the partnership
  • Many advantages that this partnership has given us we did not expect to have had
  • People contact me frequently saying they want to join Premont because of the opportunities we are bringing to Rural Texas, but that’s not all
  • Developing a Montessori school in Premont
  • Also, opening something called Baby University – free childcare for children as young as six weeks old for people who are willing to come and work for the ISD
  • Initial funding was through a school action grant and drove from Premont to Austin to meet with commissioner to ask for some flexibility
    • Received additional funding that enabled us to pay stipends to get people to come to Premont
    • Doubling enrollment and growing the CTE funding has enabled them to increase their teacher salaries and attract people
    • It’s their second year being fully sustainable
  • No subsidies coming from TEA, no ESSER funds
  • With additional funding were able to build about 24 million dollars worth of facilities with only 14 million of it being spent by the taxpayers
    • Great yield that is changing lives
  • Now: Regarding dual credit completion, graduation rate, and CCMR, Premont’s data is even higher than the SOT’s average because every student at Premont is getting an associate degree
  • CTE kids and academic kids that did the dual credit route, but rarely did you see them combine
  • Story about his valedictorian receiving a certificate in welding and his degree and now has started a wood working business
    • Believes CTE was what paid off for him
  • Kids are being successful in dual credit both in virtual as well as face to face
    • Getting certifications in different field of degrees
    • And are graduating with 40 to 60 hours in their transition to post-secondary
  • Lesson learned is we can do more virtual
    • Have barely scratched the surface of virtual learning potential
    • Not only from a teaching and learning perspective but also from a professional development and a training perspective
    • Feel like Texas is doing the bare minimum and think that we can most likely do better, but we need to change the way that Texas does school
  • Sometimes when three schools work together, we let adult issues get in the way of what is best for kids
    • Collaboration is beneficial to kids
  • By having these agreements, they now have the funds where they can afford to pay these kids to come and participate in their summer programs
  • Taylor – Do you and the other entities negotiate?
    • We have a performance agreement, but we do
    • Third party support, we have a financial expert from TEA who comes and helps us to make sure that product and child distribution is evenly delivered
  • Taylor – the idea of collaborating lack this, particularly in a rural area but even in the suburbs, where every student doesn’t have to have the best training, we can make resources go a lot further
  • Taylor – so you all really don’t split ADA funding
    • No, we pay tuition by student and special ed you get way more funding for
  • West – I think it’s time I pass a constitutional amendment where school districts can have the ability to use each other’s bonding authority to do a form of capital projects so they can use those capital projects on a schedule determined by them
  • Tielle – I’m in district 13 and we don’t have a thick bench either, a one high school district out. A bunch of teachers with neighboring districts we have discussed doing something as similar as this
    • It’s nice to see how it works and it’s something we are interested in doing
  • Tielle – Thought about using student teachers to proctor exams and such to maximize the space of faculty
  • Taylor & Tielle – both thank VanMatre
  • Bettencourt – was that specific class on the bus to corpus dual credit or what was it?
    • On one of them it’s a prerequisite course called cougar course to eliminate the prerequisite before their class
  • Bettencourt – your graduation rates are awesome, how much dual credit are these kids picking up
    • In Premont, with 55 to 60 kids – ten of them will have their associates degree while 95% will have 25 to 50 credit hours
    • Also, a significant number of SPED kids who are on those buses
  • Bettencourt – this is off the charts positive results, and then you are throwing in summer jobs on top of it its impressive
  • Also, when the governor said that it was okay to go back to school, our classes went back to school.
    • We socially distanced the kids, they cooperated, and we made it work
    • My kids just can’t be away from the school for extended periods of time without it doing damage to their education
  • Bettencourt – this is really cool stuff, my congratulations, and this is everything we could expect and more from a program
  • Bettencourt – is the summer job just a networking or were people volunteering to take the kids because of the program
    • We have an executive director that arranges these partnerships with the private sector to get these kids working with them in the field
    • Makes sure the kids that want to do it can do it
  • Says being able to develop a schedule where a kid can go to corpus to play in the band, play sports, etc. is difficult but we have been able to do it
  • Bettencourt – this is a real best practice study
  • West – In terms of these young people, what is the retention rate of these students
    • Don’t have data on the kids post-secondary but they are graduating from high school
  • The Premont promise – if you go through your grow your own program and get your certification you are guaranteed a job in Premont
  • West – if we can put them in these situations where they can learn and make a little money to support their families it’s the best of both Worlds
  • Rex – what are the two recommendations of the things you would like to see statutorily from us and what should we be recommending to allow programs like yours to do even more of
    • The accountability at the high school level has never been better, we have increased accountability than the typical STAAR test, so that they can teach the basics to children at a younger age
    • Reward innovation at those elementary campuses who are doing CTE etc.
    • Would like flexibility to have minutes being allotted at night or other than the regular school day
    • Want to be able to allot time for teachers and students to have the flexibility to have class when they want to
    • Kid’s still go to school five days a week, but the teacher only comes in for four days a week
  • King – if the minutes restriction was in there it is not the intent of the legislation
  • We found that teachers are more effective teaching only 80% of the week rather than 100%
  • Tielle – were you able to do that because of the Co-Op you are in
    • No, we were able to do it because of flexibility
  • Taylor – a lot of the requests you are discussing are easily developed through the district of innovation – which I am assuming Premont didn’t originally have, but thank goodness we have that accountability backstop
    • Correct, but we have it now
  • When you have a supportive board, it helps
  • King – what can Houston ISD, and Canadian ISD measure that is the same for 3-8, looking for a way to measure things, need to meet the requirements for ESSER, but what does that look like? What are the things that Texas can measure?
  • Does not currently have a local accountability system, but does have TEP, instead of TTES, which leads us to the tendency of inflation regarding our evaluation. If you do that and student progress does not align with your evaluation Texas Tech throws out your TIA money if you do that, I think elementary schools should be rewarded for things they do not have to do
  • King – I agree, something needs to be measured, but that is our holdup with the accountability system in 3-8 because attendance is based particularly on the parent and not the kid
    • Yes, but when you are evaluating kids on something other than attendance, for these students to be expected to be at proficiency at 3rd grade puts a lot of pressure as a young child
  • ISD’s are much better as public-school districts when they have accountability, believes they can establish accountability with commissions like these
  • King – How do we keep our ESSER funding, and keep the level of the law while still rewarding campuses who deserve it?
    • I will let you know
  • Bettencourt & Francis – delighted in his results and thanks him
  • Taylor – we can look at incentivizing the 7th and 8th grade, that’s when we can catch them before they start the process of dropping out, which begins about 8th grade
    • That reminds me of the people I call drop-ins
  • Drop-ins are the third graders who have no success on summative testing that are just there, and the academic gap is becoming overwhelming, yet they are still coming
  • Tielle – on the STAAR test we are teaching the TEKS, but some of the kids can’t read, we aren’t teaching the kids to read just teaching the curriculum of the reading
  • Bettencourt – wants a comment from him about the more technical the course is, is there a complication with if it is virtual or now
    • Learned that when they were home from the pandemic, they didn’t want to turn their camera on not because they couldn’t but because they were embarrassed with their home
    • What we have done with algebra one, because we have very little who don’t take it in eighth grade, is we have a learning block where those test in December, so that those who have developed the skills can move on, and those that are still ‘approaching’ stay in the class. This helps to catch up a lot of students to where they should be with math, and give the teacher more one on one time for those students who are behind

 

Kirsten Baesler, North Dakota Superintendent

  • Thanks the legislature and introduces herself and her presentation
    • Has learned a lot from TEA, have been the benefactor of some of things they have done
  • 8th grade math is the next big focus that the entire nation needs to focus in to
  • Rural is North Dakota, that is truly who we are
    • Appropriate that I am following your rural school story
  • The rural schools in ND must remain open; they deserve the quality education that their peers receive
    • Says ND feeds and fuels the world, right behind Texas in the oil and gas industry
    • ND has a responsibility to these families and children that the small rural school stays open but that they have the education that other schools need
  • 32nd year in education, started as a teacher’s assistant, and did that for 23 years before I was elected as the State superintendent
  • One role that i had that was most influential was I was a school board president and was elected as a board member for almost a decade
  • On that board I realized how important policy and funding were to students and for the classrooms
    • Going to focus on more policy centric things today
  • Wants to discuss Choice Ready/state accountability, it’s like Texas’ Cr squared (college and career readiness)
  • The breakdown of how they measure the productivity of our k-8 schools is based on how they react respond and serve any student that comes to them. 30% state assessment, then measure the state assessment’s growth, as well as the English learning proficiency and climate and engagement (no longer based on attendance)
    • Decided to do away with attendance and should rather measure engagement
    • Felt if we were focused on engagement, we could find ways to increase students’ attendance and learning
  • Partnered with a non-profit now known as Cognia and we give an engagement survey in January every year that measures the students cognitive, emotional, and behavioral educational attitude each year
    • Each student gets a score that shows whether a student is compliant with the given curriculum and not disengaged
  • High school accountability pie includes all the necessary things like state assessment, etc.,
    • Give Highschool’s credit if they can convince students planning on dropping to become GED completers
    • Choice ready graduates different than graduates, choice ready are those military, post-secondary, or work ready
    • There is an honesty gap in North Dakota, high graduation rates, but low choice ready rates
    • If 100 kid graduate, 100 kids should be choice ready
  • They need to be ready in at least two of those three pathways
  • Young people change their mind frequently, and our schools should prepare them for those choices
  • Discussion of a slide that describes the curriculum of choice ready
  • Brought together over the course of two years a team to find the six choice-ready outcomes that we needed to improve in ND
    • We are expecting that students meet expecting learning gauges each year
    • Increase the students who graduate choice-ready
    • Career awareness, career exploration, and career development really stuck to us
  • This is what drove partnerships with colleges in ND and the industry as well
  • Students need to be aware of as many careers as possible
    • Elementary is to teach them of the career choices
    • Middle schools should be the place where they explore as many fields as possible
    • High school should be where they begin to narrow their vision
  • Everyone wanted more flexibility after COVID, the same flexibility that charter schools had in their public school system
    • Needed to allow public schools same opportunity
  • Discussion of the policy she developed in ND that provided flexibility to the schools and the different degree paths that students can take to achieve readiness
  • Hoping that incubators of great ideas would develop so we could determine which laws were helping to innovate children, and which laws prohibited learning
    • This happened, and a bill was passed to allow superintendent to certify an alternative pathway to a ND diploma
  • Schools use those developments to use their own mastery framework policy and instructional time how they see fit (as long as aligned with ND structural continuum)
  • Essentially, ND graduation pathways look like the ND standards for a course are equivalent to a credit allowing those to accomplish standards instead of regular course structure
    • further awarding credit based on mastery unlike the traditional Carnegie unit
  • Overview of further policy in ND that offered educational opportunities outside the school building
    • Parents don’t want children to lose the entities and skills of these extracurricular opportunities so found things within them they could apply to course work
  • ND approved for local school district to develop virtual academies
    • They were the parents’ first choice
    • Parents didn’t want their children to lose that option, because they could take courses far away from home without them leaving
    • Found in the rural districts that the schools didn’t want to take these opportunities away from them
    • Created a funding mechanism to allow school districts to negotiate coursework and contracts
  • Can also create a virtual academy option or use virtual instruction in case of emergency
  • Anecdotal story of a specific student who finished all his required coursework two years early, and why that was so beneficial for him
  • Three pillars of education: build relationships, cultivate opportunities, and inspire growth
  • Bettencourt – what percentage of your cohort takes virtual in comparison of everything else?
    • Very small percentage of students did full virtual learning (less than 5%)
    • Hybrid is most popular and 35% of students are utilizing this method
  • Bettencourt – you had a large increase in population, what have you learned from that and are their people getting GED’s that you are picking up on, local people coming home, new workers, what was it?
    • It’s a combination of all the above, and then families stayed in ND after the oil boom and bust in large part because of the ND education opportunities
  • Taylor – I like the choice ready because you gear up a student for a particular track and they find that they don’t want to do that than that gives them the opportunity to make the switch where did you come up with that?
    • I came up with it from my own’s sons experience

 

Ryan Gensler, Senior Director of National Partnerships, Career Wise Colorado

  • Career Wise Colorado is a nonprofit intermediary designed to better imbed learning engagement
    • Started in Colorado about six years from now
    • Works with agencies and school districts
    • Gets students out of the classroom and leverages virtual instruction to make it possible
  • There is a gap in what is necessary for what our education system is currently available to provide, and what our employers and students need
    • Need to rethink and innovate how, when, and where education happens
  • Too few students are graduating high school, pursuing college, completing college
    • Less than a quarter of our students who start high school on a linear path end up actually following that path
  • Employers struggle to fill necessary roles, and constantly pointing the fingers at education but don’t usually get involved
    • Not developing talent and connecting these dots
    • Wasting money retraining and in a slow and ineffective way
  • Know that remote and hybrid work is here to stay
    • Employers are either staying fully remote or switching to hybrid
    • Were worried when we started that our apprentices would quit or be cut during the pandemic, but 75% of them maintained their jobs
    • Students must learn to do school in a virtual environment because they will be working in a virtual environment
  • General model for CO student apprenticeship is a three-year competency-based apprenticeship that:
    • Year one: start in high school where they learn a little on the job while getting their high school requirements
    • Year two: then it acclimates to the professional environment (more work less school), until they are ready to move into the post-secondary where they do less in the class
    • Year three: Post-secondary
  • Students are learning manufacturing skills, coding classes, and many others while working with people in their professional environment
    • We are paying for them to do the work they are doing, while they are receiving it as an education
  • Very few CTE courses offered in Colorado schools
  • So, we are piloting a virtual education system where students still come to class, proctored by a teacher facilitator, but the students can can select courses based on an industry certificate they identify as relevant to the expertise that interests them, their employment, or their apprenticeship
  • Broad focuses that allow for 20-30 students that can learn completely different subjects within the same classroom due to remote training
  • Focused on occupations that are not traditional apprenticeship occupations but more high demands and diverse that reaches a larger audience of youth
    • All of this is put together by an intermediary capacity
    • Operate as a nonprofit so that we can be flexible while also working with agencies to be efficient
    • Developed a tech platform that allows for case management and open communication between students and employers
  • Taylor – talking about apprenticeship in England I think about things like tracking and putting young students on a track
  • Taylor – we wouldn’t want the specific fields in Texas, we want to give these students opportunities to make decisions and not tracking and giving students the options
    • These students have all the time in the World in front of them, and even if they decide otherwise than what they chose, they are still 19 years old, so we think it gives kids plenty of time to make those difficult decisions

 

Diana Del Pilar, Avalos P-TECH School

  • Avalos P-TECH was created a semester and a half before COVID had hit
  • Discussed her experiences with virtual during COVID and the areas for improvement in virtual learning
  • Discussed the drawbacks with asynchronous learning, learned success coaches were vital, need to move away form one size fits all concept, suggested moving to a model of hybrid instruction
  • List of recommendations for virtual learning as well as funding for the virtual learning process
  • Taylor – mastery of skills is important, virtual opens up opportunities
  • Lovett – How many concerns about academic integrity?
    • Not many great concerns but the only problem was with occasional English plagiarism which can be detected using software that teachers have access too
    • Even did TSI through virtual administration
    • No concerns with assessments and if there was a genuine concern would have brough the student in, in person
    • They have ability and methods to address if it does become a concern
    • Also spoke about the power of students learning in workgroups, can either look at is as a discipline concern or treat it as a peer study group
  • Taylor – notes it’s like real world, having to work together as a team

 

Sari McCoy, Richardson ISD Executive Director of Career and Technical Education

  • Provided details on background
  • Career and technical education have truly evolved since the beginning of her career
    • 11 million students enrolled nationally in these courses
    • 8 million in Texas
  • Texas has really put forth a lot of effort to make CTE adjustments and align programs of study in the recent years to set us up for the future
  • Had an opportunity to work with tri-agency to unite education throughout the entire industry
  • Working to ensure that we are meeting those outcome and goals
  • Discusses the way in which her team rebuilt the CTE within their school district between 2019 and present
  • When our students walk across the stage when they graduate, we want a very specific intentionality and touchpoints with industry partners to ensure benefits for children through CTE education
  • Implemented a data analytics platform to evaluate postmortem data so that we can attempt to make better adjustments
    • Making decisions based on previous data
  • The workforce pipelines are decreasing
  • If Texas can position our students to have internships and increased skill-based learning, as well as teaching them to be innovative and maintain employment – then they will excel
  • Flexible scheduling and longer time in a work-based learning experience would be most beneficial for students
  • Virtual instruction is an opportunity to connect with industry experts when ISD’s can’t afford for them to come into the education system
  • Designed our curriculum to be modular and to be turn-key so that the ISD’s can hire facilitators rather than instructors
  • Further encouragement and discussion of her thoughts regarding the combining of the corporate world with the educational curriculum of Texas
  • Taylor – noted about high paying positions in corporate world, is there a way to leverage that and have them present virtually rather than have to pay their salary
    • Agrees, most industries ask employees to give back and they could present that way
  • Francis – industry is consumer of output, why does it take so much effort to turn on the lightbulb?
    • Agrees
    • Product is a highly qualified career and college ready student, measure could be how often industry is knocking on the door
    • Ask businesses to input if learning is relevant, if she has a strong partnership then able to offer relevant training
    • Taylor, Francis and McCoy talk about taking away barriers between education and industry
  • Bettencourt – discussion the tri-agency workforce commission and wants witness to be a part of the discussions
    • Notes backwards planning is starting with the end in mind and then work backwards from there

 

Justin Terry, Superintendent Forney ISD

  • Reviewed CCMR programming and the effect and impact it can have on a lot of the pipelines
  • Discusses paid internships and reviewed their offerings
  • Notes certain CCMR success cannot reach without virtual offerings
  • Forney had higher education come to them and let them know that they were not doing their job, and they were right
    • Did not feel they were preparing kids to learn in an independent setting nor learn in a virtual one
  • Wanted to begin as many program opportunities as they could and include great CCMR expansion
    • Couldn’t afford it, and have worked to develop a CTE schedule for students
  • Flexibility and expanded opportunities
    • Took on the approach of virtual learning and try and do things by innovating inside the box
    • Partnerships: have over 950 of our 4500 students who are participating in virtual dual credit
  • Embarking on the 9-12 virtual academy
  • Shared the concept of centralized approach to CCMR and heard a concept about paid internships and considered that to be interesting
    • Fully functioning restaurant called the local where the high schoolers all work at
    • Have animal science program as well as welding and many other design programs and business programs
  • Lists of examples of businesses where children can get entry level work experience
  • Video introducing the Keith Bell Opportunity Center
  • Shares video to showcase the concept behind all of the different opportunities within that center
  • Partnership with community is endless
  • Recommendations include need for virtual which has essential flexibility, notes it is not for every student, but it is a skill students need
  • Need to maintain full funding and would like to address calendar and how they report as part of needed flexibility
  • King – all for local control and flexibility, not trying to control curriculum but brings back up the district of innovation and says not many are access DOI
  • King and Taylor note DOI being mostly access for school start date and that was not the intention
  • King – ask if he has a way to get colleagues to come into the 21 Century, to let him know
    • Thanks him for his work on the bill, ask what can be done to integrated into college and career readiness all the way K-12 and how can this be integrated into the accountability system
    • Need continued collaboration
    • King – asked if pandemic broke down walls enough for technology to be embraced, so many lawsuits over financial equity and notes there is a huge inequity in technology education across the state, wants to fix this for the underserved
    • Believes the opportunity is there for relationships to be built
    • King – agrees, but culture of districts/administration of not talking embracing partnerships because they didn’t talk to them historically is issue
  • King – culture in districts will have to change for what Forney is doing to be the norm
  • Taylor notes questions can be sent to Task Force
  • A funding subcommittee will be created to study the funding for virtual options
    • Chair: Taylor
    • Members: Bettencourt, King, Morales, Tielle
    • Findings will be brought back to the full committee for more discussion and give input at that time
    • Taylor apologizes as they had more members, they were planning to put on the subcommittee but were limited by legislation on how many could be there to 5