Senate school agenda vexes teacher groups

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, left, and Senate Education Committee Chairman Larry Taylor,﻿ present bill ideas﻿﻿﻿ including a plan to issue A-F grades for individual public schools﻿ and to expand﻿ online learning. ﻿ less Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, left, and Senate Education Committee Chairman Larry Taylor,﻿ present bill ideas﻿﻿﻿ including a plan to issue A-F grades for individual public schools﻿ and to expand﻿ online ... more Photo: Eric Gay, STF Photo: Eric Gay, STF Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Senate school agenda vexes teacher groups 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

AUSTIN - Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick unveiled key portions of the upper chamber's education agenda on Tuesday, reviving proposals long unpopular with teacher groups that Patrick said would empower parents and help students leave poor-performing schools.

"We'll be talking about school choice and pre-K at a later date," Patrick said at a morning press conference in the Capitol, flanked by members of the Senate Committee on Education. "But reforming education is more than a single shot. It is a comprehensive plan that takes in every area of the state, takes in every student, every parent and every teacher."

Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, chosen by Patrick to replace him as education chair this session, said the upper chamber wants to "unshackle" innovative, successful schools while holding those that are underperforming accountable.

Of the six bills highlighted Tuesday, Taylor will carry the three likely to encounter the most vehement opposition. Each has received Gov. Greg Abbott's stamp of approval.

Senate Bill 6, filed Tuesday, would require every school in the state to be assigned an A-F letter grade. Under current law, school districts and campuses are rated simply as "met standard" or "improvement required." Taylor also is sponsoring Senate Bill 14, the so-called "parent trigger" bill, which would reduce from five years to two the amount of time parents would have to wait before they may petition to close or convert a failing school to a charter school.

Finally, Taylor's Senate Bill 895 would create a new statewide school district into which underperforming schools would be shifted. The new entity, called the "Opportunity School District," would focus on turning around the failing campuses. Similar districts are in place in Tennessee and Louisiana.

The Texas proposal also includes provisions to shift these campuses back to their original school districts if performance measures are met or certain time limits are surpassed. Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, has filed a similar bill, and staff said the two would work together on the two proposals.

"It is not really a choice we have, it's something that we have to do," Taylor said of the education measures. "Education is not a partisan issue. Education affects all Texans - Republican, Democrat, Independent, whatever. And frankly, our students demand more than partisan bickering over education."

A mirrored agenda

But within minutes, prominent educator groups were pushing back.

Monty Exter, lobbyist for the Association for Texas Professional Educators, noted some of the bills discussed Tuesday mirrored the agenda of Texans for Education Reform, an Austin-based education advocacy group at odds with teacher groups like his.

"That brand of reform is all about privatization to one degree or another," said Exter, who said parent triggers, opportunity school districts and A-F grading have encouraged the proliferation of privately run, publicly funded charter schools in other states. "Part of the narrative of the privatization movement is 'our traditional schools are failing,' when they are not, by and large."

Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, agreed: "The Taylor-Patrick agenda fails to meet the needs of 5 million public school students whose schools have been inadequately funded by the very legislators who are eager to declare schools a failure based on standardized test scores. Educators want legislators to demonstrate a genuine commitment to strengthening neighborhood public schools instead of handing them over to outsiders who have no direct stake in our students' success."

Taylor touted other legislation that teacher groups find more palatable. Senate Bills 13 and 894, sponsored by Lubbock Republican Charles Perry and Taylor, respectively, would offer career and college readiness courses to seventh- and eighth-grade students and would expand access to online courses. Senate Bill 893, would develop a new way to determine teacher quality that discourage relying on student assessment information. Its sponsor, Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, said the new evaluation framework created by his bill would ensure classroom observation held the greatest weight in decisions about teacher pay, promotion and professional development opportunities.

School choice

Patrick has long supported giving parents more control over how and where their children are educated. As a senator, he sponsored legislation that expanded charter schools and promoted a failed attempt to give businesses tax credits to create "scholarships" to send public school students to the school of their choice. The tax credit bill and other so-called "neo-voucher" proposals are expected to be a focus later in the session.

"School choice will have a very low bill number," Patrick said Tuesday. "This is just part of a big package. There's so much to do."