CSHB 400 was voted out of committee tonight on a 6-4 straight party line vote (Representative Allen was absent due to the death or her husband last week.)

CSHB 400 not only launches a full scale assault on teacher rights and benefits, but it also will do permanent, long term damage to public education in Texas.

The bill:

Ø Permanently eliminates the 22-1 class size cap in K-4 and replaces it with a district wide average of 22-1 in K-4 with a class size cap of 25-1. It allows districts to get waivers from those limits.

Ø Permanently eliminates the requirement that districts cannot pay teachers less next year than they made this year. It eliminates the state minimum salary schedule and requires districts to adopt a new compensation system. Some of the factors that can be considered in developing this new plan are: demonstrated effectiveness in improving student achievement; evaluations; teaching in shortage areas; and job-related duties as determined by the district.

Ø Permanently changes the date for notice of non-renewal to the last day of instruction. It allows the district to notify a teacher by mail and considers the date the letter was mailed to be the starting date for notification for purposes of requesting a hearing.

Ø Permanently eliminates the use of a neutral hearing officer for mid-year terminations and replaces that with a hearing before the board.

Ø Permanently allows the board to furlough teachers for as many as seven non instructional days a year and reduce salaries accordingly.

Ø Permanently deletes seniority as one of the factors used in determining who is terminated if a RIF is implemented.

Ø Permanently allows a district to declare financial exigency at any time for any reason for purposes of doing a RIF and allows a district to end a financial exigency any time it decides to do so.

Taken as a package, the bill creates permanent salary reductions to address what should be a short term fiscal crisis. It also makes permanent increases in K-4 class sizes in spite of research that argues against doing this. TSTA believes that any changes in salary provisions must be short term and must be limited. We believe that the current class size wavier provision is sufficient to get school districts past this short term crisis. This bill allows and, in fact, encourages districts to put the entire burden of the current shortfall on teachers to the long-term detriment of the quality of our public schools.

Senate Education approves revised charter bill

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday approved a committee substitute for Senate Bill 127, a charter expansion bill by Sen. Dan Patrick. TSTA opposed the original version of the bill, but the committee substitute makes the potential expansion of charters more restrictive.

The substitute does not lift the existing cap on open-enrollment charters until the 2012-2013 school year and, beginning that same year, will cap special education charters at two per year. The bill will allow the State Board of Education to grant as many as 10 new charters for an open-enrollment charter school each fiscal year. But for a charter to be allowed to expand, all of its existing campuses must be rated acceptable or higher. Under the original bill, only 90 percent of the campuses had to be so rated. Also, the committee substitute provides that open-enrollment charter schools granted a charter after Sept. 1, 2011, may not admit a student unless the student is seeking admission to first grade or lower or was enrolled in a public school in Texas during the preceding school year.

The revised bill was passed to the full Senate on a 5-2 vote, with Sens. Gallegos and West voting “no,” and Sens. Shapiro, Patrick, Davis, Carona, and Ogden voting “yes.”

On March 22, TSTA offered testimony against SB127 because of concern over inadequate state review and oversight of charter expansion, particularly during a tight budgetary period. TSTA also believes it would be irresponsible to expand charters while budget-strapped school districts are considering closing down some traditional public schools and laying off tens of thousands of public school employees. TSTA called, instead, for an exhaustive interim study on charter schools, how they are operating, what could be made better and what might be a new, appropriate cap for charters.

The Senate Education Committee also considered the following bills on Tuesday:

Ø Senate Bill 291 by Sen. Watson, requiring the State Board of Education to adopt essential knowledge and skills that address the dangers, causes, consequences, signs, symptoms, and treatment of binge drinking and alcohol poisoning. The agency must compile a list of evidence-based alcohol awareness programs that school districts can use in middle school, junior high and high school science curricula. Senate Bill 291 was passed to the full Senate and certified for the Local & Uncontested Calendar.

Ø Senate Bill 346 by Sen. Gallegos, requiring DAEP programs to provide structured courses equivalent to those provided in the regular classroom setting. DAEP programs also would be required to provide students an opportunity to achieve promotion to the next grade level or to graduate from high school on the same schedule as students in the regular classroom setting. Senate Bill 346 was left pending.

Ø Senate Bill 746 by Sen. Davis, requiring that at least one member of the Continuing Advisory Committee for a district be a director of special education. Senate Bill 746 was passed to the full Senate and certified for the Local & Uncontested Calendar.

Ø Senate Bill 975 by Sen. Hinojosa, allowing certain public junior colleges to partner with local school districts in dropout recovery programs. A junior college district would receive funding for each student enrolled in the program, but the students would count toward their local school districts’ average daily attendance. Senate Bill 975 was left pending.

Ø Senate Bill 1349 by Sen. Van de Putte, requiring that a person hold a license issued by the appropriate state agency in order to be employed as a marriage and family therapist by a school district. Senate Bill 1349 was passed to the full Senate and certified for the Local & Uncontested Calendar.

Ø Senate Bill 1788 by Sen. Patrick, requiring TEA to develop a model form for use in developing an individualized education program. A committee substitute was adopted that made the use of the form permissive. Senate Bill 1788 was passed to the full Senate and certified for the Local & Uncontested Calendar

Senate passes charter school bonds bill
The full Senate on Tuesday passed and sent to the House the committee substitute for Senate Bill 597 by Sen. Shapiro, allowing the state education commissioner to grant the applications of open-enrollment charter schools for state bonds guaranteed by the Permanent School Fund. The bonds would be used to help charters finance new facilities. TSTA opposes this bill.

The Senate also passed the committee substitute for Senate Bill 27 by Sen. Zaffirini, requiring the boards of school districts and charter schools to adopt and administer policies for the care of students at risk for anaphylaxis. The policies would be based on guidelines developed by the commissioner of state health services in consultation with an ad hoc committee appointed by the commissioner of state health services.