Nation’s Largest Ed Endowment, Texas Permanent School Fund, Tops $41B
The nation’s largest educational endowment, the Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF), hit a record high value, topping $41 billion, according to the State Board of Education (SBOE).
SBOE chair Donna Bahorich
Texas Mulls Bill to Replace U.S. History Exam with Citizenship Test
Last week, the Texas House approved a bill that would require public school students to pass a U.S. citizenship test as a high school graduation requirement. It would also eliminate the state’s current U.S. history year-end exam.
Texas Ed Board Rejects Error-Filled Mexican American Textbook
The Texas State Board of Education ended a months-long debate and voted unanimously to reject a textbook intended for use in a Mexican American studies elective.
Conservatives Win Big in Texas Education Board Races
Although their races were not nearly as dramatic as was the U.S. presidential election that won the White House for Republican candidate Donald J. Trump, Texas conservatives, many of them incumbents, won big in their bids for State Board of Education (SBOE) on Tuesday.
Scrapped STAAR Scores Add to Frustrations Over Standardized Testing in Texas
Absolutely everything under the sun that could go wrong with this year’s State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) did. Failures ranged from online testing glitches and vanishing answers, to missing test score results. It added to the growing frustration many feel about standardized testing in Texas public education.
Texas Education Board’s Super Tuesday Nets a Grab Bag of Results
On Super Tuesday, a grab bag of candidates faced off in primary races across Texas to clinch their party’s nominations for State Board of Education (SBOE) slots. Some ran unopposed while others won outright. A few races will go onto the May 24 run-off election.
Texas Officials Name ‘Assessments and Accountability’ Education Commission Picks
Top Texas officials named 11 of 15 appointees to the newly created public education Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability, authorized through the passage of House Bill 2804 during the 84th legislative session. The short-term 15-member commission’s sole purpose is to write a report that develops and makes recommendations “for new systems of student assessment and public school accountability” which is due by September 1, 2016.
