41 minute read
Education Mile Markers on the 87th Texas Legislature’s Long, Turbulent Road
BY ATPE GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
The Legislature adjourned May 31, 2021, ending an unusual regular session, given the COVID-19 pandemic, February’s crippling winter storm, and partisan divides felt throughout the country. Legislators were back in Austin July 8 for a special session that quickly fell apart.
The night before the regular session ended, numerous Democratic state representatives walked out at 11:30 p.m., leaving the House without a quorum and unable to pass a controversial election reform bill before its midnight deadline. Gov. Greg Abbott called the bill a “mustpass” item and ordered a special session to revive it. Abbott also announced he would veto part of the state budget, defunding the legislative branch of government as of September 1, in retaliation for the walkout.
The governor released his “call,” or agenda, for the July special session one day before its start. Headlining the call: a second stab at the election bill and restoring funding for legislative employees. But Abbott also placed a few high-profile education issues on the agenda.
Democratic House members quickly broke quorum again over voting rights, making national headlines. As of this writing, they were in Washington, D.C., vowing to decamp for the duration of the 30-day special session, and Abbott was planning a second special session in August. As we navigate the twists and turns of the Legislature’s 2021 journey, here’s a look at the major education bills debated this spring and summer.
SCHOOL FINANCE
Following the school finance reforms of the previous legislative session, the Legislature in 2021 passed House Bill (HB) 1525 by Rep. Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood) as a cleanup measure to HB 3 (2019). HB 1525 establishes a commission on special education funding; authorizes “resource campuses”; directs broadband, COVID-19, and other relief funding for schools; and modifies several other laws affecting finance and recapture. Policy changes amended onto the bill late in the session include allowing non-certified teachers to qualify for the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) and extending the deadline for certain educators to attend reading academies.
ACCOUNTABILITY & TESTING
Senate Bill (SB) 1365 by Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) was filed in response to a failed attempt by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to take over management of Houston ISD. The bill’s House sponsor, Huberty, and a group of pro-public education legislators worked with ATPE and other educator groups to improve the initially controversial bill, omitting provisions that would have increased the commissioner’s authority to sanction a district. As passed, SB 1365 clarifies the impact of a D rating in the accountability system, addresses due process for school districts, and adds another year’s pause in accountability ratings.
Additionally, HB 4545 by Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) passed, authorizing accelerated learning committees that will plan interventions for students who fail certain STAAR tests. The bill eliminates grade promotion restrictions based on test performance. HB 4545 initially sparked controversy by proposing outcomes-based funding for school districts based on student test performance—provisions that were later removed.
The Individual Graduation Committees (IGC) law finally became permanent after the Legislature passed HB 1603 by Huberty. HB 999 by Rep. Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio) also passed to accommodate high school seniors affected by the pandemic. ATPE supported both bills, which helped qualified students graduate in 2021 regardless of their STAAR test performance.
CIVICS
The most controversial education bill passed this year was HB 3979 by Rep. Steve Toth (R-Conroe). Branded as a bill to ban the teaching of “critical race theory,” HB 3979 actually contains no reference to the once relatively obscure doctrine more likely to be discussed in graduate-level university courses. ATPE opposed HB 3979 because it circumvents the process used by the State Board of Education (SBOE) to adopt social studies curriculum standards—one that is guided by Texas educators. The bill prohibits requiring teachers to discuss current events or “widely debated and currently controversial” issues, as well as school disciplinary measures that could “have a chilling effect” on students’ ability to discuss those same topics. Many believe
the bill, ironically, will make it harder to teach students about civics.
Abbott signed HB 3979 into law but also made it a focal point of the special session, asking lawmakers to revive the Senate’s version of the bill, which removed references such as the history of white supremacy, women’s suffrage, and African American leaders from topics the House sought to have added to the TEKS. The Senate readopted its preferred version of the bill, SB 3 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), in the special session.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
SB 1716 by Sen. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood) was originally filed to make permanent an interim voucher program that Abbott created, giving parents access to supplemental special education services for their children funded with federal COVID-19 relief funds. ATPE opposed the bill until lawmakers removed the voucher aspects. SB 1716 as passed calls for regional education service centers to administer a supplemental services grant with input from admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committees.
UIL
The Legislature passed HB 547 by Rep. James Frank (R-Wichita Falls), letting home-schooled students participate in UIL activities without enrolling as public school students. ATPE opposed the bill, which guts the “No Pass, No Play” rule and creates an unfunded mandate by requiring school districts to fund the home-schoolers’ UIL activities despite receiving no attendance-based funding for them. Many in the home-schooling community also opposed the bill, calling it a government overreach.
In the regular session, lawmakers did not pass SB 29 by Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), which would restrict transgender students’ participation in UIL athletic competitions. However, Abbott asked lawmakers to pass legislation “identical” to SB 29 during the July special session.
CHARTER SCHOOLS
Charter school advocates picked up a win with ATPE-opposed HB 3610 by Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), exempting taxes on property leased or purchased by a charter holder. Other ATPE-opposed bills aiming to exempt charters from local government regulations and lessen the role of the SBOE in approving charter expansions did not pass.
VIRTUAL SCHOOLS
Legislators did not pass HB 1468 by Rep. Keith Bell (R-Forney), aimed at extending virtual education options. ATPE opposed the bill because it did not include enough protections for teachers and students. Lawmakers did pass the ATPE-supported HB 3643 by Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian), establishing a commission to study virtual education and make recommendations for the Legislature to consider in 2023.
CERTIFICATION & TRAINING
SB 1590 by Bettencourt passed, allowing observations of educator certification candidates to take place in virtual settings. The bill as filed would have allowed all observations to take place virtually, but ATPE worked with Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) and Rep. Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston) to amend SB 1590 to permit a reasonable mix of in-person and virtual observations.
SB 1267 by Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) also passed with ATPE’s support. The bill streamlines state laws and rules containing educator training requirements that were often redundant.
The Legislature also approved a pair of ATPE-supported bills pertaining to bilingual education certificates. SB 560 by Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. (D-Brownsville) calls for a strategic plan to improve bilingual education, including efforts to recruit more bilingual certified teachers. HB 2256 by Rep. Bobby Guerra (D-Mission) creates a bilingual special education certification.
RETIREMENT
Lawmakers passed the Teacher Retirement System “sunset” bill, HB 1585 by Rep. Stan Lambert (R-Abilene), which creates a new TRS “ombuds” position among other Sunset Advisory Commission recommendations to improve TRS operations. Also passed were these ATPE-supported bills on retire/ rehire: HB 3207 by Rep. Abel Herrero (D-Corpus Christi), which waives retire/ rehire penalties during a disaster; SB 202 by Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), ensuring districts cannot force retire/rehire employees to pay the district’s contribution owed to TRS; and SB 288 by Seliger, requiring notice to retire/rehire employees before withholding their annuity payments.
For the July special session, Abbott asked lawmakers to consider legislation that would give retired educators a one-time “13th check,” similar to multiple ATPEsupported bills that were filed but did not pass during the regular session.
SCHOOL SAFETY & MENTAL HEALTH
Numerous bills regarding school safety and mental health passed, including anti-bullying and child trafficking measures, requirements to provide suicide prevention information to students, and changes to laws regarding school personnel who carry firearms.
Lawmakers also passed SB 1109 by West calling for schools to instruct students about the prevention of child abuse, family violence, and dating violence. Abbott vetoed SB 1109 because it did not include opt-out language. He directed legislators to bring the bill back during the special session with a provision for parents to opt their children out of the instruction.
BUDGET
Finally, the Legislature’s budget bill, SB 1 by Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), fully funds the finance system put in place by last session’s HB 3, including funding for enrollment growth for the next two years. Plus, districts and charters will receive $11.2 billion in federal coronavirus relief funding under the American Relief Plan Act (ARPA). Distribution of another $5.5 billion in federal relief funding through last year’s Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA) was held up this spring as Commissioner of Education Mike Morath said there were “unanswered questions” about those funds the Legislature needed to resolve. Morath announced in June that districts could apply for a portion of those “ESSER II” funds but that the state would also use that money to supplant the “hold harmless” attendance-based funding adjustments promised to schools during the 2020-21 school year.
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EXPERIENCE, REFLECTION, EXPERIENCE:
Ag Ed’s Greatest Harvest Is Student Leadership
By Sarah Gray
Let’s just get this out of the way: Agricultural education is not just about farming, and neither is FFA.
Agricultural education, or “ag ed” for short, is livestock production and wildlife ecology. It’s floral design and landscaping. It’s agriculture communications and law. It’s an instructional program as vast as a wheat field or cattle pasture, and it’s the main avenue through which FFA—a student-led organization—reaches youth for leadership development opportunities, personal growth, and career success and readiness.
Texas FFA, the state affiliate of the national organization, has been around for 93 years and has just under 140,000 student members with 1,079 local FFA chapters and about 2,300 ag teachers who guide those local programs and students. In the state of Texas alone, there are more than 214,000 students enrolled in agricultural education classes. As Texas FFA Executive Director Austin
Large says, “We’re in the tiniest, little towns and the biggest cities we’ve got here in the state.”
To understand everything ag ed encompasses, Large starts by explaining how career and technical education is a big umbrella, and agriculture, food, and natural resources is one of its spokes.
“Agricultural education is the combination of what happens in the classroom, what happens with student development and FFA, and what happens outside of the classroom through our work-based learning experiences, which we call supervised agricultural experiences [SAE],” he says. “Picture a three-circle Venn diagram where all three of those circles overlap.”
A variety of ag ed courses are taught in the school system, and to be an FFA member, a student must be enrolled in one of those courses. These courses range from a standard introductory course to anything from fishery to ag mechanics. Peggy Georg is a teacher at Jourdanton High School in Jourdanton ISD and an FFA advisor. She teaches one of the ag ed introductory courses, as well as classes on livestock production, advanced animal science, and small animal management. She says those aforementioned circles intertwine together to foster growth in students.
“They learn through classroom instruction or our meat science lab, our floral lab, or our shop, and they take that knowledge base and then apply it to the FFA competitions they may do, or apply it to their SAE projects, like taking care of their animals and raising rabbits, chickens, turkeys, pigs, all the way up to cattle projects,” Georg says. “But we also have students who may have a job placement, so they may work in a feed store, have a hay bale business, or be a vet assistant. We’ve had kids work at horse farms before. So, they take all those skills and then apply them to something. They’re learning skills that they’re going to be able to use far past high school and into college and their professional careers as well.”
Seeking Out the Ag
The opportunity for growth— whether in confidence, leadership, friendship, or even, yes, literally growing a crop—is a huge draw for students. Emily Dreyer is one such student.
Dreyer was an FFA member throughout her four years of high school. She graduated from Tuloso-Midway High School in May 2021 and plans to study agriculture communications and leadership at Texas Tech University come fall 2021. Although she was already familiar with FFA (her grandfather and father were FFA members), it wasn’t until watching her older sister go through FFA that the wheels started to turn—especially once Dreyer reached high school and was in search of her own community after coming from a different school.
“I got to see the joy that FFA brought her,” Dreyer says of her sister. “I got to watch her develop firsthand. Having her as a role model really helped me in deciding what I wanted to do. I joined every single club—I was in the knitting club for a few days, I was on the cheerleading squad. I was really searching for my friend group, and FFA was there for me.”
Like many students, Dreyer’s FFA journey began with an ag introductory course, but it was the ag teachers and FFA advisors who really helped her find her way.
“Besides my sister, my ag teachers were my first experience with what FFA was and what it really means to be a member,” Dreyer says. “My ag teachers, when they saw potential and when they see potential in somebody, they made sure to tell them. Freshman year, they told me they saw something in me. They knew I could do stuff that I didn’t even know I could do. They guided me. They opened my eyes to all the different opportunities.”
Georg confirms that most FFA members have a similar path to Dreyer. Often, those who join ag ed already have some sort of background or knowledge of either ag ed itself or FFA, but there are also students who join a class simply because they may have an elective to fill. Regardless of what brought a student in, the advisors seize on every chance to show students what agricultural education is all about.
“The beauty with ag ed, the beauty with FFA, is there’s literally anything and everything for someone out there,” Georg says. “You just have to find it.”
Advisors lean on their knowledge and passion for agriculture and building connections with students to further their success within FFA because the end goal is the same no matter what: “It’s so much more than just teaching them ag. It’s helping them become productive members of society,” Georg says.
It doesn’t hurt that ag ed is set up in a such a way that students immediately can put lessons into practice with a variety of hands-on experiences and activities, with their advisors there to offer coaching and reflection. This pattern of “experience, reflection, experience,” in Large’s opinion, is why students are naturally attracted to ag ed and FFA.
“Everything that we do, really, in agricultural education is set up in that way, as we provide students with these really cool experiences, and we guide them through reflection and conceptualization about, ‘How did it go, and why did it go that way?” he explains. “Then we help them kind of create an action plan of, ‘So what do I do different next time?’ And we give them another opportunity to try it, and we just do that over and over and over again.”
What Ag Can Do for You
Ask anyone in FFA what agricultural education can do for a student, and be prepared for a long, wide-ranging answer, all of which will hit on the triad of classroom learning, student development within FFA, and the SAEs.
“We have students who own and operate their own businesses, who are working as employees within agricultural businesses, and who are conducting agricultural research,” Large says. “We have students who are conducting service-learning experiences as a part of that, and then we actually have some schools that operate businesses, but then have the students take on the leadership of those. We have a great example up near Amarillo, the Wildorado FFA chapter. They own an entire beef cattle herd, and the students manage that. So, they’ve got an executive team, they’ve got a marketing team, they have a research team, so all of these students are basically operating a cattle business together.”
And it’s more than just simply going through the motions of these experiences. Each SAE, for example, allows students a natural chance to build character.
The National Blue & Corn Gold
Aside from a shared mission, most organizations are also known for a corresponding color or uniform that makes it easily recognizable. But to call the FFA’s national blue and corn gold jacket “a uniform” doesn’t quite do it justice. The FFA jacket symbolism and meaning runs deep among its student members. In FFA, students are a part of something bigger than themselves and work in community with fellow members. The FFA jacket—known as “Official Dress” and worn at local, state, and national functions—includes a member’s state name above the FFA emblem and their chapter name below the emblem. It is a physical representation of that sense of community.
Emily Dreyer, an FFA member who graduated When you put on from Tuloso-Midway High School in May 2021, says the day her jacket arrived in the mail, that stiff jacket everyone gathered around her, giddy, and at first, for the very first she didn’t understand why—until she put it on. “When you put on that stiff jacket for the very first time, you really do feel like you’re wrapped time, you really do feel like you’re in love.” While the jacket is both a meaningful, wrapped in love.” long-standing tradition and also part of a man- —Emily Dreyer, datory uniform, its $55 price tag puts it out of FFA member, Tulosoreach for some students. The national FFA has Midway High School a donation page set up at ffa.org/giveblue for those who want to gift the jacket to a member. Dreyer, however, set her eyes on her local community. She recalls attending her district FFA convention and seeing jackets with no lettering or faded colors and members whose names didn’t match the name on the jacket they were wearing. Dreyer and her friend realized they had an opportunity before them.
They started reaching out to local businesses, FFA alumni, farmers and ranchers, their local farm bureau office, and other companies and individuals—some associated with agriculture, some not—for donations to then purchase the FFA jackets for students. As of May 2021, Dreyer and her friend had raised enough money to purchase 35 jackets.
“We really do think this jacket is a lot more than just a jacket,” Dreyer says. “Because it brings the memories, the opportunities, and the new learning experiences that we’re given in FFA. We call it the sea of blue when you go to state convention. It’s overwhelming. There’s just something special about seeing that many kids who are just like you and not like you at the same time.”
“I bring up the SAE because that’s where we learn a lot of the grit of what it means to be an FFA member, what it means to be a person, and what it means to be a leader,” Dreyer explains. “My SAE is raising cattle, and that teaches you a lot about confidence because you have to have the confidence to walk your 1,500-pound animal and have full control over it.
“I learned hard work and dedication because I had to go out and feed my animal every morning and every night, and wash him and bathe him and exercise him, and make sure he was ready for the show,” she continues. “I had to be reliable because he was relying on me, and I also had so many other people relying on me, so I had to be able to show up for not only the animal, but the people around me.”
The FFA component—where the leader development and student growth come in—cannot be overstated, either. Through this, FFA provides students scholarship opportunities, chances to travel for competitions and other events, and leadership training. Because FFA is student-led, its members often conduct many conference sessions and maintain communication with other chapters and members. For Dreyer, the leadership aspect has been a main focus.
“I definitely learned some self-confidence, mostly in my ability to captivate an audience or that I was good enough to lead whatever I was talking about,” Dreyer says. “FFA really taught me to build community. I’ve also been able to learn things through teaching, whether it’s through public speaking or teaching responsibility. The most recent workshop I did was called ‘On Purpose for a Purpose,’ so while I’m trying to find my purpose, I’m also able to help other members find their purpose, and we can walk through this journey together.”
Georg and Large both believe these experiences and characteristics are what set FFA students apart when it comes to future successes, such as attending college or entering the work force. According to mytexasffa.org, students with two, four, or six semesters of ag ed courses have a higher graduation rate than their peers and university leaders note that Texas FFA students are more prepared.
“I think the big part is their adaptability, flexibility, and their desire to continue to learn,” Georg says. “They [students] keep wanting to learn and keep trying harder, and I think universities truly look at that. It’s their well-roundedness, too. You look at any of our students’ resumes and they have community service, volunteering with different organizations, and leadership positions in student organizations here at the high school.
“Yeah, they know a lot about agriculture, but they know a lot about how to be a public speaker and be a leader and a teammate—that’s probably one of the biggest things that employers or universities look at,” Georg continues.
Large points out their website even features corporate sponsors like Wyndham Hotels that aren’t directly tied to agricultural education but know FFA students have a proven track record.
“Our students are hard workers,” Large says. “They [universities and employers] know that they’re [students are] going to show up to work on time, and they’re going to get the job done. They have a really strong base level of skills that are going to help them find success.”
For Dreyer, ag ed and FFA does all those things and more: “FFA is just a place where ideas can be built, where friendships can be fostered and created. It is a safe environment where we are able to explore and become a better person in the long run, and we are able to do all this while learning and getting those hands-on experiences.”
Cultivating Growth
When you consider all the things the world needs from the agriculture industry, you realize agriculture is practically the foundation of everything in our world. For FFA students, their advisors, and anyone even remotely curious about ag ed, that means there are numerous entry points into the field—and that FFA is more than what you think.
Large uses an example from his childhood: He grew up in Fresno County, California, one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the U.S. and source of most of the world’s almond supply.
“I had no idea what agriculture was, and I literally drove past it every day,” he explains. “It wasn’t until I got involved in my agriculture program in high school that I started to understand how this industry is supporting the local economy I live in. Recognizing that and just being an informed consumer is really important. Am I involved in production agriculture? No, not at all. I work in an office job in Austin.
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COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE:
EDUCATING SECONDARY STUDENTS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
BY: SHELBY L. STRAWN, PLEASANT GROVE ISD
Science research of anthropogenic climate change, also known as human-caused climate change, often becomes misconstrued by communication go-betweens, such as news media outlets, politicians, or researchers themselves. This dissemination of inaccurate or incomplete anthropogenic climate science information has the potential of hindering the learning process and overall student understanding. When teaching climate science, we must first consider the theory and research behind it. Then, it’s important to identify how an educator can effectively approach this topic in the classroom. Teachers must work to transmit accurate and credible climate science information for greater understanding of climate change to their students.
WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US
Current research addresses multiple gaps in science communication to the public, including science education. Theoretical groundwork within this research uses a social constructivist point of view as to the education (i.e., understanding) and communication of climate change. As first proposed by Lev Vygotsky, social constructivism is when individuals learn from interactions of others, such as teachers, parents, and friends (Spector, 2016). The topic of climate change illustrates Vygotsky’s dialogue as news media, politicians, parents, teachers, friends, and social media all serve as sources for learning and understanding.
A great deal of significant research argues that children should be properly informed and taught about climate change in early childhood education. In a study conducted among 29 year-six students (ages 11–12, comparable to the American sixth grade) in an Australian primary school, results found that with a mixed methods approach, students had a clearer understanding of climate change. Likewise, higher performance levels also indicate a higher level of concern in some students. The study outlined specific outcomes, including understanding the relationship of Australia and global environments, how various belief systems influence understanding of climate change, and evaluating how living things affect the environment. The results also communicated that students possessed significant misunderstandings at the beginning of the study. While some misconceptions were corrected among the cohort, some misconceptions persisted. “These authors point out that even when the existing conception is addressed and new information systematically introduced, the learner may still choose to remain with their initial conception. With highly resistant misconceptions, a period longer than one school term and more targeted activities may be required to produce conceptual or partial conceptual change” (Taber & Taylor, 2009). In short, the research suggests that continual reiteration of concepts regarding climate change from year to year in early childhood into secondary education courses may further assist students’ understandings.
RESEARCH VS. EDUCATION
It’s important to discuss similarities and differences between science education and science research, which can help provide appropriate communication. Similar themes are engagement, education, and entertainment; by contrast, science education focuses on what is occurring and how scientists figure out answers, while science research is argued to have more broadened goals. In this distinction, professors and researchers Ayelet Baram-Tsabari and Jonathan Osborne argue that because science research and education possess differing emphases, objectives within science education are called into question (Baram-Tsabari & Osborne, 2015). The researchers identify the problem of science not ever having a static or simple solution to humanity’s issues. This leads to a general belief that science education should be merely conceptual, a fatal flaw that leads to the division of scientific research and education. “Thus, if science education is really to deliver on its goal of educating students to be able to make enlightened choices, it needs to broaden its conception of what aspects of scientific knowledge it should address” (BaramTsabari & Osborne, 2015). Because of this divergence, Baram-Tsabari and Osborne discuss underlying issues of marrying science research within science education, including socio-political stance on society, knowledge gaps, and level of engagement specifically when attempting to interpret science articles and findings.
CLASSROOM STRATEGIES & TECHNIQUES
Because social constructivism plays a key role in understanding climate change, it is necessary to recognize that teachers, parents, students, and media play a role in the learning process. And it is imperative for educators to implement effective strategies when teaching climate change to secondary science students, including enhanced discussion, debate, analyzing current data sets, critical writing, case study scenarios, virtual learning, collaborative groups, and laboratory modeling and demonstrations. Furthermore, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) describes objectives whose content requires students to analyze human interactions with the environment—for example, let’s consider the increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere via human activity versus naturally fluctuating (cyclical) carbon dioxide levels as a specific classroom discussion topic.
According to the book The Strategic Teacher, there are two strategies that could be implemented to promote self-expression and interpersonal dialogue: extrapolation and decision-making. Extrapolation is a self-expressive strategy in which students see patterns behind texts and ideas. There are three steps: “Examine known or easily understood sources, [e.g., understand important concepts and vocabulary [like] carbon dioxide cycling, pollution, global warming, and climate change], extract the key structural elements from these sources [e.g., elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase global warming and thus, over time, shifts climate patterns], [and] put their newfound structural comprehension to work by using it to better understand a new source [e.g., the effect of pollution on global warming, glacial and ice cap melting, greenhouse effect, ozone layer, and aquatic viability; different views on the existence of global warming]” (Silver, Strong, & Perini, 2007). The authors claim this strategy primes students for new learning and is built upon analogical problem-solving. Extrapolation further builds upon existing knowledge of climate change while also building upon new information that may solidify learning or mitigate misconceptions. Critical writing may be introduced to link prior and new
learning by preparing a speech, performing a dialogue between friends, or writing a news article that explains basic to more complex points of elevated carbon dioxide levels.
The decision-making strategy allows students to become personally involved with what they are studying. Asking sample questions can invite students to develop powerful insight and opinion, while also making informed decisions on controversial issues. A probing question regarding elevated carbon dioxide levels could be providing students a statistic of how many vehicles on the road are contributing to fossil fuel emissions per developed country. For example, “Based on this information, what legislation could you enact if you lived in a country with higher fossil fuel emissions from vehicles to get to lower emissions?” The authors claim that using this method is a strategically important way to introduce a difficult or controversial topic. They also state that using case studies to show how an expert uses graphical analysis and other data sets to make informed decisions, as well as discussion briefs to continue the collaborative discourse on the topic at hand, are all forms of comparative thinking. For instance, the question regarding increased fossil fuel emissions per country asks students to categorize highest to lowest and implications thereof. “Recent research makes clear both the value and benefits of classroom decision making strategies … learning through decision making leads to higher levels of conceptual understanding because it lets students access and manipulate content through the lens of their own personal value system” (Silver, Strong, & Perini, 2007). This strategy could be utilized in case study scenarios, building experiments around simulating carbon dioxide emissions, analyzing virtual data or historical data of carbon dioxide levels and its implications, and preparing for debate or circle discussion regarding both sides of climate change.
Active learning strategies also play a role in understanding points of climate change. Active learning involves any activity in which students play an active role in their individual learning. This participation is enhanced if they are provided choices and are shown their opinions are valued. A study conducted in 2013 by Kirk, et.al., entitled “Undergraduate Climate Education: Motivations, Strategies, and Successes, and Support” provided a survey to undergraduate faculty educators about successful strategies in teaching climate science. “Frequent responses emerged around the themes of using the local environment to learn about nearby climate impacts, creating active classroom experiences such as structured discussion or role playing, or using ‘hands-on’ lab activities” (Kirk, et. al., 2013). The authors pointed out that more than one strategy could be implemented by a single educator. Like the collaborative strategies mentioned in this work, debates and town hall meetings are included in active learning. Other approaches include using Google Earth and remote sensing or computer-based mapping with real data. Discussion and presentations, inquiry-driven hands-on laboratory activities, and citizen science (fieldwork) are also mentioned.
This study may translate to secondary science climate change education. The authors also mention productivity in learning when considering a potentially controversial topic such as climate change to present or debate. “The range of values over climate change can be further highlighted by activities that employ role playing, negotiations, and opportunities for students to consider the points of view of diverse stakeholders. … Effective use of these activities allows for an understanding that values, emotion, and affect play a role in understanding climate impacts and climate policy and thus can help ease the divide that has arisen around climate change” (Kirk, et.al.). Active learning strategies may assist in correcting climate change misconceptions, and by communicating effectively with students and
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SHELBY L. STRAWN has six years’ experience teaching middle school to college level life sciences. Most recently, she has taught AP and dual credit biology and as an adjunct instructor. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in learning technologies with the College of Information at the University of North Texas. She credits her biology teaching and educational background with how far she has come in her research experience, education, and passion for nature. She enjoys spending time with family, including her husband and two daughters, and friends; being active; and getting outside.
References
Baram-Tsabari, A., & Osborne, J. (2015). Bridging science education and science communication research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 52(2), 135-144. doi:10.1002/tea.21202 • Kirk, K. B., Gold, A. U., Ledley, T. S., Sullivan, S. B., Manduca, C. A., Mogk, D. W., & Wiese, K. (2014). Undergraduate climate education: motivations, strategies, successes, and support. Journal of Geoscience Education, 62(4), 538-549. doi:10.5408/13-054 • Silver, H. F., Strong, R. W., & Perini, M. J. (2007). The strategic teacher: selecting the right research-based strategy for every lesson. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. • Spector, J. M. (2015). Foundations of educational technology: integrative approaches and interdisciplinary perspectives. London, England: Routledge. • Taber, F., & Taylor, N. (2009). Climate of concern - a search for effective strategies for teaching children about global warming. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 4(2), 97-116. Retrieved from ijese.net
WHERE LITERACY RATES GO, SUCCESS FOLLOWS
ATPE takes a look at what we know (and don’t know) about the HB 3 Reading Academies
BY JESUS CHAVEZ
n 2019, the 86th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3 (HB 3). A sweeping and comprehensive piece of school finance reform legislation, HB 3 promised billions in new funding for Texas public schools, an increase in teacher compensation, and tax relief for local property owners. Inside HB 3 were other things, too: Texas made it law that any educators and school principals providing core instruction to kindergarten through third grade participate in and complete state-sponsored “HB 3 Reading Academies.”
According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), educators must complete “… year-long, intensive, job-embedded trainings and coaching fellowships aligned to the science of teaching reading” before the 2022-23 school year. Per changes to the law made during the 87th Texas Legislature, educators now have until the end of their first year of placement to complete the requirement.
As outlined by HB 3, the reading academies initiative is composed of two parts that take place before and after an educator’s placement. The first component is the Science of Teaching Reading (STR) Certification exam, which, per TEA, “… demonstrates a teacher’s proficiency in the science of teaching reading.” It’s required of all teacher candidates who teach grades pre-K through six. The second component, the HB 3 Reading Academies, is meant to reinforce educators’ knowledge of reading instruction. School districts have some flexibility in how they implement the trainings on their calendar and in choosing the providers.
The requirement is broad enough to include educators who have been teaching students to read for decades, teachers who are entering their first classroom, and nearly every teacher in between. It also mandates that school principals, special education teachers, literacy specialists, and librarians, among others, complete the trainings if they are deemed by their districts to provide “core instruction” to students. That’s roughly 120,000 educators.
Reading academies aren’t exactly a new development. As Monty Exter, ATPE’s senior lobbyist, explains: Texas has previously adopted similar tactics when state reading scores were trending downward, and the reading academies of the past have helped. Those reading academies—or literacy academies—sometimes took the shape of a year-long fellowship that included a five-day summer workshop, three two-day professional development sessions, a three-day workshop after the school year ended, and continual embedded coaching throughout the school year. Some were less involved. “Our net reading scores would then go up for a number of years as teachers took these professional development trainings and put those methods into place in their own classroom,” Exter says. “The test scores would then positively reflect those efforts.” Once any lagging scores improved, he added, Texas’ priorities—and funding— tended to shift to other areas, and the improved scores would then plateau or start trending downward again.
That’s what happened leading up to HB 3. In 2017, Texas students ranked 46th in the U.S. for fourth grade reading proficiency. TEA announced that reading scores for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) had fallen for students in nearly every grade level. Later that year, Gov. Greg Abbott and TEA launched a precursor of sorts to the reading academies push known as the Texas Readers Initiative, which provided professional development opportunities and created a public awareness campaign focusing on the
importance of children’s literacy.
In 2018, the Texas Commission on Public School Finance reported that only four in 10 students met the state’s reading standards. The 2018 STAAR test scores revealed that approximately 58% of Texas third graders were not reading at their expected levels.
“The phrase that got bandied about during the initial meetings proposing a new literacy achievement policy was, ‘up to grade three, you’re learning to read, and after grade three, you’re reading to learn,’” Exter says. “There was a strong belief out of the school finance commission at the time that student success past the third grade was extremely dependent upon a student’s ability to read.”
They weren’t wrong to think so, either. In a study published in 2010 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to children’s well-being, researchers found that reading proficiency at the end of third grade is a pivotal marker of students’ educational development. According to the study, incoming fourth graders, especially low-income fourth graders, who were not proficient in reading literacy were several times more likely to drop out of school.
This was the reality in which TEA and state legislators found themselves while crafting one of the most sweeping education funding bills in recent memory, and that’s more or less why educators are being asked to attend this new and more forceful iteration of the reading academies.
IMPLEMENTING THE ACADEMIES
TEA Deputy Commissioner for School Programs Lily Laux spoke about the HB 3 Reading Academies in a February 2021 article by the Longview News-Journal. (TEA did not return our request for an interview in time for publication.) In the article, Laux said that across the state, reading scores not being where TEA wanted them was the impetus for the adoption of these curricula and programming. She added that she believed all early learning teachers could potentially benefit from taking a reading academy.
That said, it’s mostly been left to school districts to enroll and schedule educators in the HB 3 Reading Academies. It is also their responsibility to inform educators when their jobs could be affected, when they will have the opportunity to enroll, what their testing and retesting times will be, and what a suitable passing score for their comprehension check will be. Many educators have already taken the course, or they soon will through their regional Education Service Center (ESC), school district, or another of TEA’s approved providers.
The cost to enroll an educator in an HB 3 Reading Academy can be anywhere from $400 per educator for a fully online course to $3,000 per educator for the comprehensive course, which includes online modules and in-person learning. School districts are expected to shoulder the cost of enrollment. Once enrolled, educators choose one of three learning paths: general and special education, bilingual general and special education, and administrator.
TEA says the HB 3 Reading Academies are meant to be completed over the course of 11 months to a year, amounting to no more than 10 full days of work. As far as can be ascertained, it is a one-time certification that will then transfer across school districts in perpetuity once completed.
Tonja Gray is a literacy coach and cohort leader for the ESC Region 14 Texas Reading Academy based out of Abilene, and, in 2018, she was on the committee that created the framework for the Texas STR exam. Cohort leaders provide participants with material and coaching throughout a reading academy.
“The reading academies are steeped in material that is evidence-based and comes from years of research,” says Gray, who also served as the 2019-20 ATPE state president. “Thanks to the material I know that, even as a presenter, I have grown as an educator because of what I have been learning about the science of reading over the past few years.”
Gray believes that there are several misconceptions about the HB 3 Reading Academies and the science of reading, in general, which she has been working to help educators overcome.
“One prominent misconception that I have heard many times is that this is just another pendulum swing and will go away with the next swing,” Gray says. “I realize many of us who have been teaching for a while have seen that happen before. I have heard many people say they aren’t going to take this seriously [because of that]. The thing is: The science behind what we are teaching and the skills we are developing have always been there. It has just gotten pushed aside.”
HOW DO EDUCATORS FEEL?
As a staff attorney in the ATPE Member Legal Services Department, Jennifer Gordon has been helping ATPE members navigate the new legal requirement and their school districts’ implementation of it.
“We’re hearing from educators who’ve already been informed by their district what they have to do, and we’re hearing from people who are in the midst of it who are very burdened by the time commitment,” Gordon says. “These are people who are debating whether they want to raise challenges about the commitment and the compensation, or lack thereof, and whether it’s fair to them.”
Gordon notes that while educators’ contracts often include stipulations that allow districts to request educators work additional time outside of their contracted hours, it has to be, as Gordon puts it, “reasonable.”
Some educators, like Heather Bratton Chapman, would argue it isn’t.
“No other profession is micromanaged in this
way,” says Chapman, who has taught primary grades for 20 years and previously attended a reading academy offered by her school district. “I understand and do not deny the need for continued professional development. [However,] the requirements of the HB 3 Reading Academy are grossly excessive.” ATPE spoke with several educators about their experiences with the HB 3 Reading Academies. Some expressed concerns about the time commitment. Others wondered if it was worth the cost—especially since there is no guarantee they will be paid for their time. Currently there aren’t any state funds earmarked specifically to compensate educators who take part in the academies, and, while there is no guidance preventing school districts from paying educators for their time, there isn’t currently any guidance telling them they should, either. “We have seen that money was put into place by the Texas Legislature to develop the curricula and programs, but there wasn’t any money put into providing teachers with compensation for participating,” Exter says. This leaves educators like Mandy Estrada feeling like her time isn’t being respected.
“I think it’s unfair to ask teachers to give even more of their time than they already do—uncompensated at that,” Estrada says. “Since this is a requirement by the state, teachers need to be provided with substitutes so we can complete the requirements within our contracted time. If teachers work on the academy outside of our contacted time, those hours should be logged and compensated for.” She adds: “Teachers are already attending numerous professional development sessions throughout the year. I agree that professional growth and development are critical, but once we have fulfilled our required hours, we should be paid for our time. Of course, we love our kids, and we want to be our best for them. But our time and well-being are valuable, too.” Shelley Lum is a veteran educator of 28 years. She completed her HB 3 Reading Academy in May 2021, after beginning the program in July 2020. Lum believes it took every one of the required hours to complete the academy and more. “The curriculum contained some valuable information, but I felt it could have been delivered in less time and through a different format,” Lum says. “It was a slap in the face to be ‘required’ to take such a time-consuming class on top of schoolwork, planning, and regular professional development hours. To receive no compensation from the state whatsoever was the final blow.”
Cristina C. Gonzáles took the bilingual literacy learning path with a reading academy held by her region’s ESC. Gonzáles says the course left much to be desired.
“Our district only hired a reading cohort leader for the English reading academy, not a biliteracy cohort leader,” Gonzáles states. “We had to go through our region center. Our cohort leader isn’t even [bilingual]. I had to do everything online on my own with basically no guidance [whereas] other teachers got help. They got to do some of the trainings face-to-face with help from the other cohort leader and each other. Bilingual teachers were again left as an afterthought.”
Some educators have also questioned why previous, nonHB 3 reading academies or certifications don’t allow them to test out of the new requirement. The answer is complicated.
Jennifer Bowland will start her reading academy beginning fall 2021 with an expected completion date next summer. She has a master’s degree with a reading concentration and previously took part in a non-HB 3 reading academy at the beginning of her career. She has taught primary grades, served as a reading specialist, and is now a dyslexia specialist at her school. In many ways, she has been training to teach reading and writing her entire career.
“I think [reading academies] will be great for people who might be more novice in the areas of reading and writing,” Bowland says. “However, I think if you meet certain criteria, you should be exempt.”
Very few prior trainings are being recognized for exemption credit, however, and it is unlikely that educators will be able to simply ‘test out.’
Although she acknowledges that some educators may have valid concerns, Gray believes there has been some misrepresentation about the HB 3 Reading Academies and what they are meant to accomplish.
“I have had many teachers inform me that they have already done a reading academy in the past, and that it should count,” Gray says. “It does not. Why? The previous academies were not based in the science of reading and only lasted three to five days. The HB 3 Reading Academy lasts longer and covers the material at a broader and deeper level. It works on the application in your classroom and spends time specifically looking at how the material looks with students of differing abilities.”
Even charter schools are being told they must comply with the state law, something rare for Texas. It is something that must be completed by any educator who wishes to teach grades K-3 moving forward.
When asked why a math, science, or social studies teacher should be required to attend a reading academy, Gray says it’s simple: “All teachers are reading teachers.”
Beyond that, Gray says she’s seen firsthand how beneficial
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