The Texas Legislature has adjourned sine die for the 2019 session. Many of the bills that I was watching do what most bills do – die somewhere along the legislative pipeline. Please join me in a moment of silence for them. HB1182/SB686 – changed Personal Financial Literacy from an elective to a required course – died in the House Calendars Committee HB2983 – required testing only at benchmark (3, 5, and 8) grades – died in Senate Education Committee HB4242 – required STAAR to be on-grade level, among other things – died in the Senate Education Committee HB663 – initially required […]
Last Call! 86th Texas Legislature
Today is the last day for Senate bills to clear the House and for all bills to clear the Senate. Full confession: the House rules are clearer to me than the Senate, so it’s possible that the below analysis contains faulty assumptions. If that’s the case, please forgive and I’ll correct it as soon as I’m aware of it. Here’s a quick synopsis of the bills that were on my watch list. As has been the case for the last few weeks, HB3, the school finance bill, is still in conference committee, so any movement on that front could impact […]
Math Legislative Update – May 8
We’re getting into crunch time for the Texas Legislature, which adjourns in 19 days. So here’s a brief update on some of the education-related bills that I’m watching. The star of the show is HB3, the school finance bill. That one is going to effect all of us and there are many organizations watching that bill. So I’m going to focus on the mathematics curriculum and assessment related bills. Updates from April 25 blog: HB2983, which establishes testing math/reading/writing at benchmark grades (3, 5, and 8) instead of every grade has passed the House and has been referred to the […]
86th Texas Legislature – Math Updates
Update: April 25, 2019 As April comes to an end, we have several approaching mass extinctions of bills. There are approaching deadlines when bills die en masse, which is what the process is designed to do. May 6: Last day for House Bills to clear House Committees (any bill that doesn’t get voted out of committee dies) May 17: Last day for House Bills to pass full House (here’s where the filibuster gets fun since any house bill not passed by midnight dies) May 18: Last day for Senate Bills to clear House Committees (more dead bills if they don’t […]
86th Texas Legislature – Round 1
House Bill 663 Note: This essay represents my own thoughts and not necessarily those of my employer or any organization with which I am affiliated. On February 26, 2019, the Texas House Public Education Committee laid out and heard public testimony on HB663, which primarily would do two things: For all foundation curriculum subjects, direct the State Board of Education to revise the TEKS by reducing the number and scope of the TEKS and reducing the amount of time it would take for a teacher to teach all of the TEKS in that grade level to mastery. Limit any future […]
