SB 8 gets worse on House floor, passes

The House passed SB 8 Thursday, sending the bill back to the Senate, which will either concur with House amendments or send the bill to a conference committee (the latter is likely, though not certain). TCTA opposed SB 8 as it came out of the House Public Education Committee, given its provisions regarding furloughs/salary reductions and significant harmful changes to teacher legal protections.

Some of the floor amendments added during Thursday's debate made a bad bill worse:

• One amendment further reduced teacher legal protections by giving school boards much more authority over a hearing examiner's findings in appeals regarding a suspension without pay or a contract termination.
• Another amended the provision changing the contract nonrenewal notice deadline to the last day of spring testing (which carried its own set of problems) to 10 days prior to the last day of instruction, giving teachers even less notice. Current law provides that the notice must be given no later than the 45th day before the last day of instruction.
• The provision that would remove the protection of seniority for teachers in continuing contract districts implementing a reduction in force was also amended. The new language requires that such a reduction in force must be based primarily on teacher appraisals. (Note that these provisions apply only to teachers on continuing contracts, which are offered in only a handful of districts; most Texas teachers are under a term contract.) During the discussion on this amendment, Rep. Leo Berman of Tyler stepped to the back microphone and said that this amendment introduced a novel concept: "You can finally fire a bad teacher!" His comment was met with applause from some House members.

SB 8 passed on an initial vote of 74-59. The House suspended the rules to also take the final vote (this is usually done on a separate day) and the final vote was 81-55. Click here for the record vote on final passage of SB 8.