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Legislative committees and special task forces kept Austin (and other cities throughout the state) humming with policy discussions this spring. These discussions preview the topics and specific recommendations that we are likely to see in 2009. The following are excerpted from updates that TCTA has sent members in recent weeks. If you are a member and are not receiving our e-mailed communications, please update or send us your home/personal e-mail address so we can get the latest news to you quickly and year-round.

House Public Education Committee
Teacher shortage / retention issues

YOU know why teachers leave the profession, but do legislators?
After April 21, a handful of key policymakers are considerably better-versed on the problems in the school system that influence teacher attrition and retention. The House Public Education Committee heard from several panels of speakers, including TCTA, about how changes in teacher preparation programs and the public school system could help resolve our state’s long-term teacher shortage.

TCTA presented research demonstrating that teacher experience is a key factor in student success, that appropriate certification matters, that working conditions are a major component of teacher discontent, and that the salary structure in many districts (emphasizing beginning salaries, then flattening out) can discourage teacher retention. TCTA made several policy recommendations, including suggestions for providing incentives for teachers in hard-to-staff schools, monitoring out-of-field assignments, addressing working conditions, and providing continuing salary growth for experienced teachers.

Legislators were very interested in testimony relating to campus leadership, and how principals in particular can affect teacher job satisfaction and effectiveness. Representatives of administrator groups spoke to the need for better preparation and training for principals, as well as changes in their working conditions, for example, eliminating excessive or unnecessary meetings to ensure that they are able to remain on campus serving as a leader for their students and teachers.

House Committees on Corrections and Juvenile Justice & Family Issues
Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs

The ability of teachers to remove disruptive students from the classroom is under review by two House legislative committees. The House Committee on Corrections and Committee on Juvenile Justice and Family Issues are jointly studying an interim charge relating to student referrals to disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs), juvenile justice alternative education programs (JJAEPs), in-school suspension (ISS), etc., and held a lengthy meeting on April 17 to hear from invited witnesses. There was no opportunity for public testimony, and no classroom teachers were included on the expert panels.

TCTA has been keeping a close eye on the work of the Appleseed Project – a nonprofit legal organization that recently released a report entitled “Texas’ School-to-Prison Pipeline, Dropout to Incarceration: The Impact of School Discipline and Zero Tolerance.” Among the policy recommendations from the report are proposals to place a cap on suspensions, as well as ISS and DAEP placements, and to notify districts that have disproportionate disciplinary referrals – either of which could have a direct chilling effect on teachers’ ability to remove disruptive students.

The focus of the hearing shifted to the quality of AEPs (with regard both to education and to behavior rehabilitation). Legislators are clearly concerned about whether students are receiving a quality education in AEPs, and TCTA will be reminding lawmakers throughout these discussions that programs must be adequately funded in order to ensure that this goal is achievable. There is considerable interest in refining the state data reporting systems to allow better monitoring of AEPs and to gauge the quality of the education provided in those programs.

TCTA is communicating with legislators to express our concerns about any attempt to limit teacher referrals and our support for additional resources for AEPs.

Select Committee on Public School Accountability
Conflicts in testing/rating system

The Select Committee on Public School Accountability also met in April and May, hearing from a number of educators, parents and business representatives. Many of the problems inherent in the current system and issues to be considered in any contemplation of a revised system were brought to light:

  • Bill Hammond, President of the Texas Association of Business, informed the committee that Texas education standards are far too low and we must increase rigor; this will require better learning earlier which will, in turn, decrease dropout rates. However, several committee members expressed concerns that increasing goals without attention to diverse needs will sharply increase dropout rates.
  • There were complaints that districts spend too much time, money and personnel on testing and accountability. However, a warmly received panel of school districts that had developed their own models of measuring growth at the local level made it clear that developing such models locally requires – of course – larger investments of time, money and personnel.
  • There were also calls from these same panelists that the state, when incorporating a growth measure into the accountability system, should let districts decide how to use it outside of measuring student growth for rating districts/schools. For example, several of the districts used growth or value-added measures for performance pay for teachers, others as a management tool.
  • Many educators and parents have testified to this committee regarding the high stakes nature of our testing system and the harmful impact this has had on students, teachers and classroom learning. High School Completion and Success Initiative Council member Jim Windham, though, opined that the real world is full of high stakes, and an accountability system without high stakes is no system at all.
  • Several witnesses noted that schools with otherwise high performance are not allowed to achieve recognized or exemplary status because of low performance by a very small subgroup or on one particular measure. Despite the desire for simplicity in the system, it is crucial for the ratings to reflect nuances in achievement, and some are advocating expanding the number of rating categories.
  • Many teachers and parents (and surely students!) have pushed for less frequent testing; one witness suggested testing math and reading every other year instead of annually. Such a proposal would not be allowed under current NCLB requirements for annual testing of several subjects in most grades. In addition, the growth models so clearly popular with policymakers would require annual testing – and true diagnostic use of tests provides an argument for testing even more often, at both the beginning and the end of the school year.
  • One school district representative reminded the committee that districts need to attract teachers who love to teach. However it is clear to even a casual observer that the emphasis on testing has made teaching a much less attractive profession.

NOTE: See related article on pages 9-11.

House Pensions and Investments Committee
TRS floating contribution rate

The House Pensions and Investments Committee is addressing an interim committee charge that could affect the way the Teacher Retirement System is funded, impacting not only your retirement benefits but also your take-home pay as an active employee.

Texas is in a minority of states whose employer contributions to the retirement system are a fixed percentage set in statute – currently that amount is 6.58% of payroll (active employees contribute 6.4%). Most states have a variable employer contribution rate that can change from year to year depending on the financial status of the retirement fund.

TCTA’s testimony to the committee emphasized the fact that TRS has remained relatively healthy under the current funding structure. Meanwhile, many of the states with floating rates allowed their contributions to plummet during the good times, and have since become sorely underfunded or have had to keep their funds healthy by increasing funding by as much as 50%. Many of these states are now looking at ways to revise their structure to provide more stability in funding rates – the most straightforward of which would be to set the rates in statute, as Texas already does.

Our comments also reflected the need to fund the system at a level that will allow for ongoing benefit increases for retirees. We noted that school employees would be skeptical of a floating rate system because of the state’s history of not keeping up its end of the bargain on retirement issues, pointing out the reductions in benefits for current members in the 2005 session, and the two decades of state contributions that were less than the rate specified in statute. We would be very concerned that a floating rate would tend to have the effect of lowering state contributions far more often than raising them. Also, since the pension fund’s downtimes can coincide with the state’s downtimes, it seems unlikely that significant increases to the fund would be adopted in years when the Legislature is grappling with a budget deficit.

TCTA will continue to represent your interests, and we encourage you to let us know your thoughts and ideas on the key issues under consideration.

Web Posted: 06/06/08