The State Board of Education (SBOE) Committee on Instruction heard testimony Thursday morning, June 27, regarding high quality instructional materials (HQIM) up for adoption under the new instructional materials review and adoption (IMRA) process established under last year’s House Bill (HB) 1605. 

Several community members raised concerns about the materials under consideration, specifically materials developed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which school districts are financially incentivized to adopt.  

The agency’s materials have been the subject of various criticisms, including an opaque development process, concerns about TEA’s ability to change the materials without appropriate input, and the addition of Christian parables and religious references. 

A member of the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) singled out the Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath for criticism and called the instructional materials “the wrong approach to Christian education.” Other public testimony touched on similar themes, as well as concerns about the use of technology and devices in the classroom. 

The committee’s agenda was limited to discussion, and SBOE members took no action on the proposed instructional materials at Thursday’s meeting. Members are expected to vote on a list of approved materials at the next SBOE meeting in September. 

Separately, the SBOE Committee on School Initiatives heard an update from TEA staff on rulemaking activity at the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), over which the SBOE has veto authority.  

The updates were added as a regular agenda item in part to keep track of SBEC’s activity with regard to edTPA, a teacher portfolio assessment developed by Stanford University in California. SBEC and TEA staff have spent years pursuing the national edTPA as a replacement for our state’s pedagogy and professional responsibilities (PPR) certification exam. 

The Texas Coalition for Educator Preparation (TCEP), of which ATPE is a member, has opposed replacing the PPR with edTPA because of the high degree of stress it places on first-year teachers and edTPA’s track record of negatively impacting the teacher pipeline in states that adopted it as a certification exam.  

TEA had already executed a contract with national testing vendor Pearson to administer edTPA in Texas before the first SBEC rule proposal to adopt the new assessment came before the SBOE for review.  

Listening to TCEP feedback, the SBOE vetoed that rule to replace the PPR with edTPA. In doing so, the SBOE directed SBEC and TEA staff to develop a Texas-based alternative or “TxTPA” and explore incorporating a portfolio assessment into educator preparation program (EPP) curriculum requirements rather than as a certification exam. 

Members of the School Initiatives Committee chastised TEA staff earlier this year for canceling the TxTPA bid process despite receiving a viable application from Sam Houston State University, which has been developing a Texas-based portfolio assessment. 

TEA staff announced Thursday morning that SBEC had directed the agency to move forward with a plan to allow Pearson to create the TxTPA with input from stakeholders. This announcement surprised members of TCEP who recalled no such directive being made by SBEC at its last meeting. 

Any rule action SBEC takes to advance edTPA must ultimately be approved by the SBOE.