Enrolled Bill Summary

            House Bill 1144 amends the Education Code to implement initiatives relating to mathematics instruction and to make various changes in the public school accountability system. The bill includes the following provisions:

            Coordinated Recordkeeping: The bill requires the commissioner of education and the commissioner of higher education to ensure that their respective agencies' student records are coordinated and maintained in standardized, compatible formats that allow interagency exchanges of information and student record matching so that individual students' academic performance may be assessed throughout their educational careers.

            Recommended High School Program: The bill requires school districts, beginning with the freshman class of 2004-2005, to ensure that each student enrolls in the courses needed to complete at least the recommended high school graduation program, unless the student, a parent, and a school counselor or administrator agree that the student should graduate under the minimum program.

            Student Testing: The bill allows the commissioner of education to participate in multistate efforts to develop voluntary standardized end-of-course tests, and it requires the commissioner to develop an end-of-course test for Algebra I. The bill requires the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to develop appropriate assessment instruments for students who have dyslexia or a related disorder to be administered on the same schedule as the statewide test given other students, and it requires those instruments to be field tested before the 2005-2006 school year and administered during that school year.

            Performance Indicators, Reporting: The bill adds high school dropout rates and high school completion rates as a performance measure in the Academic Excellence Indicator System; requires TEA to include a statement of the high school completion rates in its comprehensive report to the governor and legislature; requires each district to include information on the first-year college performance of students who graduated from each of the district's high schools in its annual performance report; and requires each district at its expense to have its dropout records audited annually by an independent licensed accountant who has successfully completed TEA-provided training, beginning with the dropout records for the 2001-2002 school year.

            School District Accreditation/Sanctions: The bill requires the commissioner to create a gold performance rating program for exemplary, recognized, and academically acceptable schools and districts that meet certain student performance criteria, and it allows the commissioner to appoint a board of managers, the majority of whom must be district residents, to govern a low-performing district if the district has had a master or management team for one year or longer.

            Math Initiatives, Certification, and Training Programs: The bill requires the commissioner, from funds available for such purposes, to (1) award grants to institutions that have a proven ability to conduct science-based research on effective mathematics instruction strategies and (2) establish services that aid teachers in providing and grading mathematics homework assignments. The bill requires the State Board for Educator Certification to establish, by January 1, 2003, a master mathematics teacher certificate for elementary, middle, and high school teachers, and it requires the commissioner to establish a grant program to provide stipends of up to $5,000 to selected master mathematics certified teachers at high-need campuses, beginning with the 2003-2004 school year. The bill requires the commissioner to develop teacher training materials and resources for mathematics teachers and to develop professional development institutes for teachers of mathematics in fifth through eighth grade, and it allows the commissioner to pay a teacher completing the course a stipend. The bill requires the commissioner to make available to districts assessment instruments for diagnosing students' mathematics skills, and it allows districts in accordance with commissioner rules to provide intensive after-school or summer school mathematics programs to students not succeeding in mathematics courses or performing at grade level in mathematics.