Slides from presentation on September 10, 2010 at Sunset Station.

1. The State of Texas Education Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce September 10, 2010

3. that the largest school district in Texas has 202,773 students (Houston ISD) and the smallest district has 20 students (Doss CISD)?

4. that more than 138 languages are spoken in the homes of the public school children of Texas? (After English, the most common are Spanish, Vietnamese and Urdu.)

5. that 445,000 students with disabilities are being served every year by Texas schools?

6. that 772 million meals are served each year to disadvantaged Texas school children?

8. that Texas schools spent $1.2 billion on bus transportation in 2008-2009?

9. that the transportation allotment hasn’t changed since 1984, when the average price of gas was $1.21 per gallon?

10. that Texas school buses drive more than 262 million miles each year? (That’s 550 round trips to the moon!)

11. that more than 48.5 million textbooks are distributed to students each school year?

13. Social Studies Standards Approximately 22,000 public comments Approximately 35 hours of public testimony from about 280 witnesses State Board of Education gave final approval on May 21 Draft of social studies TEKS with all amendments incorporated will be posted to TEA website June 25 Implemented in schools beginning in 2011-12 school year

14. Social Studies Standards James Armistead – Grade 8 Wentworth Cheswill – Grade 8 Benjamin Banneker – Grade 3 José Antonio Navarro – Grades K, 4, and 7 Ellen Ochoa – Grade 7 Raul A. Gonzalez – Grades 4 and 7

15. Common Core National Standards Project of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Race to the Top federal grant program Following the initial round of feedback, the draft Common Core standards were opened for public comment and received nearly 10,000 responses Example from HS Math Modeling: In descriptive modeling, a model simply describes the phenomena or summarizes them in a compact form. Graphs of observations are a familiar descriptive model—for example, graphs of global temperature and atmospheric CO2 over time.

16. Graduation and Dropout Rates

17. Intercultural Development Research Association

20. 8.6% - Continued in school

21. 1.4% - Received a GED

23. Dropout and Completion 21 states report using the NGA compact graduation rate definition. Of the 16 that publicly reported their graduation rate for 2008, Texas ranked fourth behind only Iowa, Vermont and Virginia. Texas ranked ahead of states such as Michigan, Florida, Rhode Island, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, and New Mexico among others.

26. Campus Graduation Summary for Fox Technical HS in San Antonio ISD In 2005-06, you would have seen 541 brand new ninth graders Over the next three years, 124 students left for other Texas public schools. Over that same time, 56 students joined the school. Adjusting for students who left and who came in, you would expect 473 students to have graduated in May 2009. Did they? By May 2009, 297 students had graduated. What happened to the other 176 students?

28. Fewer than 5 began home schooling

29. 15 returned to their home countries

30. 6 enrolled in Texas private schools

31. Fewer than 5 died

32. 85 students either dropped out or were unable to be tracked in the system because of possible reporting errors.

34. Dropout Prevention and Recovery Funds $535 million in state and federal funding for targeted dropout prevention and recovery initiatives, $335 million in the High School Allotment $3 billion in Compensatory Education Allotment http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=3505.

35. Student Achievement

36. 2009 NAEP Mathematics Eighth-grade African-American students in Texas tied Massachusetts for first place on the NAEP mathematics exam. Among white students, Texas’ eighth-grade students earned the fourth highest score on the NAEP math exam. Among Hispanic students, Texas’ eighth-graders had the fourth highest score on the NAEP math exam. Overall, Texas ranked 18th among 50 states on eighth-grade NAEP math exam. African-American fourth-grade students in Texas earned the third highest score on NAEP math. Texas’ white fourth-graders tied for fifth place with North Carolina on NAEP math. Hispanic students in Texas ranked eighth nationwide.

38. The performance of Katrina students educated in Texas from 2006 to 2009 was slightly better in the last three years of the study than was the performance of their matched peers in reading/English language arts and mathematics.

39. By 2009, Katrina students performed:

40. similar to statewide testers in reading; and

41. lower than statewide testers in mathematics though the gap in math passing percentages between Katrina students and statewide testers was reduced substantially

43. ACT Scores Texas ACT composite score stayed at an all-time high for the Class of 2010 even as the number of test takers rose by 12 percent . The percent of Texas students taking the ACT who met all four college readiness benchmarks has increased from 17 percent in 2005 to 24 percent in 2010.

44. Other Recognition Jobs for the Future recently lauded Texas as one of only three states to have made progress on all six model policy elements that frame a sound strategy for dropout prevention and recovery since 2002. These include: Reinforce the right to a public education; Count and account for dropouts; Use graduation and on-track rates to trigger transformative reform; Invent new models; Accelerate preparation for postsecondary success; And provide stable funding for systemic reform. Texas earned a grade of ‘A’ on standards, assessment and accountability, and ranked sixth in the country in Education Week’s Quality Counts report. The report gave Texas a “100” on curriculum standards and school accountability. Texas also ranked sixth and earned a grade of ‘B’ for a category called transitions and alignments, which examines early-childhood education, college readiness and economy and workforce. Three districts won Broad Prize for Urban Education (Aldine, Brownsville, and Houston), more than any other state in the history of the prize. The Broad Prize is given for demonstrating the strongest student achievement and improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic groups.

45. Current State Accountability System Measures districts and campuses on up to 35 indicators 5 Tested Subjects (Reading/English Language Arts, Writing, Social Studies, Math, and Science) Completion I Rate (4-year on-time graduates + 5th year continuers) Grade 7-8 Dropout Rate 5 Student Groups (All Students, African American, Hispanic, White, and Economically Disadvantaged) evaluated on each of the measures Ratings of Exemplary, Recognized, Academically Acceptable, and Academically Unacceptable

46. What should the rating be for this campus? Evaluated on 25 total measures Rated Exemplary on 22 measures Rated Recognized on 2 measures Rated Acceptable on 1 measure

47. Actual Rating Recognized Used the Texas Projection Measure for the one Academically Acceptable measure to move up one level to Recognized.

48. Finance, Operation and Efficiencies

49. Sunset of TEA Rules Statutory Process (Texas Gov. Code Chapter 2001.039) of four year review still in progress Sunset rules through an informal process to receive input from the field Goal: To reduce the number of unnecessary rules and to provide more freedom for districts to operate within the intent of the law Stakeholder meetings were held across state throughout June

50. Historic State vs. Local Funds

51. What’s ahead in Texas education?

52. Assessment and Accountability New assessments: State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) replace TAKS New accountability system: Evaluation of college-ready performance as well as student proficiency Campus distinction designations: academic achievement, fine arts, physical education, 21st Century workforce development, second language acquisition

53. Project Share Articles from 1851, as well as commentary, analysis, video, and multimedia