Coalition Update - January 19

Volume 27 | January 19, 2021

Coalition news & updates

Hello All,

I hope the three day weekend offered you some time of relaxation and especially reflection on the life, work, and service of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I have a couple of updates to share with you all this week:

Local Accountability System - Call for New District Participation
First Raise Your Hand Accountability Symposium
Governor Abbott's Taxpayer Bill of Rights

Be on the look out for a draft of a letter that will go out to our SBOE representatives early next week.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Julia

Local Accountability System

TEA recently released, via the "Performance Reporting" newsletter, a call for districts to signal their interest in implementing a Local Accountability System for the 2022-2023 school year.

As many of you are aware the Local Accountability System has largely lost support across the state as only two districts have been accepted into the program. TEA tried to restart efforts to grow the program in 2020 (new staff and additional support resources) and of course stopped once COVID halted all accountability for the school year.

If your district is interested in learning more about the program (and possibly sharing anything you learn with your policy consultant...aka me :)), you can fill out a letter of interest here or attend a webinar (schedule here).

Raise Your Hand Texas Texas -

Measure What Matters Assessment and Accountability Conference

Raise Your Hand Texas held a day-long conference yesterday on the organization's state-wide push to change the state's accountability system.

The packed agenda included a detailed history of accountability, panel of practitioners, elected officials, and former commissioners, as well as a captivating talk by John Tanner. As soon as I have the recording and the slides, I will share them with you all.

Here are two take aways that I thought you all would find captivating.

1- What the System Measures

Our current accountability system measures the economic background of students and not the contributions of the school, and this next legislative session will be an opportunity to change that. One quote from the presentation that drove this home: "How students are doing is different than how schools are contributing."

There are now decades of research on the strong correlation between standardized test scores and the economic background of the student AND the deleterious effects of being labeled or stigmatized a "failure" (be it the campus or student).

While many proponents of the current accountability system will say that it "motivates behavior," there is extensive evidence that it can do the opposite.

2 - What Texans Want

Texans do trust educators to evaluate students and want more indicators than one standardized test. With the current political climate, this take away may be a harder one to trust, but in poll after poll Texas residents support educators above the STAAR. Additionally, want more indicators, like access to the arts or student engagement, to be present in our accountability system

This is the first of several accountability redesign discussions happening across the state. I've tried to sign BCEC up for as many as I can in order for us stay engaged on the advocacy discussions happening in different education circles. I will, of course, report summaries after each event.

Governor Abbott's Taxpayer "Bill of Rights"

After weeks of teasing a taxpayer bill of rights and promising a plan to reform property taxes, Governor Abbott released his taxpayer bill of rights to little fanfare with conservative pundits commenting it did not go far enough.

While we are quite some time from the 88th Legislative session, should Abbott remain Governor we may see more significant efforts to compress property taxes again.

Save the Date - February 16th 8:30am

Greg Conde, Director of the Broadband Development Office (BDO), will join us for a zoom to discuss the work the BDO is doing across Texas and how it will effect Bexar County over the next few years.

If you have questions that you'd like to ask Greg, please email me and we will add them to the interview list!