At public universities in Texas, only 1 in 4 full-time freshman graduates within four years. That's obviously a problem for students -- and with Texas legislators considering a bill that would increasingly link state funding to graduation rates, it's a pressure point for colleges, too.
Two Senate lawmakers and the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court are asking the state to look into the possible disparity of minority children being criminally ticketed for misbehaving in the classroom.
"An estimated 300,000 misdemeanor tickets are issued in our state’s schools each year," said Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson. "We are criminalizing our children for non-violent offenses."
State Education Commissioner Michael Williams has been campaigning over the weekend to reducing the number of high-stakes exams required for graduation.
At a business luncheon put on by the Texas Association of Businesses, Williams spoke about reducing the number of end-of-course exams from the current number of 15 tests.
The Texas Senate has passed a bill that will help veterans more easily access their education funds under the G.I. Bill.
SB 1158, The Hazelwood Act, was designed to ensure veterans and their children that they would be exempt from specific tuition and fees at public institutions of higher learning in the State of Texas.
Unlike its House companion, Senate Bill 1403 does not rely heavily on test scores taken from high-stakes exams to evaluate teachers.
Originally the bill included a provision that mandated 25 percent of a teacher's evaluation was directly related to students' grades on the state’s end-of-course exams.
A Texas comptroller report has spurned lawmakers to approve a measure that will provide about $6 billion for roads, water and education.
In the report, Comptroller Susan Combs said the last bienum revealed a higher than expected rise in property tax revenues, which the state could use to help fund school districts.
Following the passage of House Bill 5 out of the Senate Committee on Education, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, the chairman of the committee, chided the businesses and media outlets who have alleged that lowering the number of state-mandated end-of-course exams would dumb-down public school curriculum.
Patrick said nothing could be further from the truth.
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, got another win for open-enrollment charters schools and vouchers on Thursday as the bill, which would raise the number of charter schools to 215 by 2014, got little to no opposition, and even got some help from across the aisle.
The bill also calls for that number to be raised to 331 by 2019.
Originally published on Thu April 11, 2013 8:13 am
Update: UT's Board of Regents is scheduled to meet this morning to consider whether to release investigative records to the Texas Legislature.
Texas lawmakers have been requesting the release of emails and other documents in a public standoff raising tension between the Capitol and the regents.
