Tuesday, May 18, 1 PM. Full board meets to address:
Note: There will be public testimony taken on discussion and action items.
1. Discussion of pending litigation (executive session.) There is a charter school issue on the agenda. This is not the massive lawsuit many people are expecting from Texas school districts regarding lack of funding for constitutionally mandated equitable public education - that one will be against the State of Texas, and the Legislature will have to deal with it.
2. Consider rule change to graduation requirements. There will be a petition before the board to consider allowing seniors graduating in 2011 to substitute some career courses for the P.E. requirement. I'm not sure what this is about, but I don't know why we'd have P.E. requirements and then substitute something that has no physical activity requirements for full P.E. credit.
3. Proclamation 2012 of the State Board of Education Advertising for Bids on Instructional Materials. This is the SBOE action that sets the process in motion for bids for new science textbooks for grades K-12 that will be based on the new science TEKS adopted by the SBOE in 2009. This action was first considered by the SBOE in July 2009, then was put off until September 2009, then was put off again until March 2010, and was put off again for this Tuesday. My expectation is that it will be put off again, due to the State's massive budget shortfall. Worth noting it that the new SBOE board elected this November will be in charge of selecting the science instructional materials, not this current board that adopted the new science standards. Repeat after me, "elections matter."
4. Update on Commissioner's list of electronic textbooks. I'm very interested in this. In 2009, the State Legislature passed a law allowing school districts to use their textbook money to purchase electronic textbooks and the necessary hardware to go with them (instead of purchasing actual hard cover textbooks.) The Commissioner is required by this law to adopt these materials. The SBOE can discuss his choices, but can take no action. I'm a fan of students using electronic textbooks rather than hard cover books, because they can open up links to supporting videos, demonstrations (of experiments, for example) and original source documents (think historical diaries, court documents, etc. for social studies.)
Wednesday, May 19th. Committee of the Full Board, 9 AM:
1. Public hearing on revisions to the proposed social studies TEKS. This is the biggie and what all the protests and press conferences will be about. Here's what will happen on Wed. and Thursday - the religious right group on the Board has the numbers to do whatever they want, so no one should get their hopes up. The math on the numbers, plus the fact this is the last stand for a couple of them - Dunbar did not run for re-election, and McLeroy lost his Republican Primary - mean that they will run roughshod over Texas school children, and impose standards that are not going to be palatable for those of us who are intellectual and whose religious beliefs require that we put others before ourselves, particularly "the least of these" among us, as well as the throngs of people who are for quality public education (but who may or may not be voting in the SBOE elections.)
This will be a long day. I plan on arriving at the meeting in the early afternoon, where I will liveblog here at musings, or live tweet at @museblogger.
Thursday, May 20th. Committee of the full Board, 9 AM:
1. Discussion and training on parliamentary procedures. I guess this is to help them figure out how to deal with the wild day they are going to have, due to public and media attention? Watch for the far right to use parliamentary rules to quash any discussion they don't like.
2. Commissioner's comments on the SBOE agenda. This is Commissioner Robert Scott's opportunity to lay out his political agenda . . . I mean, set the tone, for today. His tone with the Mexican American Legislative Caucus hearing last month was, “One of the things, I think, that has been a problem in all of our deliberations regarding – whether it’s education or anything else – is that when you push out a particular group, and say we don’t care about you, when you push out, regardless of who that is, over time that creates a problem. And when the pendulum swings back, you know, there’s – whether you call it payback or a shifting in the alignment . . ." He's referring to the poor, underserved religious right who ran for the SBOE (and won) in order to make their agenda a mandate for Texas school children.
3. Second reading and final adoption of the social studies standards. There will be no more public testimony taken today, although when they adopted the science standards, the Chair allowed some public input from their hand picked religious right advisors. It's possible they will punt the final decision on the standards to the next meeting, if this goes on too long. Wednesday and Thursday are both going to be long days for the members. What will happen today - members will submit many amendments to the standards. McLeroy's amendment agenda has already been exposed - here, here, and here. Lisa Falkenberg, with the Houston Chronicle provides the best read on this, in my opinion. The far right members have been prepped with amendments from their fanatic advisors, and the public and media will follow along for the ride, trying to decode the code words for "push our craziness on school kids who can't vote, and whom we really don't care about." Again, worth noting - textbook selection for social studies will be made by the next SBOE board - the one elected in Nov. 2010.
4. Review potential changes to the long term asset allocation plan to the Permanent School Fund. Where there's money involved, there are these activities - power grabs, lining of your own pockets, corruption, cronyism - and the SBOE is no exception. Quick background on the Permanent School Fund can be found here and here.
You can watch the SBOE meetings live, on the internet at this link.
2. Consider rule change to graduation requirements. There will be a petition before the board to consider allowing seniors graduating in 2011 to substitute some career courses for the P.E. requirement. I'm not sure what this is about, but I don't know why we'd have P.E. requirements and then substitute something that has no physical activity requirements for full P.E. credit.
3. Proclamation 2012 of the State Board of Education Advertising for Bids on Instructional Materials. This is the SBOE action that sets the process in motion for bids for new science textbooks for grades K-12 that will be based on the new science TEKS adopted by the SBOE in 2009. This action was first considered by the SBOE in July 2009, then was put off until September 2009, then was put off again until March 2010, and was put off again for this Tuesday. My expectation is that it will be put off again, due to the State's massive budget shortfall. Worth noting it that the new SBOE board elected this November will be in charge of selecting the science instructional materials, not this current board that adopted the new science standards. Repeat after me, "elections matter."
4. Update on Commissioner's list of electronic textbooks. I'm very interested in this. In 2009, the State Legislature passed a law allowing school districts to use their textbook money to purchase electronic textbooks and the necessary hardware to go with them (instead of purchasing actual hard cover textbooks.) The Commissioner is required by this law to adopt these materials. The SBOE can discuss his choices, but can take no action. I'm a fan of students using electronic textbooks rather than hard cover books, because they can open up links to supporting videos, demonstrations (of experiments, for example) and original source documents (think historical diaries, court documents, etc. for social studies.)
Wednesday, May 19th. Committee of the Full Board, 9 AM:
1. Public hearing on revisions to the proposed social studies TEKS. This is the biggie and what all the protests and press conferences will be about. Here's what will happen on Wed. and Thursday - the religious right group on the Board has the numbers to do whatever they want, so no one should get their hopes up. The math on the numbers, plus the fact this is the last stand for a couple of them - Dunbar did not run for re-election, and McLeroy lost his Republican Primary - mean that they will run roughshod over Texas school children, and impose standards that are not going to be palatable for those of us who are intellectual and whose religious beliefs require that we put others before ourselves, particularly "the least of these" among us, as well as the throngs of people who are for quality public education (but who may or may not be voting in the SBOE elections.)
This will be a long day. I plan on arriving at the meeting in the early afternoon, where I will liveblog here at musings, or live tweet at @museblogger.
Thursday, May 20th. Committee of the full Board, 9 AM:
1. Discussion and training on parliamentary procedures. I guess this is to help them figure out how to deal with the wild day they are going to have, due to public and media attention? Watch for the far right to use parliamentary rules to quash any discussion they don't like.
2. Commissioner's comments on the SBOE agenda. This is Commissioner Robert Scott's opportunity to lay out his political agenda . . . I mean, set the tone, for today. His tone with the Mexican American Legislative Caucus hearing last month was, “One of the things, I think, that has been a problem in all of our deliberations regarding – whether it’s education or anything else – is that when you push out a particular group, and say we don’t care about you, when you push out, regardless of who that is, over time that creates a problem. And when the pendulum swings back, you know, there’s – whether you call it payback or a shifting in the alignment . . ." He's referring to the poor, underserved religious right who ran for the SBOE (and won) in order to make their agenda a mandate for Texas school children.
3. Second reading and final adoption of the social studies standards. There will be no more public testimony taken today, although when they adopted the science standards, the Chair allowed some public input from their hand picked religious right advisors. It's possible they will punt the final decision on the standards to the next meeting, if this goes on too long. Wednesday and Thursday are both going to be long days for the members. What will happen today - members will submit many amendments to the standards. McLeroy's amendment agenda has already been exposed - here, here, and here. Lisa Falkenberg, with the Houston Chronicle provides the best read on this, in my opinion. The far right members have been prepped with amendments from their fanatic advisors, and the public and media will follow along for the ride, trying to decode the code words for "push our craziness on school kids who can't vote, and whom we really don't care about." Again, worth noting - textbook selection for social studies will be made by the next SBOE board - the one elected in Nov. 2010.
4. Review potential changes to the long term asset allocation plan to the Permanent School Fund. Where there's money involved, there are these activities - power grabs, lining of your own pockets, corruption, cronyism - and the SBOE is no exception. Quick background on the Permanent School Fund can be found here and here.
You can watch the SBOE meetings live, on the internet at this link.
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