BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 1410

By: Duncan

Public Education

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Tech-prep programs combine high school career and technical education with a minimum of two years of postsecondary education. Tech-prep consortia, which are regional collaborations of school districts, institutions of higher education, businesses, labor organizations, and other participants, develop articulation agreements that allow high school students to earn college credit for the advanced career and technology courses they take. S.B. 1410 seeks to amend current law as it relates to reporting student enrollment in tech-prep programs and evaluating tech-prep consortia.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that rulemaking authority is expressly granted to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in SECTION 2 of this bill.

ANALYSIS

S.B. 1410 amends the Education Code to require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to establish procedures for each school district and open-enrollment charter school to accurately identify students who are enrolled in a tech-prep program and to report the accurate number of tech-prep program students to the TEA and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

S.B. 1410, in the provision of law requiring the coordinating board to develop and implement a statewide system to evaluate each tech-prep consortium, removes language requiring the coordinating board to coordinate with tech-prep consortia, including the governing board of each tech-prep consortium, in developing and implementing the system and removes the requirement that the system be based on the success of the consortium's tech-prep program and other appropriate criteria.  The bill removes the requirement that the evaluation system include standards that a tech-prep consortium is expected to meet in administering the consortium's duties with regards to tech-prep education. The bill requires an evaluation to include an assessment of the consortium's performance during the past year in comparison to the goals and objectives stated in the five-year plan contained in the consortium's grant application to the coordinating board; an identification of any concerns the coordinating board has regarding the consortium's performance; and recommendations for improvement by the consortium in the next year. The bill requires the coordinating board to evaluate each consortium annually, rather than biennially, and requires the annual evaluation to be conducted on-site at least once every four years or more frequently as provided by coordinating board rule.

S.B. 1410 changes from October 1 of each even-numbered year to November 1 of each year the deadline by which the coordinating board is required to report to each tech-prep consortium the results of the evaluation and specifies that required report includes a written report with such results of the evaluation. The bill includes among the requirements of such a report that it contain the findings, concerns, and recommendations resulting from the evaluation of each consortium and that it communicate to the consortium the results of the coordinating board's evaluation, specifically including the elements required in the evaluation. The bill removes from the requirements of the report that it discuss any failure of the tech-prep consortium to meet an established standard during the reporting period and that it recognize the achievements of the consortium.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2011.