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House Bill 2893 |
House Author: Hochberg |
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Effective: 9-1-09 |
Senate Sponsor: Shapleigh |
House Bill 2893 amends the Education Code to redesignate the technology immersion pilot project as the technology demonstration sites project and to remove references in law to the project's provisional status as a pilot project. The bill requires the Texas Education Agency (TEA) by rule to establish the project to demonstrate the use of technology for improving teaching and learning; to use digital tools and resources to extend learning opportunities from school to home; and to exemplify instructional practices and lessons that support academic learning in the classroom and at home. The bill requires the project to use existing home electronic devices or provide access through electronic device check-out options to allow students at school and at home to use software, online courses, and other appropriate learning technologies that have been shown to improve academic achievement and certain progress measures.
The bill requires TEA to define the conditions for the distribution and use of electronic devices not currently available to all students, develop guidelines for a distribution and check-out plan for home use of electronic devices, and review the progress made through each demonstration site included in the project. The bill removes requirements for TEA to purchase and distribute computer equipment and other technologies, to enter into contracts as necessary to implement the pilot project, and to conduct a final evaluation of the pilot project, and it transfers responsibility for the use of project funds from TEA to the participating school districts and schools.
The bill requires TEA to select participating districts and schools for the project based on each district's or school's need and technology readiness for the project, removes the selection criteria that TEA was required to consider when selecting participants for the precursor pilot project, and requires TEA to select at least five districts, rather than schools, to participate in the project. The bill authorizes TEA to include the review of the project, after its expiration, in the required comprehensive annual report covering the 2012-2013 school year, replacing a similar provision previously applicable to the precursor pilot project. The bill extends the statute's expiration from August 31, 2011, to August 31, 2013.
The bill requires the commissioner to establish a computer lending pilot program to provide computers to participating public schools that make computers available for use by students and their parents and to establish procedures for the program's administration, including procedures for distributing to participating public schools any surplus or salvage data processing equipment available for distribution under the pilot program or computers donated or purchased for that purpose with funds from any available source. The bill makes a public school eligible to participate in the pilot program if 50 percent or more of the students at the school are educationally disadvantaged and the school operates or agrees to operate a computer lending program that allows students and parents to borrow a computer; includes an option for students and parents to work toward owning a computer initially borrowed under the program, subject to any applicable legal restrictions regarding the computer's disposition; provides computer training for students and parents; and operates outside regular school hours, including operation until at least 7 p.m. on at least three days each week. The bill requires the commissioner to submit a report to the legislature regarding the computer lending pilot program not later than January 1 of each year.
House Bill 2893 amends the Government Code to require a state agency, state eleemosynary institution, or institution or agency of higher education, if a transfer or disposition of the agency's or institution's surplus or salvage data processing equipment is not made under state law governing the direct transfer or disposition of such equipment to another state agency, political subdivision, or assistance organization, to make the equipment available to the commissioner for use in the computer lending pilot program or, if the commissioner declines to take the equipment, to transfer the equipment free of charge to a school district or open‑enrollment charter school, to an assistance organization specified by the school district, or to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. All of the bill's provisions relating to the computer lending pilot program expire September 1, 2014.