This week, we get an update on broadband, online assessment, and more happening at the Texas Legislature, courtesy of TCEA’s own Director of Governmental Relations, Jennifer Bergland.
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All good things must come to an end, but only someone who loves politics would consider the legislative process a good thing. I’m one of those people. I love every minute of it, even the ones that go past midnight! Looking back over the past four months, I am happy to report that TCEA was able to move our vision of education forward through legislation and have some promising opportunities to help shape the future of Texas schools. I have created a 2019 Bill Analysis document that include the specifics about the bills that will impact digital education, but below is a quick summary of the more important bills.
We had some huge wins in the area of computer science and computational thinking this session. Our six-year goal of providing weighted funding for the 9-12 Technology Application courses has finally been achieved. In HB 3, the school finance legislation, the weighted funding for CTE was changed from grades nine through twelve to grades seven through twelve. In addition, the bill specified that CTE courses and programs include Technology Application courses. This means that Technology Application courses from grades seven through twelve will receive the same weighted funding as CTE courses, which is 1.35 (instead of the normal 1). HB 963 requires the SBOE to consolidate the 9-12 Technology Application courses with similar courses found in the CTE curriculum. The goal is to eliminate duplicates and identify the purpose of each of the courses. Finally, HB 2984 requires the SBOE to update the K-8 Technology Application standards to ensure that they include coding, computer programming, computational thinking, and cybersecurity. It also establishes a committee to create a strategic plan for K-12 CS education to increase computer science instruction and participation in public schools.
There are two pieces of legislation that are going to impact educational broadband. The first is HB 1960 which creates a Governor’s Broadband Council that will advise the governor on issues related to broadband access to unserved areas. This is progress, but not as much as we hoped for. There are few, if any, areas of Texas that are unserved. The original bill included underserved areas, but heavy lobbying by the large telecommunication companies eliminated that language from the bill. However, we consider this progress because we finally have some entity at the state level that will look at the state’s needs for broadband from a strategic perspective. For too long, all state entities have tried to provide affordable, scalable broadband for their own purposes when it would be much more cost efficient to survey the needs across agencies and entities and design a plan to meet all the needs. HB 1960 at least establishes a council that could do this in the future, if given the authority.
The second bill that may help with broadband is HB 3906. This is an assessment bill that requires online testing by 2022-2023. The bill requires TEA to evaluate the availability of Internet access for each school district and identify changes to state law or policy that are necessary to improve the availability of Internet access. This may open a door for more aggressive action in parts of the state that are “served” but are underserved.
HB 3 established a Blended Learning Grant program and then funded it at $6 million a year. TEA’s Math Innovation Zones are how the agency is fulfilling this requirement. It is good to know that the agency has funding to continue these types of grants.
I have already mentioned that HB 3906 requires TEA and the SBOE to implement online testing by 2022-2023. Before this can happen TEA and the SBOE must devise an implementation plan that is approved by the legislature. The planning for this type of implementation will require heavy district input, which will largely come from their technology departments. This has the potential to finally focus some much needed light on what the state must do in order ensure that all students have access to technology, not just for assessment, but for learning throughout the year. In order for students to be successful on an online assessment, they must first be technically proficient and familiar with the type of device they will be using when taking the assessment. This translates to more access to digital tools for all students.
HB 1 is the budget bill for the 2020-2021 biennium. Listed below are some of the appropriations that were made that will impact digital education:
HB 396 allows districts to use their TIMA on software that will help manage instructional resources, including the usage and effectiveness of digital materials. HB 4611 stipulates that 50% of the funds that the Texas General Land Office sends to the legislature for education must be appropriated to the TIMA. If this had been in place this biennium, there would have been $3 million more placed in the TIMA. In addition, the budget stipulates that the SBOE should restrict instructional material proclamations to 75% of the TIMA and should consider school district’s technology needs when determining the size of the percentage of the Permanent School Fund sent to the legislature. 50% of this distribution goes into the TIMA. In translation, this means the SBOE should be sending the legislature enough money from the PSF to fund both the instructional material needs of school districts and also their technology needs.
SB 820 requires each school district to establish a cybersecurity policy that determines the cybersecurity risks to the district and a plan to mitigate those risks. The district will also be required to designate a cybersecurity officer who will oversee the policy. In addition, the district will be required to report to TEA any cyber attack that breaches the system security and notify the parents of the students whose information has been compromised.
There are several opportunities in the bills mentioned above that will provide professional development in digital learning. The Blended Learning Grants are largely designed to provide professional development for educators in blended learning, not to mention the funding provided to UTeach to continue to provide this type of training to Texas teachers. Also, this is a good chance to remind districts that the TIMA may be used to provide professional development on the use of technology. In addition to these bills, the legislature passed HB 2424 that requires the SBEC to establish rules to create microcredentials in fields of study related to an educator certification class. This was one of TCEA’s legislative priorities, so we are excited to see this bill pass.
The legislative session has come to an end, but the hardest work is ahead of us. Enacting legislation is the first step in changing things. Now we begin the process of working with the different agencies and entities to ensure they are enacted well. Stay tuned for more blogs about many of these legislative initiatives and how you can provide input.
Photo of the computer code taken by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash. Photo of cables taken by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash. Photo of teacher interacting with students taken by Mimi Thian on Unsplash Photo of teachers taken by Kylie Haulk on Unsplash.
While you were packing your classroom at the end of school, the Texas Legislature was finishing the 85th 
legislative session and TCEA was working for you. In most instances, all of our hard work in gaining support for our issues came down to the last weekend in May. Most legislation fails to pass largely because there is not enough time for the bills to get passed. The Texas Legislature only meets every other year, and for only 140 days. Our forefathers purposely made it difficult to pass a bill for fear that the government might grow and have too much power. Out of the 6,631 bills that were filed, only 1,089 passed and became law. Fortunately, eight of those bills were supported by TCEA for the benefit of our members. Below are some of the highlights of the legislation that was passed:
Ensuring that policy makers understand that technology is now a foundational component to the 
learning process is one of TCEA’s strategic goals. Judging by what legislation was passed, we feel good about the progress we made this session. The efforts that many of our officers and members made to email, call, or come to the Texas Capitol to testify or visit their state legislator played a critical role in getting the bills passed. Never underestimate your influence on your elected officials. Thank you for all your hard work, and keep it up!
If you need more information about these bills, check out TCEA Bill’s Analysis. You can also learn more by subscribing to TCEA’s Advocacy Updates to receive the video recording of the monthly webinars if you cannot attend live.
Information is power; so get informed and stay involved.
Last October, I wrote a blog post on Open Education Resources (OER). While doing the research, I realized that the state of Texas needed to do a better job of embracing and promoting these resources. This led to the drafting and eventually passing of several bills that will make it easier for teachers and districts to access and utilize high-quality open education resources. SB 810 defined OER as:
Resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that allows for free use,
reuse, modification, and sharing with others
The key phrases in the definition are “free,” “reuse,” and “modify.” In order for a resource to be considered an open resource, it has to not only be free, but the user must also have the rights to reuse all or part of it for his own purpose. Let’s take, for example, a high school English literature teacher preparing to teach a unit on Shakespeare who finds the play As You Like It, on the OER Commons website. In order for this resource to truly be an openly-licensed material, the entity that is hosting this resource would grant the teacher the rights to use and adapt all or part of the play. You will notice that the license allows you to remix and share the resource so it qualifies as an OER.
The legal definition of open educational resources, as defined by SB 810, also identifies these resources as full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, or any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. As an example, Pearson has a sixth grade math course available which a district could use as is or adapt to meet the district’s specific learning goals. This course could easily be inserted into a district learning management system and be reworked and adjusted to meet the district’s curriculum design.
The ability to take a resource and adapt it to meet a district’s scope and sequence and learning objectives is one of the reasons Texas districts have begun investigating and using open education resources. According to the most recent SpeakUp Survey, 42% of Texas administrators have implemented some form of OER within their district, and an additional 12% are considering it. 44% of the technology leaders in Texas consider OER to be one of the high growth digital initiatives.
These numbers will increase as some as the elements of SB 810 are implemented. TEA is required to have an OER repository that will be used by educators as a place to share materials created by districts, teachers, or the state. The new law also will create an instructional materials review service that will compare materials based on price, technical requirements, TEKS alignment, and editorial reviews. This service will help provide the quality control that has been missing for free materials.
In addition, the state budget for the next two years includes $20 million for the state to arrange for an outside entity to produce open educational resources for the state’s use. It is expected that TEA will begin with instructional materials that meet the specifications for the English Language Arts adoption that will be implemented in the 2019-2020 school year. This would give districts the ability to use high-quality OER materials for this adoption, which has the potential to save them money. TEA recently announced the availability of some OER that were acquired by TEA for district use.
To help facilitate the exploration of open educational resources, I will write a monthly blog post that will hopefully answer the questions you may have. Some of the things I hope to address in the blog series are:
These are just a few of the topics we will explore. Please use the comment section below to give me feedback or ask the burning questions you may have. See you next month!
Things are hopping at the Texas State Capitol. The legislature has been in session since January 8, so they only have around 74 days left to get their legislation passed. Getting a bill passed is no small feat. A bill must pass both chambers with the exact same language. This involves hearings, testimonies, possible amendments which change the bill, votes in both the committees and the chambers, and then a trip through a conference committee made up of members from both chambers to negotiate language they think will pass both the House and the Senate. Once the bill passes, it then goes to the governor’s desk for either his signature or veto. In the last legislative session, 6,276 bills were filed and only 1,322 were passed, of which forty-four were vetoed by the governor. Out of 6,276 bills, only 1,278 became law. This means that any bill filed only has about a 20% chance of becoming a law.
Most of the bills that have been filed this session have little to do with digital learning. But those that do will be on TCEA’s radar. March 10 was the last day that legislators could file bills, so I have been carefully making a list to see which bills are naughty or nice. I am trying to determine which bills will promote the use of technology in Texas classrooms and which might establish barriers. I use the legislative priorities approved by the TCEA board to guide my efforts.
If you want to see what bills from the Texas Legislature may have an effect on the use of technology in Texas schools, checkout TCEA’s advocacy page. You can also signup to get Action Alerts if you want to be notified when we need individuals to reach out to their state legislators on important issues.
TCEA has already worked with several House and Senate members to file legislation that we believe will help create an environment for student innovation and mastery of the state standards. Below is a list of the bills that have been filed with our assistance:
SB 1481 (Senator Larry Taylor) and HB – 4140 (Representative DeWayne Bohac) – These bills change the name of the IMA to the Instructional Materials and Technology Fund. They also require the SBOE to update the Long-Range Plan for Technology at least every five years. It will require school districts to create and use a technology plan that is aligned to the state’s plan and requires school districts to consider Open Education Resources (OER) when they adopt new instructional materials.
SB 1482 (Senator Larry Taylor) – This bill will create a 15-member commission to make recommendations for establishing a framework to incorporate digital teaching and learning in public schools.
SB 1483 (Senator Larry Taylor) and HB 4139 (Representative DeWayne Bohac) – These bills resurrect the Technology Lending grants and allow the Commissioner of Education to appropriate up to $25 million from the IMA for these grants.
SB 1484 (Senator Larry Taylor)and HB 3487 (Representative Dan Huberty) – These bills incentivize the creation and sharing of high-quality OER by creating a digital repository for OER and digital materials and a system that will assist districts in the review and selection of instructional materials. The goal is to provide districts with the kind of information necessary to acquire high-quality materials at the best price.
SB 2050 (Senator Larry Taylor) and HB 4064 (Representative DeWayne Bohac) – These bills would require pre-service teachers to take a digital literacy exam while they are in college. It also requires the SBEC to create rules regarding continuing education credits for the purpose of increasing an in-service educator’s technology proficiency.
SB 1685 (Senator Larry Taylor) and HB 395 (Representative Cecil Bell) – These bills will move the Technology Applications courses into the CTE curriculum, which would generate weighted funding for each student who takes these courses. It would also require the SBOE to review the courses and remove any duplicated courses.
SB 1279 (Senator Larry Taylor) and HB 2087 (Representative Gary VanDeaver) – These bills will require technology providers to protect student’s personally-identifiable information.
These and other bills that will impact the use of technology in Texas classrooms will be monitored as they move through the legislative process. We will provide up-to-date information on our site and will send this information to those who want to receive Action Alerts. Remember that these are YOUR legislators talking about YOUR issues, so stay involved!