Eagle-eyed Hotline readers will wonder why we are jumping straight to a recap of the State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting without ever previewing the agenda. This is because without notice, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) ended a decades-long practice of hosting an in-person meeting with stakeholders to preview the agenda and ask questions about the items the board is set to consider. While this meeting is not required by any law, it was a courtesy to the field and provided additional transparency into the board’s operations. We are hopeful this decision will be reversed for future meetings.
Overview of the Week
The week began on Monday with the Committee of the Full Board discussing a career and technical education (CTE) item that would create consistency in the general employability skills in all CTE courses (almost 400). The committee also recommended the adoption of advanced mathematics courses for middle school in accordance with Senate Bill 2124 (88R).
Tuesday saw the consideration of the first ever “high-performing entity” charter school. This is a fast-track process that has been in law for many years, but the process was never developed until this past year — presumably because the current process is not yielding enough approvals. Mater Academy of San Antonio — actually based in Florida — was recommended for approval despite having missed the mark in two previous application cycles. Texas AFT has serious concerns about the fiscal and leadership interconnectedness of this applicant and its associated management entity, Academica Southwest.
Later Tuesday, the board recommended approval for the instructional materials, local classroom review process, and rubrics as required by House Bill 1605 (88R). Rubrics for the upcoming review cycles for career and technical education (CTE) and fine arts also were presented to the board.
Wednesday began with comments from Commissioner Mike Morath. At this meeting, he chose to focus his attention on complaints and investigations. He highlighted that the number of both categories is on the rise and provided an overview to help members respond when they encounter complaints from their constituents. Wednesday also saw the board take up for adoption a significant number of new CTE courses related to engineering, health science, and information technology among others.
Committee Work and Ad-Hoc Social Studies
The Committee on School Initiatives took up several items of note. At the top of its agenda was an update on the Generation 30 charter applications. TEA staff updated the committee that eight of the 25 applications will be moving forward to the capacity interviews May 7-16. The commissioner will make his recommendations around May 28, and the SBOE will have the opportunity to weigh in at its June meeting. We will provide a separate update as these applicants continue to move through the process.
Texas AFT has been heavily involved in State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) rulemaking for the last year on Chapter 249, educator discipline; Chapter 235, teacher pedagogy standards; and Chapter 231, special education teacher assignment. The committee took no action (so, approval) on the first two of these SBEC rule packages. However, they recommended vetoing the Chapter 231 rules that contained the new “Texas Content Competency Worksheet for Special Education Teachers of Record.” This new worksheet represents a tremendous amount of work by stakeholders to improve how special education teachers may demonstrate content-area proficiency. The stated reason for the objection was the inclusion of the National Board Certification Test (NBCT) as one of several ways that a teacher can demonstrate proficiency. There was also a surprise whole-cloth substitution of the “Framework for Governance Leadership,” which is a guiding document for school board member training. This new document was heatedly discussed and was recommended to be approved by the full board.
In the Committee on Instruction, members heard an item that would renew the approval of innovative courses, including the American Indian/ Native Studies course. There seemed to be general support on the committee for the course, so it was shocking and disappointing that the committee chose to postpone these course renewals to June, supposedly to further review the instructional materials for the courses.
Also on Thursday was the first ad-hoc committee meeting for the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for social studies. Members heard public testimony on how the board should frame the next review of these TEKS and how those should be organized and presented to students. There are likely to be several of these meetings prior to the beginning of this TEKS revision.
At the general meeting Friday, the board chose to reverse course on a few items. Board members overturned the committee recommendation to reject the new “Texas Content Competency Worksheet for Special Education Teachers of Record.” Also, they postponed taking any action on the substitute “Framework for Governance Leadership” until the next meeting.