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House Bill 2824 |
House Author: Ratliff et al. |
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Effective: Vetoed |
Senate Sponsor: Paxton et al. |
House Bill 2824 amends the Education Code to clarify that participants in the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium are school district campuses and open-enrollment charter schools selected for participation and districts with one or more participant campuses and to authorize a participant district, with approval of the commissioner of education, to add one or more district campuses to the consortium. The bill authorizes the commissioner to charge a fee to a participating school district or charter school for use of state-provided assessment items or other costs associated with evaluating participant campuses and to collect and use that fee for purposes of administering the consortium.
House Bill 2824 transfers performance reporting requirements regarding the consortium from the commissioner to the participant districts and open-enrollment charter schools, adds the State Board of Education to the recipients of those reports, requires an additional report due not later than December 1, 2016, and sets out content requirements for the reports due in 2014 and 2016. The bill requires the school board or governing body of each participant district or charter school, at least annually, to hold a public hearing to discuss its goals and work in the consortium and to provide for parental and community input; sets out a schedule, criteria, and conditions for evaluating participant campuses for accountability purposes; and requires the consortium to receive independent evaluation from one or more external evaluation teams.
House Bill 2824 expands a district option regarding the provision of a flexible school day program for certain students to authorize a district to apply for commissioner approval to provide such a program for students attending a campus in the high performance schools consortium. The bill authorizes a school district or charter school participating in the consortium by policy to allow a student at a participant campus who demonstrates satisfactory high school level performance in a required subject to be exempt from having to take or retake an end-of-course test in that subject and specifies the manner in which satisfactory high school level performance may be demonstrated and in which the demonstration may be used.
Reason Given for Veto: "Education is changing, and Texas must remain at the forefront of innovation as the digital age evolves. That is why I signed legislation during the 82nd regular session to create the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium. The 23 participating districts are responsible for informing policymakers about methods to improve student learning through digital learning strategies and improved standards and assessments, while relying more on local control of the educational process.
"House Bill 2824 would exempt consortium districts, which have shown a range of performance levels on the most recent STAAR assessments, from the Texas accountability system and many of the assessments required of other public schools throughout the state. Flexibility and innovation are important, but we will not compromise academic rigor or student outcomes.
"The Texas Commissioner of Education, guided by input from stakeholders and changes in statute by House Bill 5, is developing a new accountability system that will allow districts to innovate without sacrificing important accountability."