Part 1
SBOE Info: texednews.com/sboe
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Also in this issue:
-- African American Course Clears Hurdle
-- Charter Update
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In “Commissioner’s Comments” to SBOE
“Annual Report,” Testing and Charters
Among Topics Addressed by Morath
Education commissioner Mike Morath began his regularly scheduled informal “commissioner’s comments” portion of SBOE
Morath said this could be considered a “state of Texas public education” report, and is the third time such a report has been issued. (This differs from the more comprehensive report on the status of Texas public education released prior to each regular legislative session.)
This latest report includes info on key school-related bills that passed last year, most notably the impact of the HB3 provisions on school reform (including the grades K-3 reading academies), and the net $3.4 billion increase in funding for public school operations for the current state fiscal year alone.
Recruit, Support and Retain
Morath highlighted a focus in the report on the importance of the TEA’s goal to “recruit, support and retain teachers and principals” as a top priority, and noted that teachers are the single most important factor affecting a school’s success.
But, SBOE member Pat Hardy of Fort Worth conveyed concerns expressed to her by teachers whom Hardy said love their students and love teaching, but feel frustrated “by all the other stuff they have to do” with keeping up with data and with all this “different stuff” they have to do to the point where they often have to put teaching the subject matter to their students on the back burner.
Morath responded that he has sat in on some “data team meetings” in ISDs “that were a total waste of everybody’s time,” while “there is a compelling base of evidence” that the solution is to have good instructional leadership.
In discussing the report’s section on student performance results, the issue arose around the differences, often markedly dissimilar, for Texas students taking the state-based STAAR and students in the same grades tested on the same subjects on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The discussion centered on the fact that the STAAR tests are aligned to the state’s curriculum (TEKS) and test all students, while the NAEP is not aligned to the TEKS, but instead to a national standard, and tests a sampling of students and includes different types of questions than are included on the STAAR.
Morath added that while a team is analyzing the differences between the STAAR and NAEP, regardless, the state’s assessments will continue to be aligned solely to the TEKS.
Charters
Morath told the board that due to a sentence that was inadvertently left off in a column in the text of a proposed TEA rule governing charter school expansions, it has led to the impression that the rule as proposed would provide for automatic approvals for top performing charters to open new campuses wherever and whenever they wanted without getting the commissioner’s prior permission.
Morath said that there will not be approvals of any new charter campuses without being first reviewed and approved by the TEA. “We’re still tweaking them,” Morath said of the proposed rules, which he said have drawn 10,000 public comments.
This led to questioning by SBOE member Matt Robinson of Friendswood about the impact of a well-performing charter that opens a campus near an ISD’s campus and draws the ISD’s better performing students to the charter, leaving the ISD with the more challenging students and putting the district in a tougher position.
Morath responded that HB3 created significant changes in the structure of how schools are funded, with funding based (with a few exceptions) on the needs of the student, a system that he said will almost make the underlying wealth of the community irrelevant on the operational budget of a district. As an example, he noted that funding for free and reduced-price meal students increased from about $1,000 pre-HB3 to about $1,600, and additional money will be provided for students from poorer census tract areas.
Among other things, Morath also emphasized a section in the report highlighting the massive increases in funding and services for special-ed students. (We will report on this in next week’s issue.)