Senate Education Committee moves House A-F fix plan

The Senate Education Committee heard a slew of House bills this week, with Chairman Huberty’s (R-Humble) HB 22, his plan to address the problems with the underpinnings of A-F, rising to the top of ATPE’s radar. While ATPE does not support the system to label schools A through F, we recognize that changing the labeling system is not on the table at this time. What could happen, however, are efforts to change some of the underpinnings of the accountability system, and ATPE supports that process as we work to reduce our state’s overreliance on standardized tests. As the bill was heard in committee on Thursday, Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor substituted his own A-F bill, SB 2051 into HB 22. Find out more about the hearing and ATPE’s position on the bill here. The bill now heads to the Senate floor. The full lists of the House bills advanced to the Senate floor this week can be found here and here.

Senate expected to send school finance bill back to House with voucher added

The Senate version of HB 21 is now eligible for debate on the Senate floor. Last week the Senate Education Committee heard the school finance bill, but added a special education voucher before passing it out of committee (A refresher on that here.). Another bill eligible to be heard on the Senate floor today is the bill to address TRS-Care, HB 3976 by Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin). A comprehensive update on that bill can be found here. Follow your ATPE lobby team on twitter for live updates as these bill are debated on the floor of the Senate and check back for Teach the Vote updates.To watch the floor debate on these bills and more, visit the live or archived Senate feeds.

Educator misconduct bill, other bills sent to Governor Abbott

The Senate sent SB 7, the educator misconduct bill, to Governor Abbott this week. SB 7 originated in the Senate as a measure filed by Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston). The upper chamber advanced its final version of the bill in early March and sent the legislation to the House. The House passed the measure last week with several amendments added and sent it back to the Senate, which chose to agree to the House amendments rather than take the bill to conference committee and address any differences between the two bodies. Gov. Abbott is expected to sign the legislation into law. The House also passed SB 826, a bill that loosens sequencing requirements for English and mathematics courses in high school. The bill saw changes in the House, and the Senate will likely decide to accept or deny those changes today prior to sending the bill to the Governor. Another bill that is likely to be sent to the governor this week without changes to bill text is SB 489 by Sen. Eddie Lucio III (D-Brownsville). The ATPE-supported bill adds “e-cigarettes” to the recommended student instruction on preventing tobacco use. The Senate chose not to concur to the House amendments to SB 179, the bill aimed at curbing bullying and cyber-bullying authored by Senator Menendez (D-San Antonio). The ATPE-supported bill will now go to conference committee where the two chambers will have the opportunity to work out their differences on the bill and develop a measure on which both chambers can agree.

Full Senate advances last-chance Senate bills

A significantly watered down version of SB 610, which originally expanded the virtual school network eligibility to students in kindergarten through 2^nd grade (currently, state-sponsored virtual schooling is only available to students in grades 3 through 12), passed the Senate this week. ATPE opposed the legislation based on a number of concerns, including the pedagogical inappropriateness of full-time virtual education for our state’s youngest students and the research calling into question the success of full-time virtual education for a student of any age. In a last ditch effort to move the bill, Senator Huffines changed significantly changed the bill. It passed as a study of such an expansion, and ATPE expects it will support the vast majority of previous studies that seriously question the effectiveness of full-time virtual education. The chamber also advanced a bill pertaining to educator preparation that ATPE opposes. SB 1963 by Sen. Creighton (R-Conroe) would prohibit the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) from requiring educator preparation programs that train principals, counselors, and librarians (among other non-classroom teacher certification fields) to observe each candidate through at least one face-to-face visit. ATPE supports observations and support for educator preparation candidates that involve immediate feedback and support in real situations. While electronic tools might be great options for supplementing support of candidates, we remain concerned about efforts to roll back standards by SBEC that require at least one face-to-face observation for these candidates.