BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 274 |
By: Alvarado |
Public Education |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Current law limits class sizes in kindergarten through the fourth grade to 22 students, but allows a school district to apply for an exemption waiver for undue hardship. Interested parties note that recent cuts in education funding compelled several school districts to take advantage of these waivers, but that because these waivers have no reporting requirements, the legislature and relevant state agencies have no data regarding the current sizes of classes in exempted schools. C.S.H.B. 274 seeks to address this problem by adding and expanding reporting requirements related to school districts that obtain class-size limitation waivers, with the intention of shedding light on the condition of students in schools exempted from class-size limits.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 274 amends the Education Code to require a school district granted an exception from the class size limitation for a school campus on the basis of a finding by the commissioner of education of an undue hardship to report to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) the number of students in the largest class for each affected grade level at that campus and to include this information in the required content of TEA's regional and district level report. The bill's provisions apply beginning with the 2013-2014 school year.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2013.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 274 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and highlighted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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